the cage

old steel mounted cage on rocky reef in calm blue sea with the shore of Lochinver and Suilven and Canisp blue in the background

It looks as if it should be worshipped. It looks like a warning. It looks like a maritime version of The Wicker Man. I’ve been staring out at this cage for years, from the harbour, from the rocky beach on the north shore, from a sailboat gliding or bouncing by. I’ve even flown over it in a tiny plane, but I’ve never been this close.

Down level with its feet, I gaze up reverently. Whatever else it is, it’s a testament to the value of older skills and sensibilities. The engineer steering the boat I’m on remarks it’s as sturdy as the day it was made, that we don’t make steel like that now, if we make it at all. Other old markers have been dismantled (with difficulty) and replaced with modern flimsier structures, all lights and bells and whistles. I’m glad this one remains intact, a welcome anachronism, a sound navigation aid in treacherous times.

Loch Inver, Assynt, Scotland
17th July 2025

shoreward

I walk round to the headland beyond the harbour looking for solace.

And what do I find?

A carpet of Lady’s Mantle in a backlit yellow haze;
a red deer hind and bambi-spotted calf stepping quietly behind me;
a gannet circling over the spread blue waters in front – the sudden dive!;
a heron flapping low and level across the loch;
the cries of oystercatchers, terns, hoodies, gulls;
the blue humps of Harris on the horizon;
and in the north-west, the sun, pale gold, shining.

Is it enough?
Or is it too much to countenance?

I wrote once that oceans begin in our hearts.
I make my way tentatively towards the shore.

Lochinver, Assynt, Scotland
5th July 2025

asphodel

We were nine women walking, tramping over bouncy heather moorland above the steep shores of Loch a’ Chàirn Bhàin, when one of us stopped to point out a bog asphodel which was just coming into flower. We gathered round and marvelled at its starry yellow blooms and stalk and another of us remarked that, in addition to the Elysian Fields of Greek mythology, those blessed green meadows of the afterlife, there were said also to be asphodel fields, though she noted this probably did not refer to bog asphodel.

I looked this up online when I returned home and found that, while the Elysian Fields were reserved for the righteous (and gods and nobles), with a hellish land called Tartarus set aside for the wicked, the fields of asphodel were allotted to ordinary folk.

The significance of the asphodel is debated. Some Greek writers felt the paleness of the petals evoked a pallid, ghostly quality, while others drew on its more ancient connotations of fragrant fertility.

Even in the latter case, however, I sense these asphodels fields are not for me; nor the endless blessings of Elysium. For the afterlife, I want for my part only a rolling peatland, grown over with purpling heather and green and gold grasses, with viridian clumps of moss glowing in the fine northern sun, and interspersed among them all, the pure yellow stalks of bog asphodel, standing everywhere upright like tiny sentinels of joy.

Perhaps, for those of us with an affinity for Scotland, we can spend our eternity meandering in such a place, gazing into lochans and reflecting in the clear summer light. When I think of it though, I find myself imagining not a summer moorland but an autumnal one, the grasses turning amber and bronze, the dried heather flowerheads having become that lovely muted mauve, and the bog asphodel now vivid orange, its little tongues of flame everywhere sparking, everywhere speaking of warm hearts and hearths in the cool oncoming dusk.

And no midges.

Torr a’ Ghamnha, Assynt, Scotland
6th July 2025

hands

I wondered if my Japanese maple would come into leaf this spring. Pot-bound for years, my Dad brought the wee tree up for me last summer and planted it beside my caravan. It quickly took its place in the garden, a quivering carousel of small outstretched hands. However, Cumbria to Lochinver is quite a shift in latitude and I wasn’t sure if it would survive the deep cold spells of a Sutherland winter.

At first I thought it hadn’t. Some of the branch tips looked dead and, as the deadnettle and cerastium came into bloom around it, it remained bare. But then – one by two by three – small strips of life began to emerge. Like the autumn in reverse, these leaves initially looked withered, hanging limply like crumpled rags. Only their colour was strong, a vivid crimson like vegetal blood. Slowly they’ve unfurled, from rags to red claws, becoming rosier and greener, and finally reaching out like tiny tender hands.

Soon, perhaps, the whole tree will flourish – produce more leaves, lengthen its branches. It will be good to see it confirm its strength and presence, yet, for a while, I liked not knowing what would happen. I enjoyed the uncertainty, the lack of surety of the transition.

Now change is fully upon us. The sun rolls northward, summer comes on. Life becomes more defined. Soon I will gain clarity in the clear summer light and extend myself outward, firmly and with resolve. At the moment, though, I’m reluctant to leave the beauty of this strange season, the gentle possibility coiled in these emerging foliate hands. I will miss this time when all was gathered, held in potential, not yet sprung.

two tender red claw-like Japanese maples leaves on a background of vibrant green grasses and yellow buttercups

Lochinver, Assynt, Scotland
2nd June 2025

candle

A candle lit on a summer evening in Sutherland.
What decadence, what superfluity.
What sustained need for flame.

Lochinver, Assynt, Scotland
25th May 2025

yellow

anticipating
the warm yellow flavour
the tang on my tongue

ribbed wooden cup full of rich yellow gorse petals on a grey mossy rock

Cnocnaneach, Assynt, Scotland
10th May 2025

shadow

two bluebells casting long shadows on the kerbstone they're growing out of

Marlborough Road, Bounds Green, London, England
7th April 2025

high fliers

Almost more startling than the jagged granite needles are the deft black birds which coast smoothly around them. They move like shadows, soundless and sure, dark wings and tails fanning out elegantly beneath us as we stare down from our perch. Mont Blanc rears above us, its rounded snowy cap strangely benign compared to the sheer faces and sharp fractures of the cliffs and spires which immediately surround us, and to which we are so improbably attached.

And how are we attached? How did this cluster of rooms and walkways ever get built onto this shard of red granite? As if stringing up a cable car was not challenge enough! We wander around the sunny terrasse in a daze of marvel and altitude-induced light-headedness. We ascended quickly – 2807 metres (9209 feet) in fifteen minutes – and after gazing up at these peaks for days, I’m finding it difficult to grasp that I’m really here, on the Aiguille du Midi, among the highest mountains in Europe.

I lean over the railing and watch the birds again. ‘Chocards’ my friend calls them, which I think must be choughs. I’ve never seen them before. They fly mostly in pairs, gliding buoyantly, their swift animal grace a surprising presence among these endless serrations of bare rock and snow. If I’d expected to see any birds this high, I would have assumed they’d be grand like eagles or dainty and snow-coloured like buntings, yet these most closely resemble jackdaws, birds I associate with towns and cities. Like jackdaws, they seem untroubled by our human encroachments, swooping over pinnacle and balcony alike. Unlike the procession of bulkily-clad skiers clattering their way to the slopes below, they are the true alpinists, utterly at ease in the austere drama of these mountains.

As I wish I was. I could stay here for eternity, with these radiating mountains and this dazzling sun which, at 3842 metres, I’m closer to than I’ve ever been. However, my legs feel heavy and my head is dizzy with height and brightness. I turn reluctantly to leave the terrasse. As I open the door, two of the birds fly close overhead and I see their pale neat beaks, their red legs and feet tucked tightly in. I step inside and walk slowly down towards the cable car but my mind, flight-filled, is light as a feather.

from the Aiguille du Midi

Téléphérique Aiguille du Midi, Chamonix, Haute-Savoie, France
6th April 2025