Category: flora

Posted on

marina

I sent photos of the marina: the still water brightly gleaming, the hills snow-covered in the distance, the boat bathed in soft late afternoon sunlight. I invited them to come and visit, telling them of how spectacular the sunset had been and adding that we still have some Aberlour aboard. Later I tucked myself into a thick downy cover beside a slowly ticking wood fire and thought snugly of them over there on the mainland, held in Glasgow’s bright busy lights.

I thought I would slide quickly into a deep sleep but instead I listened to the wind pick up and wheech round the breakwater, the halyard of the boat in the next berth start clacking against its mast; felt the waves start slapping, felt the boat begin its classic dockside jerk and sway. In the morning I woke cold and underslept and significantly less smug. But then the water stilled itself, the hills glowed rosy in the morning sun and, walking out from the marina a few hours later, a small white flower stood pink-edged against the blue twilight chill.

Boat life. Nothing beats it.

pink-tinged daisy flower seen from the side in front of blue sky, blue water and low dark hills in twilight

Port Bannatyne, Isle of Bute, Argyll, Scotland
22nd November 2016

Posted on

daffodils

Perth is a snowdrop festival: between the roots of trees in gardens, in the cracked courtyard of a derelict hotel and all along the banks of the Tay they gather, keeping company with the congregations of patchily-plumed black-headed gulls, which swoop and flutter over the river and its offerings of soggy bread.

The snowdrops are shy, or coy, hanging their heads delicately, while the crocuses burst rudely through beside them, pungent purple buds bulging skywards like proud phalluses. I try to prise one open but they’re holding their petals tightly closed, keeping their egg-yolk yellow insides stiffly guarded for now.

One small bunch of daffodils has come out, however – strangely early as they haven’t begun to open anywhere else on the river banks, nor were any open in warmer South Wales when we left yesterday morning on St David’s Day. They stand about nonchalantly in their frilly jaune abandon. And wee kids are out too in bright yellow vests, giggling at the gulls while they’re being shepherded about, enjoying a fluorescent florescence of their own. It’s all happening here. The season curls its yellow lip and coils, waiting to spring.

small clutch of daffodils with yellow-vested children in distance behind

Perth, Scotland
2nd March 2015