Category: leaves

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lemon chiffon 2

When Storm Floris hit, I was painting a room yellow. The wind swung round to the west and—boom!—the rain became horizontal. A few days later all the leaves on the windward sides of the trees had turned brown and crispy. Even the bracken went brown.

When Storm Amy hits, two months later, I’m driving to Glasgow. As I roll down the A9 what strikes me are the colours: through the blowing rain, they glow—reds, peaches, ambers, golds—all the hues that have been absent in Assynt. There’s even a bank of bracken near Pitlochry which is a perfect lucent yellow.

The sight of it soothes me, as if—for a moment—it meets my tumultuous heart and gives it shelter. I keep driving, turning up the windscreen wipers as the rain pelts down, but the colour stays with me, like morning sunlight, like welcome rest.

A9, Scotland
3rd October 2025

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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

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autumn

shaking aspen
shivering ripples
we quiver on the cusp

Unnamed lochan at Ardroe, Assynt, Scotland
4th September 2024

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airish

It’s a relief when autumn comes, the heat, the haze, the midges resolving into clear uncrowded air. The lurid green profusion mutes itself and gives way, the bracken curling and bedding down in rich rusty banks, the rowan and aspen crisping up and turning gold. The mountains solidify, meeting the loch in deep blue glimpses, as the gaps begin appearing again: pathways, sightlines, ways into the world.

It’s a relief when autumn comes, the mornings becoming keen and cone-sharp and the evenings becoming “airish”, a word I first heard yesterday from a friend. He used it to describe the coolness in the dusk now, the encroaching winter chill, but it makes me think also of “airy”, the way you’d describe a narrow mountain ridge, vista and distance radiating out in all directions, and this is the truth now too.

It’s a relief when autumn comes, the world unpicking and uncovering itself, and the sun coming closer. Its fine rays filter through the emptying branches and rake through the leaf litter, sifting our thoughts as they loosen and fall and settle into dry rustling drifts. We could sweep them up or we could walk through them, enjoying their crackling quiet fire while the sun holds us, body to body, in its steadfast pale embrace.

Lochinver, Assynt, Scotland / Cwm Garw, Glamorgan, South Wales
18th September 2022