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Castlebay

on a calm mooring
on a calm morning

Castle Bay, Barra, Western Isles, Scotland / Bàgh a’ Chaisteil, Barraigh, Eilean Siar, Alba
22nd April 2017

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northward

We’re hanging out here with the eiders and oystercatchers, the heron and a few noisy gulls. We’re waiting for our flu to subside, for the winds to shift, for the tide to turn. And when they do, we’ll be gone again, north again, hopefully further north than we’ve ever been before.

The sun’s cool and golden now, settling slowly behind the various western peninsulas of the mainland. Will it be thinner in the north or more substantial? And what will we be? Still light-driven nomads of sorts, I guess. As I suppose we all are, continually moving in time if not geography, forever following the sun.

Ettrick Bay, Bute, Scotland
10th April 2017

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morning

A soft morning with the hills rising in round blue folds
A cool morning with the mist resting in opaque white drifts
A still morning with each twig and blade balancing spherical beads of dew
A slow morning with the cars moving along the valley floor in a quiet muffled hum
and two robins warbling in bright fluted streams from the top branch of the ash tree.

When the sun comes the mist doesn’t lift but lights up.
The robin songs strengthen, the traffic buzzes a little louder.
The day itself begins to hum, to thrum, to vibrate on unseen strings;
a deft weft, a swift pluck,
     a strum, even,
scattering the dewbeads,
shifting the mist,
palpating our flighty red breasts.

Cwm Garw, Glamorgan, South Wales
12th December 2016

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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