Under Your Feet

Scratch the surface of the island today and you may find that much of yesteryear is barely hidden.  The rocks are ancient, as old as the planet itself.  Much have they witnessed.  Naturally the surrounding waters are central to island life.  Those waters reflect, they shimmer, and they shine.  The island is centred on a palette of blues and greens.

 

Where the waters are shallow, over sands and rolling on to white strands, the sea gives us blues that might suggest a mermaid’s tail, all dancing sequins, swirling into the green of the teal drake.  Those shallow waters take on the blue hue of the fennel flower; they may be a piercing turquoise one day and become a translucent, mercurial silver the next.

 

Iona’s waters mesmerise, enticing paddling feet and braver souls.  You may be joined in the water by an inquisitive seal, or a leap and a squeal, when the dolphins come to play.

 

On land the palette changes.  Rich and regal colours dominate.  And regal they should be, for these lands hold the bones of the ancient kings and lairds, of Scotland and its predecessors, at home and beyond.  That said the island has two very different personas.  To the visiting public it is a kaleidoscope of colourful cultivars. Fuchsias are rampant, festooned in figurines, tutu-clad ballet dancers in vermillion or carmine, peach blossom or the subtlest, the palest of blue lilacs, dusky pink.  Montbretia is omni-present, fiery reds and burnt umbers, like a puffin’s rosette.

 

The colour envelopes us; in the ancient stones of the nunnery, where delicate maidenhair ferns and the lavender shades of ivy leaved toadflax cling to life.  Greenery against the pinks and greys of the granite. Sheelagh watches over them, as always, ready with a bosey for the bereft.

 

Leaving aside the gardens in the village and along the two roads that ease our passage to far flung parts, we find wild flowers in wilder places.  We need to lift the corners of Iona’s veil, have a wee poke underneath, give her surface a scratch, and a little delve into her past, her hidden depths.

 

It is the hues of the heathers that carry the bulk, auricula and plum, blood red like the head of the goldfinch.  Off the beaten track we find the delicates, those little bright yellow tormentils, and the hardys clinging to the lichen crusted rocks.  Deep purple, the hard rock of devil’s bit scabious, on the windswept tops, sharing space between the boulders and the tufts with tiny magenta bell heather.

 

I am drawn regularly to the higher ground; and an overview of what lies below, in this Thin Place.  At first sight the land appears blanketed in greenery, a wilderness of emptiness shrugging aside the coloured cloak that grabs you by the roadside.  By the shore the scimitar-billed curlews rise together, closely followed by an overture of oystercatchers, all harlequin hues in their motley.

That veil becomes more like a thick and cosy warming shawl, a comfort blanket, a coat of many colours as some of the visitors to the sacred isle may see it.  Those ancient rocks prise their way through.  The land is overwhelmingly wild, beneath a coat of many greens.  Pistachio green and duck green, hints of the eider; that beauty spot the mallard drake wears so proudly.  It is rough and it is tough.  Boggy and squelching in places.  Those higher grounds have never been suited to scratching a living from the land.

 

Not now, not before.  And before is always with us here; in the legends of the monks, the Vikings too, and the ancients prior to them.  I look across the waste lands, from one high point to another, and I see no signs that man has ever tamed these lands.  Other than a mark on the map where the hermit hid in his hole.

 

Those high points, Dun I foremost even at a mere 101m, The Eminence in the south west of the island at 80m, and the Hill of the Lambs by Loch Staonaig a little lower, give the wider views, the bigger picture.  Landscape in all its glory.

 

Such is the light it is the islands off that pull the wider view into focus.  Far and wide there are silhouettes on the horizon.  Coll and Tiree, with its weather station, are the big ones.  More interesting comes with the smaller packages.  Much visited Staffa with its caves and its columns, a mere giant step to that causeway of Antrim in the distant south.  The lights of Skerryvore and Dubh Artach stand sentinel, safety on the waters thanks to the Stevenson family, and the shore base at Erraid from where towers were built on isolated rocks.

 

There is a sharper focus as your gaze, and your dreams, drift towards the islets; to Storm Island and Calf Island off the northern end, and at the south to Mouse Island, gems sparkling in sun-kissed waters, limned by those creamy sands, that teal drake again, his breast this time.

 

Lingering longer on Lunga, where the puffins dance, deep belly grumbles in their burrows, always entices.  Perhaps it’s just as well Iona is not suitable puffin nesting land; the infrastructure may not cope.  But Iona has the corncrake, the rasping ventriloquist, deep among the nettles and the golden ragwort.  How I long to return in spring, to stand field side, reciting Rob Macfarlane’s eulogy, (recent winner of the Wainwright Prize - The Book of Birds, a must read, read it aloud) hoping for a fleeting glimpse, to hark at the bark; the deep throat hidden in the greenery.

 

And I wonder as I wander, if the monks of old may have been guided here by the call of the corncrake, Columba’s coracle answering the crex-crex, crex-crex, crex-crex.  I can’t help feeling that this sound is as important as those colours of the seas and of the flowers.  Did the monks arrive in the spring perhaps?

 

The shawl that is spread warmly over the island today is no shroud.  It is woven from all that has preceded us here; from legends and colours and song.  And it is magical to occasionally lift the corner and sneak a peek into what lies under our feet, treading softly. 

 

On Reading Again

 I rarely pen book reviews these days.  However, I do contribute regularly to a couple of online resources, weekly posts where readers confirm the current read - typically Big Bearded Bookseller on a Monday morning over at Bluesky, and Bert's Books over the weekend on the same platform and also on the one formerly known as twitter.  These are places where readers give ideas to other readers.  And I always have a book or three on the go.  I still maintain a list of my favourite reads of the year.

And I now keep a brief note of every book I read.  I need to tell you a little of read number 129 of 2026.

Added to my list recently is the latest from Rory MacLean.  He has an extensive back catalogue, and most of these have a place on my shelves.  Having read his latest, Geography of Heaven, I am compelled to dip again into one of his earlier volumes, A Gift of Time.  Then I realised that the Rory section has already made the move the move north, safely settled amongst those volumes in the 'definitely keep' category, as against the 'try and dispose of', which remains in the southern abode as we move slowly and inexorably towards our retirement move.

That earlier volume of Rory's pulled together diaries which he and his wife Katrin, as well as his dying mother, had kept during her final months.  I was minded of a discussion I had with the author when I had mentioned that I felt that it was Katrin's diary entries which brought the dying to life.  It was a brave and emotional piece of work, pulled together years later; when he could finally face those diaries.

And so I was I was shocked to hear that his latest volume told of journeys in the aftermath of Katrin's untimely passing, succumbing to cancer at only 55 years young; after three decades of life and travels together.

Geography of Heaven tells of Rory's attempts to rationalise his grief, to find out where his beloved had gone.  It is quite a tale, of travels to far flung places, of emotional turmoil.  And discovery.

It was a book which had me contacting the author, a move that really goes against the grain, congratulating him on what I think could well be his finest work, a book he could not have written without all that went before in a life of writing of adventures in distant places, some wackier than others.  That said I was minded also of a marvellous few days we had spent in the same company some years ago.

Rory had jointly led a writing retreat at Ty Newydd in North Wales, Lloyd George's house, with the barrel-vaulted library where Jay Griffiths had dropped in to mesmerise us with a whispered reading, from her delicious Wild, echoing round that acoustic heaven.  Jan Morris had also popped by.  It was during that week, at one of our group sessions in the library, that emails dropped into my inbox confirming that an article on Iona I had finally pulled together, would be featured by both Scottish Book Trust and BBC Radio Scotland.  It was a special week, for so many reasons.

All those memories came surging back as Rory enchanted me once again.  His journey through grief is one that all of us may hope we never have to make, selfishly departing first rather than having to cope with what is left behind.  Or perhaps that's just me.

Pulling back the veil, gosh I'm back on Iona again; Thin Places, they are around us.  And Rory takes us to several of them.  First Nations, in his native Canada, and on to the Lakota reservation which I'd read of recently in finally discovering Black Elk Speaks; a nation in many a Glasgow heart with the Ghost Dance Shirt, eventually returned from Glasgow Museums.

The Abrahamic religions have their place in all of this, so he takes us to Jacob's Ladder, and to the Dome of the Rock.  I'll leave you to make the discoveries.  Open those pages, make the journey to Bhutan and Buddha on crumbling mountain cliff-edge roads.  Take a trip to ayahuasco-fuelled Peru.  ('Trip' doesn't do it justice - we are talking a series of day long rituals here).  Show me where Katrin is, Rory exhorts, to those who may know.  South Africa, there's an unexpected highlight.  Meditations and chants; believers and unbelievers.  It's the trip of a lifetime.  In the search for the dead.

And it is a beautiful read.  There may be tears.  And many a smile.

When up the road next week, I'll be shifting A Gift of Time to the northern bedside table.  And I'll probably delve into the world of Tahir Shah, who had a similar thirst for adventure and brought us many an enjoyable read.  I may be some time with Tahir.  Dinner with Rory and Tahir at the same table.  Now that would be quite a night.

Rhythms of Nature

 

 

The whirring of wings and slapping of feet draws the eye.  A mass rising from the water.  The fish-hawk makes his entrance.  Hungry, after a long flight across the desert, over the ocean.  He eyes the shifting, fast-flowing current below.  A flash of silver marks his prey.  Above the waters of the Spey the return of the osprey heralds the spring.

 

There is chittering and chattering in the air.  House martins and swallows return.  Mud nests appear, tiny dollops melded, mud moulded to clay.  Eyes and ears are alive to the sights and sounds of the skies, impatient for wind drift to bring the wing beat of the swift.

 

Once the mower is finally goaded into life, that steady cursed walk over every square yard of the policies, leaves detritus.  Mosses are there to be plucked away.  Nesting season, mating season, fledging season;  the lark ascending.

 

It is kissing season too.  For the whins are in bloom, though you can usually find a patch of yellow, a whiff of coconut, year round.  If an excuse be needed.  The clifftop paths glory in their golden coat.  More cheese, demands the yellowhammer; the linnet adding the chorus.  The hawthorn has its own special after-the-rain notes.  And spring rises.

 

Beech hedges shed their bronze mantle, unfurling a lush green coat.  Colour rises on the field maple.  Spring also brings the surge of those introduced species that we now witness rising and thriving, leaving a decimation in a winter scourge of erosion.  Pink-lanterned Indian balsam marks the path of the water courses.  American skunk cabbage might bring gasps from the unwary.  Over a few weeks that spotted yellow canvas becomes a mass of greenery, swamp lanterns spreading, ripe and fetid.

 

On Loch na Bo a pair of mute swans build a nest, unconcerned by any activity on the nearby footpath.  Soon it will be partly concealed by the reeds, well before the eggs are due to hatch.  The pen settles in, her cob never far, paddling the waters.  Their reed nest is as far as it can be from the corner of the loch infested by skunk cabbage.

 

The cob arrives for some preening, some nest tidying.  Serpentine necks dance like flames.  A bit of neck-grabbing; reeds added here and there.  The cob paddles through the reeds, paternity practice with the mallard family, as he guides them to open waters, chivvying stragglers to keep the brood of ten together in mama’s wake.

 

Returning the following day I found the cob attentive.  He remained nest-side throughout the hour or two of my visit.  With no evidence of shells cracking, I will miss the moment.  Nonetheless cygnets on the loch will be a joy soon.  At the far end of the loch a third swan took to the open water.  There may be a second nest site, but such is the skunk cabbage coverage that it will remain concealed.

 

The turn of the seasons sees our visitors depart once more.  Puffins and gannets head to the colder oceans, as others, including our osprey, follow the sun to the south, long and arduous flights for newly fledged feathers.  Their absence is as notable as their arrival.

 

As our spring visitors return south, so our winter visitors arrive from the north.  On the Spey whooper swans gather, feeding on the stubble fields, the slapping of wings bringing the flock gently to a rest in the shallows.  Behind the shingle, on the shifting estuary, bugles sound as they mingle.

 

Spynie loch has a mass gathering.  Skeins of pink-footed and greylag geese gather to gaggle on the waters.  Yellow-billed whoopers come in from the cold, compete in formation landing and take-offs.  Resident mutes tell tales to the survivors of the year’s broods.  That rhythmic beating of wings, as big black-webbed feet run the surface to gain height, necks stretching,  gliding gracefully, planing to a controlled splashdown on return.  The brass section honks and bugles.  The conductor calls the wind section to attention.

 

A susurration of murmuration mesmerises as the season draws the starlings together.  They arrive in broods, from all directions.  Until.  Whirring wings, dancing in formation, they put on a daily show, into the gloaming. Ignored by the swans and the geese, enchanting the watchers in the hides.  Until, as one, they drop to the reed beds.  And night settles.

 

On the loch the orchestra breathes again.  Above, the skies throng with life.  Squadrons of geese honking as they fly past.  Leaders and wingmen, formations holding.  Stonking silhouettes as night descends.

 

They arrive on the water, excited, in groups, honking after long migrations.  Unprompted, phalanxes of geese take to the skies.  A family flypast, touch down again.  The youngsters are learning.

 

It is the migrations that mark the changing of the seasons.  Inbound and outbound.  The first cuckoo may be heard over the first weekend in May if we are blessed with a calm day, when eyes are on the skies for that first swallow.  On the sacred isle the crex-crex, crex-crex soundtracks have us scouring the buttercups and docks.  Hiding; he mocks.

 

The flora joins the fun, from those early snowdrops bursting through the frost, until bluebells carpet the woods and wild garlic brings fragrance to the banks of the burn.  Cultivated lands glow with oilseed rape, bright yellow, dazzling in the sun.  The golden uncultivated whins and gorse paint a natural picture, playing host to songbirds around the coast.  Then those invasives start their rampant run.

 

Enjoying the glory of autumn colours, the hillsides are coated in ochres and umbers before dropping their cloaks.  It all slows as winter begins to bite, less blanketed with snow now, more battered with wind and rain.  Floodwaters rise.

 

And we long for the return of spring, for the osprey with eyes on his prey in the Spey; or in autumn the swoop of the whoopers, landing in troops on those same waters.  Cycles and seasons; changing seasons.

Tales of the Riverbank

 Little did I know, when I mentioned the possibility of writing on travels with otters a little while back, that it might become a very sore subject so soon.  However what had started as a wretched day and regressed further, ended with faith in humanity restored.

I try not to dwell too often on the impact which food intolerances can force into life.  Having endured more than enough some more intensive tests recently brought a further set of restrictions in shopping lists and menus, with the dire outlook of putting the annual festive cake - 2025 version finished just a month or so ago, with 2026 due to get underway before the end of next month - at grave risk.  Things are that bad.

The day started under a very dark cloud, sleep having been an absent bedfellow with the path from bedroom to sanctuary well trodden.  I'll spare you the details.  A morning bike ride was out of the question, but if the usual pattern followed I'd be allowed out post lunch.

We had chores to do.  The wreckage of a past-its-sell-by-date self assembly unit filled the boot of the car.  Off to Buckie, to the council facility.  Closed Mondays.  The Law of Sod, meaning an inconvenient trip on the morrow.  Buckie also meant a stop at the hardware store.  More padlocks, the most recent seized already, another victim to damp, salty air.  Oh, and hacksaw or bolt-cutters to remove the bugger.

The afternoon plans had included a clifftop walk, down past Jenny's Well, and subject to tide times, on along the beach to Cullen, returning via the viaducts.  That assumed the knee stiffness, following a long walk the previous day, might wear off; and the otter be up for it.  Those plans had to change.

When preparing for these trips, and other more pleasant chores involving a certain birthday girl's wish list and the excellent bookshop in Cullen; perhaps the antique centre too, the absence of the otter was noted.  Alarm bells doing what alarm bells do.  Stomach churning, more than it had done earlier.  Distraught.

Said otter had accompanied us the previous day.  A long walk through the woods and on along Kingston's wartime defences.  He was still there, following the return, after a blether with Sarah at Kingston Gelato - one chocolate and one almond croissant flavour; a seat on the bench.  And joy.  The taste of ice cream.

It was but the second ice cream in almost three years; a treat last tasted in Ullapool a 12 month previously.  Most vegan ices use a coconut oil base, ruled out in my case.  So Sarah's range of options is a welcome stop-off, though one not visited often enough after the tragedy of the Garmouth viaduct, the collapse of which means a walk or cycle from Spey Bay to Kingston remains off the agenda.

Anyway, otters it was, one in particular.  Last with us on that Kingston bench the day before.  I must have abandoned him.  Idiot.  We had better go back.  Very few people, might still be there, with his bright red collar and lead.  Sick to the pit of that very dodgy gut after the night that followed the day before.  Otters are not easy to replace.

As it happens I had been updating some notes in the morning, before becoming aware of my loss, which mentioned Chahala, and Mijbil.  The former surviving but a week; the latter the one causing chaos in a London flat before meeting that road-mender at Sandaig.  Notes for events next week.

Before bringing the car to a rest it was obvious that the bench was devoid of otter, not even a spraint.  A chat with Sarah, another treat.  Any local facebook groups?  Having disturbed her afternoon nap she quickly realised why I might be back.  There was a posting, last night.  An otter.  She thought of me, mentioned it may have been one of her customers.

Quickly on to the group, messages left, phone number.  Please.  And off to the shopping chores.

Fochabers Bridge.  Down to a single lane.  The only road across the river for miles.  Lengthy queues; long and frustrating delays.  We managed through fairly quickly early and mid afternoon.  Off to the bookshop, always a pleasure, though even the discerning stock at Beinn found little in common with daughter's desires.  Across the road the antique centre had taken the same path as the dump.  Closed Mondays, and the following two days as well.  Oh well, gift shops and trinkets.

A message comes in, from Sarah.  Those good folk who had taken charge of said otter the previous night and posted of it on the local group page, had responded to her, travelled to Kingston and left him in her care.  For me to collect.  

I could cope with Fochabers Bridge at peak hour, knowing what awaited me when I arrived at Sarah's shack.  Back and forth four times in one afternoon.  Other trips put back.  Reunited at last; feeling so good in the hand.  Joy.  And faith in humanity.  Good people there still are.

And there will be more travels with an otter.  Hopefully with a little less stress.

An Hour at Spey Bay

 

Fish are jumping

on the in-rushing tide

as the gravel and the sandbanks

give way to rising waters.

Four herons stand

sentinel, on the far bank                                                              Shades of grey, ancient

statues, hewn as if from rock

Out in the bay

beyond the shingle bank

three dolphins cavort

in a gymnastic display

The fish hawk joins

the fun.  Two dive, then                                                                   emerge, talons full.                                                                   Slow to rise.

A low flight to the far bank

clutching the prize

as two more ospreys watch

from high above.

Seven watching swans remain mute.

The ospreys are teasing

distant and high

plummeting behind trees

before emerging with fish

to rise again.

A curlew flies past

with his scimitar bill

as the merganser dives,

graceful as a dancer, to 

swim as the waters rise

Up pops a seal

clears his tubes

and gazes around.

Another tease; wonder

where he'll reappear.

Upstream, high above

The gurgling Spey

four ospreys circle, and

dance with one another.

Another month and they'll be gone.

At the Otter Pool

 Reedbeds unrippled in the evening calm

Insects danced over mirrored water

Layered reflections beneath lily-pads

Muted shades of green from banks

of reeds.  Peach blossom seedheads 

ripe and full, golden on the banks.

Movement catches the eye.  Wigeon

wing-flapping amongst the lilies.

An hour passes.  No words

required.  Tranquil moments at peace

with life.  With each other.

A smattering of rain drops

shimmer the water.  The open

viewing platform dry, under

the foliage, the midges the only

intrusion.  On a scene undisturbed

by the flick of an otter's tail.

New Friends

 For various reasons - the tragic loss of the viaduct and being unable to cycle for four months chief among them - I haven't been in Kingston for quite some time.  That despite having a driving urge to get there.  It is 12 months since I last enjoyed an ice cream, Ullapool that was, and I recall every slurp.  That cone had bridged a two year gap into what I could easily have as a daily habit.  But gluten and dairy and a wide range of foods to avoid put paid to that.

Until last year, when I came across some information from Kingston Gelato.  Special treats were just a bike ride away, until the viaduct succumbed to the shifting currents of the Spey.  However, out in the car, after a brief stop in Fochabers I had decided to head for Spynie Loch, not wanting to end this trip to the area without at least one afternoon.  I had known the wee roads between Garmouth and Lossiemouth from cycle trips made some years previously.  It was easy enough to detour from the A98, down to Kingston, then enjoy a quiet drive to Spynie.

And so I found Sarah's cabin, the maestro hard at, churners turning, as she stocked up for an Aberdeen Farmer's Market.  We had more than a blether; she had more than an understanding.  Never a huge fan of sorbets - often the only item on the puddings menu that isn't a red-flagged temptation into danger - I opted for Sarah's raspberry sorbet.  Delicious doesn't have enough syllables; unctuous too few vowels.  Yummy will do fine for now.  Kingston is back on the map, and a fine place for spotting ospreys heading across the estuary.

Spynie calmed as it always does.  A rest at the feeders, watching and listening.  Woodies and the obligatory squirrel, amongst so many others.  The loch stole the show though, despite appearing quiet if the terns ever allow such a word in their presence.  All the action was on the far side, too far to even attempt a few snaps and some cropping later.

The osprey called in, and through the glasses I had him, rising, fish in talons, water cascading as he struggled to gain height.  May have been a juvenile, for in that move to bring the catch into flight mode, he lost his prize.  It was a good watch, enjoyed by the few in the hide.

Otter, was the call, by the bay.  Again far side of the loch, distant.  But there they were, a pair, cavorting.  That familiar shape of body arching, tail flipping.  A good twenty minutes they provided the entertainment, including what looked to be a bit of thrashing with an eel over by the reed beds.  Smiles on faces.

And so to the woods, beyond Lossie's east beach.  A quiet sit to bring a fine day to a close.  Gosh the birds were a bit flighty, nervous.  It was like watching in sepia, as the juveniles were out gathering.  All toned down, earning their colours.  There was the great tit, perhaps the brightest of the youngsters.  The blue tit recognised only by pattern, washed out.  The robin, almost just another speckly wee brown job; but for that eye.  

The squirrel came in too, just the one this time for the hazelnut rations had long been pilfered.  She was a show girl, showing the birdies a bit of confidence, ignoring the big human infiltrator.  Putting on a show.  And stopping for the photo call.

An alarm went up, all scattered.  A rush through the canopy, sparrowhawk.  In time they began to gather again.  This time the crestie came too.  Goodness was she a flibbertigibbet. 

One finger closes on the shutter button, and she's off; think about the focus ring and she reads your mind.  Always reminding of those angry punk days, the aggressive looks, those spikes - haven't seen anything like that since, oh, Tam Callister of MecLir at Speyfest last week.

Ah music, and so back to base, thoughts of all that had been, of raspberries and otters, squirrels and cresties; and a good dose of Natalie MacMaster to wind down for the night, her Golden Eagle bringing back other memories.  Best kept for another day.