It's an Age Thing

 We hear it all the time.  Whether it's about arthritis or the prostate.  Those little things that have such a huge impact on everyday life.  And yet when something happens, something unexpected.  It gives you such a fright.  Even if you might be tempted to write it off as just another sign of ageing.

We had a musical weekend planned, a couple of concerts to look forward to at the Findhorn Bay Arts Festival.  Both in the Universal Hall, such a fine venue, where atmosphere builds and feeds back to the stage.  An audience who all have a brilliant view, and each and every one may feel closely involved with the performers, who feed off that audience.  And give us more.

We had tickets, Saturday and Sunday.  Busy weekend, time to fit in family visits, cajole some into feeding us after catching up on six months of news and gossip.  It all started so well, on the Saturday.  Fed and watered, along to Findhorn, find a parking space; wondering if we'd find our way back to it later.  And so richly entertained; Julie Fowlis and Zoe Conway.  We'd seen them earlier in the year, at Celtic Connections, with their menfolk, Eamon Doorley and John McIntyre.  The time they had the full Scottish Chamber Orchestra to work with them.  In Findhorn it would be just the strings, the Esposito Quintet.

That concert in January had been quite superb, the orchestra adding a whole new dimension.  Julie and Zoe told of their work in researching ancient poetic works across the Gaeltacht, then putting them to music.  We had songs in both Irish Gaelic and in Scots Gaelic, in English too.  The language mattered not, the music soared.  They continued that work in Findhorn.  Beautiful singing from the girls; exceptional fiddle work from Zoe, with the quintet backing, whilst the boys strummed and plucked.  Such a grand night.

And so to Sunday.  Another fine afternoon doing the rounds.  Picking up some fine treats at the market.  A walk in the woods, at Blair's Loch, with old friends seen too rarely.  Family visits for chatter and a bite of tea.  Back to Findhorn.  Same time as the night before.  It's awfy quiet.  Where are the cars, the parking guides in their hi-viz?  Perhaps we're too early.  Was this one in a different venue?

Not so.  Check the tickets.  Ah, the tickets.  That'll be those things sent to the phone, the three inch screen, little but a QR code.  Oh shit.  It was a 4pm concert, not 7.30pm as assumed.  We'd missed it!

We had been so looking forward to hearing Hamish Napier, and a gathering of fine musicians, including Megan Henderson, Su-a Lee, Euan Robertson and others.  They were launching his latest album, The Hill, fourth in a series of five epic works over a number of years.  I'd been listening to it at home, in the car.  Enjoying it, hugely.  We had witnessed Hamish live several times; the bar was set high.  And so when it came crashing down the disappointment was crushing.

Then the realisation.  Tickets booked several months previously; details long forgotten.  Weekend plans emerged.  Saturday went smoothly.  Same again, and a bit more.  But I hadn't checked the timing.  Relied on memory.  Or thought I had.

It's an age thing.  When memory lets you down.  Or is it?  Could it be signs of something far more serious than just the passing of years.  That's what really rocks you to the core.  At least we'll have the chance of another Hamish Napier concert, performing The Hill, at Celtic Connections this coming January.  I think I'll print the tickets.  Just in case.

A week later.  Another date in the diary, set some time previously.  This one involved a bit of time, lots of preparation.  A spare table at the book fair, Books at the Botanics, in Glasgow.  I had been there several times in recent years, seeking to downsize the book collection before the final move north, knowing that they all could not make that move.  I had given hundreds away, to friends and to charities; sold a few on eBay; sold a few at the Botanics, though usually just enough to cover the charges for the event.

A few days were spent.  Selecting volumes with which I was prepared to depart, if someone wanted them; pricing them, and packing them into crates and boxes.  An early start on the Saturday morning.  6.30, just when I wanted to be listening to Mark and Rachel on Radio Scotland's superb Out of Doors, a weekly ritual, live from the car park in Aberdeen.  Crates and boxes to load into the car, folding bookcases for the event.  Sandwiches to make for the day; pens and notebooks and other papers.  Something to read, for it can get turgidly boring.

Arrive at the Botanics by 8.30, time to set up, be ready for the first browsers.  Oh, we weren't expecting you.  There was no table; not for me.  I have an email confirming it.  I'm sure.  Date in the diary some weeks ago.  Anyway, back in the car, the road home.  At least I'll get to the football, South Challenge Cup, Camelon away.  But nagging at the back of the mind.  Another mistake; another date on the calendar for a while.  I know I have that email.  I can't face checking.  Just in case.  It might be another sign of ageing.  Or worse.

When the match finishes with a stoppage time winner, one that your team might not have deserved, the road home is a happy one.  Into the next round of the cup.  A match I'd been prepared to miss, having missed the previous two with events in Aberdeen and Findhorn.  And knowing that I'd miss an away tie in the big Scottish Cup a fortnight hence for another event.  It's in the diary, so it must be happening...

But it's not just me.  A trip to the theatre a little while back.  High Society.  Long been a favourite.  We have the album in the car.  Always the first music when we reach the banks of Loch Lomond on the road and the miles, the three ferries - Corran, Lachaline, Fionnaphort - that take us to our island getaway.  We have the video - but nothing now to play it on.  And we even have the original vinyl, for it was the old man's favourite too, a soundtrack at his funeral - and as I type these notes I realise he would have been 93 this very day.

A much anticipated night out, in Glasgow.  We park, a short walk, in the rain, join the queue.  Check the tickets - again something that can only be viewed on a three inch phone screen, if you can remember how to find them.  Wrong theatre.  It's the Kings, not the Theatre Royal, though confusingly all the blurb does have both venues mentioned.  They must be under common ownership these days, cutting down on the marketing budget.

A brisk walk, me hirpling with a stick trying to protect that arthritic knee.  The clock ticking.  We made it.  Just.  Settled in our seats, jackets off, just as the curtain rises.  And what a show that was.  On my birthday.  Those tickets had been bought the previous year, after seeing To Kill a Mockingbird, in Edinburgh.  Get them early, Glasgow would be easier.  Or it would have been if we had remembered where it was taking place.  Tickets, on a phone, months and months earlier.  Not my phone this time.  I'd better say no more.

Tickets are things that should sit behind the bluetooth speaker in the kitchen; printed.  On paper.  A permanent reminder of where you're meant to be.  And when.  QR codes hidden in the depths of technology; tiny screens and old tired eyes.  Oh what horrors lie ahead?  As the years pass.  Already we have a phone telling us that Android Auto can't be updated; we have a television telling us that it will not access BBC iPlayer or BBC Sounds from the end of this month.  Built in obsolescence.  Forced expenditure on new technology.  I'm liking this world less and less these days.  It plays with your mind.

And we put it all down to ageing.  Time for my afternoon nap.

Flights of Fancy

 A venture right out of the comfort zone.  Here in the north east we are well used to the modern day Biggles buzzing around, hunting in pairs, circling.  It's not an issue, save for when the tranquility of Spynie Loch can be shattered, if only by the attempts to scare the grazing geese from near the runway before a landing.  Choppers potter around, some bigger than others (especially when some foreign president is intent on a game of golf).  Choppers are an increasing sight in the skies down Drumclog way too, from coastguard and rescue flights out of Prestwick, to golfers (again), travelling from luxury hotel to Open venue, or even the injured being removed from the nearby dirt bike track.

I was cajoled into getting a little bit closer to the action, in reality the chance to meet up with a couple of pals encountered far too rarely these past six months or so.  Reasons.  They were keen on a different type of flying to me, were making a ridiculously early start for a long day on the roads.  It would be rude not to.  Not that rudeness is ever distant...

An early bike ride set me up for an afternoon out.  A road well travelled, hard as it was to keep driving past Loch na Bo, where the two resident pairs of mute swans have been joined by another couple of pairs; where the dreaded skunk cabbage is beginning to die back; where the beech mast crackles underfoot.  On past the Spynie road end, resisting the temptation for a brief stop at the hide. 

Finding a parking space, moving to another, walking the perimeter.  The skies were beginning to get busy, noisy.  I may have missed the highlights, hovering and manoeuvring, but still plenty to see.

There were radio scanners, tuned in for pilot chatter, excited spotters calling out what was coming our way, still out of sight.  Runway activity, parking planes, refuelling.  Soldiers on manoeuvres, fully loaded, Wild Geese but without the cover of darkness; without the pink feet.

It was quite an experience,  by the fence at the end of the runway.  Landings coming in over our heads; take-offs turning just in front before burners and aviation fuel preceded the roar, the sight, of one man taking a huge engine aloft.

The boys had to head south again, I sought sanctuary, an escape from the noise, the people, the buzz.  Lossie Woods, just a mile or two away.  A short walk, and a bench.  Solitude.  But not for long.  A pair of squirrels darted in, along branches, down trunks, to the feeders; the droppings below; and even to slake a thirst at the bird bath.

Great tits and blue tits, chaffies; the robin and the blackbird.  All dropped by to say hello, nibble away.  

Overhead, more choppers, the sound of typhoons soaring away, and then some of the RAF's bigger boys, circling.  But at ground level all was peaceful.

I was joined by another couple, their daily rounds to top up feeders.  Smearing peanut butter into cracks in branches, that was their secret.  We sat and watched, mesmerised.  The crestie appeared, but his long-tailed cousin remained absent.  One of the squirrels came back for more.

Being caught up in the excitement, the buzz, the fever of gatherings, feeding off each other in a frenzy of activity is one thing.  I enjoyed my time under the wings, a rare chance to get a close up view of the power of those beasts of the skies. 

But I'll take the warm aromas of the woods over the burning of goodness knows how much fuel, for whatever purposes.

I think the Industrial Day, as the forces like to call it, may be more about global arms sales and power, than simply showing off the skills of the trained pilots and their ground crews.  These were display teams, at the day job.  It is hard not to reflect on the daily bombardment of obscene fuel prices, the risks of war whilst dangerous politicians across the globe carry on with their pissing contests.  And their false flags which the media swallow and glorify with headlines and bulletins, no journalism required.  The thought that our sons could have a call-up decision to make.  

It's why I need to find some solitary time in the woods, with the squirrels and the masters of flight.  I am minded of an hour earlier this week, in the hide at Spynie Loch.  A pair of mute swans were warding off the advancement of an unattached cob.  They danced.  They danced in front of the hide.  Ravel's balero; dancing on liquid ice.  All the work unseen. 

First one way, then the other, never touching, wings folded.  I imagined great black paddles beneath the surface.  Nudges and winks from eyes deep in black crowns.  Synchronicity.  In its natural state.  No training.  No fuel.  No noise.

Whatever takes your fancy.

Soul Music

 It was an early start, to be in an unfamiliar city centre.  There was a degree of anxiety.  Into the Unknown.  A need to pay a call around four of the clock brought with it an end to any prospect of a return to the land of dreams.  Thus rising by 6.30, for a 7.30 departure, wasn't then a problem.  Vivid dreams and lack of sleep may not be unrelated to a course of Chinese herbs, but that is another tale altogether.  I started the day tired.

Anyway, Mrs Satnav Woman, got me there in good time.  It had been a glorious drive, in early sun on quiet roads.  Promising fewer miles and more importantly a saving of 11.7% in fuel costs, took me on roads less travelled, through towns and villages some of which were not complete strangers.  The Turra Coo failed to catch my eye.  Then on to little places that had been nought but names on road signs, soundbites on the wireless.  Whiterashes came and went.  Onwards to the city and an easy approach to find the University of Aberdeen.

Introductions, teas and coffees, before splitting into two groups.  Button Boxes, Room 047; Concertinas 045.  Half a dozen or so, plus tutor, in each room.

I had signed up to challenge myself with a day of music tuition.  For several reasons.  One of the retirement projects is to explore any deeply hidden musical ability - to try and produce a few notes in the right order for the first time since Three Blind Mice on the recorder well over five decades previously.  That may not be unrelated to being aware that all other members of the family had musical talents to showcase.  And I had none.

I had started dabbling a year or so earlier, a tinkle on the keyboard, a squeeze on the box.  The former fell by the wayside, mainly as Girl Child returned to take up residence in Spare Room 1, where the keyboard had been set up in privacy.

The melodeon was a challenge.  Boy Child had played it for half a dozen years or so, from late primary school after Luke Daniels came along for weekly sessions on the penny whistle for six weeks.  An invite to his folk academy was accepted, and a button box put in his hands.

That opened a whole new world.  It came to a premature end, perhaps temporarily, when an attempt to take his music to another level was thwarted (after carefully considering the prospect of life for a year or two absent from the terraces of Newlandsfield and trips to other grounds around the West of Scotland and beyond).  This was during covid, and the route to audition was only the submission of a recording, absent any real guidance and with no opportunity for any discussion that might have allowed a nervous young lad to establish any rapport.  There remained a lingering afterthought that perhaps the need to try and find a melodeon tutor may have been an issue.

Anyway, stuffing knocked out, he turned his back on the good times he had had with the box, at various folk festivals and performances with Luke, concentrating on his guitar and keyboard through to Advanced Higher Music.  The school, and his mates, remained unaware of his folk music activities.  Reasons.

His melodeon sat in the corner.  I picked it up, wondering.  Could I make a noise of any sort; would it perhaps re-energise the young prodigy, renew his interest in the Trad scene?  I'd be delighted if he took it up again, happy to change my own plans.

I'd kept in touch with Luke through the years.  We'd seen him play with his trio (with Matt Tighe and Luc McNally) in Broughty Ferry a few months earlier - a handy place for a family trip, collect boy child from his Dundee student flat, bribe him with dinner and a gig, before a weekend by Bow Fiddle's cliffs.

I had continued to dabble, progressed from Twinkle Twinkle, and London Bridge, eventually into a few tunes which Luke had used to start our 10 year old son on his journey.  I got my fingers round Logan Water; the Stitches in Your Britches progressed.

I found a few tunes I liked to hear, began, slowly, to learn them.  Reasonable progress.  The Keel Row, which I'd heard Tim Edey play beautifully on the guitar, and then on to The Waters of Kylesku and Calum's Road.  These were not tunes from Luke's folk academy, and I had to learn from scratch, no guidance on fingering on the buttons, work it out, think about the instrument.  So far, so not too bad.

I needed tuition, saw an event.  In Aberdeen, a reasonable trip from Portknockie.  And the tutor was my old chum Luke Daniels.  So I signed up.

A week ahead of the big day in came the homework; two tunes to work on.  Elliott's and Garster's Dream, with sheet music, button and fingering notes.  Elliott's was a tune I enjoyed listening to; memorable concerts with Rura, at St Luke's and elsewhere.  A grand tune.  Could I do it any sort of justice?

Many hours of practice, and I was reasonably content.  Even with Ganster's, completely new to me.  Then Luke started by drilling us with some additions, tweaks and twists, all the deedly-dee bits.  Rolls and triplets - I had at least heard the terms all those years ago - staccato rolls and half rolls.  And the option of using different fingers on different buttons to those that had become familiar, been instructed, through the week's practice sessions.  These were not changes I could settle in a few minutes.  Give me a month, maybe...

A copy of the notes and diagrams from the whiteboard will be a useful reference going forward, but on the day far too small and pale for my old eyes to pick out.  Just as well I'm an instinctive note-taker.

I persevered.  The class made noises, some of them tuneful.  The plan was that come the final session, late in the day, both box and concertina classes would come together, play together.  Perhaps play those tunes again in a session after the evening concert.

And that was when it all came tumbling down.  I managed a handful of notes.  Then lost it.  There was no way back in.  The band played on.  It wasn't that I didn't know the basic tunes, or that they were played too fast for this beginner's old fingers.  I realised I couldn't hear what I was playing, the instrument on my knee drowned out by the cacophony all around me.  Unnerved.

So used was I to sitting alone in a room, behind a closed door.  I guess playing in front of others may be akin to the first time of sending a piece of writing off to be read by others, or even pressing publish on a blogpost.  But those were considered articles of writing, edited and re-written, tuned and tweaked.  The music was live.  And it was scary.

Losing that connection between finger and button, and the note reaching the ear, threw me completely.  It is hard to explain.  Why not just play the notes I knew, with all the others?  But was I hitting the right note, at the right time?  I couldn't tell.  And once I stopped there was no path back in to the tune.  It was an unsettling experience.  Would I ever be able to play music with others?  Or was I destined to make my own mistakes behind closed doors?

Meanwhile our day ended in grand style.  The evening concert was richly entertaining, with Frances Wilkins and her concertina making music you might not have thought possible, a beautiful set; and then Luke bringing it to a close with some mesmerising box play, tunes of yesteryear on a one-row classic.  Then came the session.  Our two tunes opened, before Luke led the gathering with Irene Meldrum's Welcome to Bon Accord - an old favourite with which he and his young protege used to entertain crowds at festivals back in the day. That was my cue to take my leave, with a smile on my face.  Delicious memories to bring my adventure to a close, and to remind me of my own failings.  Home by midnight, exhausted, mentally and physically.

Perhaps Boy Child could yet reclaim his instrument, get back on his own musical carousel.  Now that would please me no end.  I could dabble with the keyboard, though the melodeon has been challenging fun.

Back in the practice room I realise that when I do hit the wrong note (far too often) I tend to stop, play the right one, then carry on with the tune.  Not something that will work playing with others.  That will have to change.  If I can get over not being able to hear my bum note in the first place.

I have a target in mind.  My Aberdeen adventure was a day with Button Boxes & Moothies, with The Elphinstone Institute.  There is a festival, every four years, and this wee fling was filling a gap, keeping the interest.  Perhaps by the time of the next festival, in 2029, I might be ready.  Then I think of how the birthday clock will have ticked over by then; these old fingers three years more decrepit.  Meanwhile Elliott's and Garster's continue to get some private airings.  I'll hang in there, at least until the youngster wants his box back.  Baring my soul in music does not come easy.

Meantime keep an ear out for young Owen O'Connor, he's a star in the making, having entranced us not just on the box (and an unfamiliar one at that for him), but also on piano and whistle.  He was even seen having a pluck at a mandolin.  One to watch.

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.