In the beautiful light of almost summer, I wandered slowly around the croft, head down, carefully placing my feet and scanning the flourishing greenery. Over recent weeks, spring growth has been febrile and vivid. May, living up to her blousy, full bodied, extravagant promise gave us, at long last, a greening to match other parts of the UK.
Without fail, every year, I chafe at social media posts of frothing cow parsley, roses and more, yet greedily scour images of flowering in the south with a mix of envy and excitement. And then without fail, I panic a little. Even though I know we are always two, even three weeks behind, there is a small internal worry that the same will not happen here. But when the flowering and greening comes, oh my! it is stunning and hard to keep up with it all. Everything seems to happen at once. So we rush to monitor and record what is growing where.
In my book Windswept*, I describe the usual sequence of flowering on the croft, but in the last three years, change has become the new normal. It will be a year or several before any new patterns emerge, if indeed they do. For now, there is just a delicious and overwhelming sense of pushing and shoving, of flowers and grasses elbowing each other out of the way, the promise of abundance in the swelling juiciness of turf and leaf.
I am so happy at the appearance of tiny species such as milkwort and lady’s bedstraw but seeing orchids, happiness becomes something else entirely. I am ecstatic. And this year they are everywhere. Every day, more and more are appearing, lifting their heads to the light. Orchid numbers seem to be increasing but I have yet to do some ‘proper’ counting. The biggest surprise is seeing Lesser Butterfly orchids (Platanthera bifolia) appearing in places where even the more common species have not been seen very often – for example, on the ridges and runnels of the flood meadow over the river, and on the high, much drier river terraces. Across the entire croft, they have appeared in small clusters. The Lesser Butterfly orchid is delicate and precious and is one of the Scottish Biodiversity List of Species of ‘principal importance’ for biodiversity conservation, (www.scotlink.org/species/lesser-butterfly-orchid). Here on Red River Croft, Platanthera bifolia has found a safe haven.
The tiny trees, planted in the bitter cold of March (https://notesfromasmallcroftbythesea.wordpress.com/2024/04/05/the-blessings-of-trees-and-new-woodland/) have also bloomed. The oaks are bursting upwards and outwards with life and energy. And although several trees suffered some wind burning early on (rowan put out their first leaves before the end of March), they too, are thriving. Like a proud grandmother, I feel a protective urge to check on trees and orchids every day. Who else has joined the party, this rush for the sun?
Our tree planting escapades were followed swiftly by almost a month away visiting family. We had planted in a bitterly cold, hard, mostly dry March, wrapped up in layers against the biting winds. In total contrast, our April-on-tour was a spring festival of blossoms and startlingly bright greens, firstly in France and then NW England. Stepping from the chill and still dormant meadows of North West Scotland into the intense greenery and warm, bright days of France made me feel dizzy. Wild flowers seemed to be blooming in every nook and cranny of the countryside of Le Perche. Hedgerows and roadside ditches and banks were more than flower-filled, they were rammed. We heard our first cuckoo of the year in the oak forests there. In between trying to keep up with the high energy levels and excitability of our grandchildren, I thought about the ditches and embankments and croft meadows of home, about the baby trees. Were they growing like the grandchildren? Full of sap and sass?
Over the last decade, our four children have become parents themselves. We have renewed and rejuvenated our parenting skills with this next generation of little ones. One of the deep joys of ‘grandmothering’ is remembering the intensity of both a mother’s loving and the exhaustion of motherhood while cuddling the newest addition to the family. I relive it all to some degree. I remember how it felt to be a mother but don’t experience those old stresses and strains, the pain, the guilt and niggling worry that somehow, I was doing it all wrong. These days every cuddle is a blessing. I can nurture and give comfort to babies and little ones again, in a stream of second chances.
Just like planting out the trees, being in the presence of living, growing little ones is backbreaking, challenging and exhausting. Both are forms of mother/grandmother-hood, of caring and nurturing. I am always alert, on a watching brief for my youngest family members as well as our baby trees and rare orchids.
While we were away, the north warmed and brightened, and began to bloom. Cuckoos and swallows arrived in South Erradale. My friend and neighbour messaged to say the sun was shining, her lambs were arriving, and spring flowers emerging.
Once home, it became apparent that the warm dry spell and intermittent spring showers had encouraged growth everywhere. And, apart from a few days when the west winds blew, the weather continued to be gentle. A blocking high kept Atlantic lows at bay. Distant cloud beyond the Outer Hebrides meant orange flamed sunsets. When the haar or clouds rolled in, the sea was still and translucent. The Inner Sound reflected light and colour until my eyes watered. When the clouds disappeared, the blue skies were so deep, rich and intense, the air so clean and clear, one could almost see to the upper edges of the stratosphere.
A magnificent aurora swept across the entire British Isles on May 10th. My phone pinged. We stepped outside and looked to the north. “What’s all the fuss about?” I asked. Then we turned to look south and there, a display I have never seen before, in a direction I have not experienced. The northern lights were spread out above us, pink, green, red, fuscia, purple. They danced, not as the curtains of colour we usually experience here, but as the bouncing tutus of the Royal Ballet’s Corps de Ballet, as New Year’s Eve fireworks exploding over the London Eye, as my grandfather’s beloved chrysanthemums in full bloom. Even more extraordinary were several bursts of intense blues. Astronomers explained that these dazzling blue colours resulted from the collision of solar particles with nitrogen in the lower regions of our atmosphere – less than 60 miles in altitude, less than the drive from home to Inverness. So powerful and remarkable were these solar flares they were seen across the UK and northern Europe. My daughter in Cheshire woke her seven-year-old daughter to witness the show.
This week, the weather has changed. June is cold and windy. Snow has fallen on the highest summits. Squalls of hail and thunder have rushed across the Minch. But the trees and orchids continue to flourish. They have a foothold here. They are bold, strong and growing all the time. Just like the grandchildren.
*Windswept: Life, Nature and Deep Time in the Scottish Highlands published by William Collins
Red River Croft 