The Blessings of Trees and New Woodland

When I was seven, my family moved into a crumbling old house in a northern industrial town. Though empty for years, my mother fell in love with it. There was no electricity, gas or running water. Outside was a large wild garden surrounded by dozens of grand old trees.

My bedroom window would never close properly but opened onto a sight so special it remained seared into my mind for more than six decades. Beyond the cracked glass, two huge ancient pear trees, more than twice the height of the house, stood as sentinels. Despite the foul-smelling polluted air, those trees were filled with life, song and light. When each summer fell into autumn, they produced hundreds of mottled green pears which seemed to nourish every living organism for a square mile or more.

Trees are wrapped in and around memories of early childhood and family life. The old garden had horse chestnut, lime, beech, oak and ash. There were plum and apple trees, holly, elder and hawthorn. The best climbing tree was a grand oak whose thick branches reached out over the road and provided both comfy look-out posts and secret hideaways. Together, the great trees formed a protective screen to the smokes and pollutants of nearby chemical works and even now, I remember each one as safe harbour, comfort blanket and friend.

There are few woodlands in this part of Wester Ross, my home today. In our valley, small clusters of relatively young trees grow here and there. Compensation for the lack of tall, big specimens comes from in the form of vast open vistas, grand skies, sunsets and sunrises, mountains and islands. On a clear day, I can see for miles and miles in every direction. Such a thing was impossible from my childhood bedroom window. There, the view was of grey bark, olive-green leaves and palls of smoke.

This largely treeless country, once grazed by hundreds of sheep, by cattle and deer, has been slowly changing. A decline in grazing intensity has resulted in more scrub, more heather on the moorland, and more naturally regenerating trees. And parts of Red River Croft too, have been getting wilder. Trees (and shrubs) have begun to spring up in a gentle ‘rewilding’ of the riverbanks. Where once the margins of the river were bowling-green smooth from years of grazing, there is now a jumble of alder, birch and willow saplings, clumps of gorse and myrtle, and here and there, reeds and rushes. When the river is in spate the cola-black and red waters push against the density of plant life and begin to slow. This newly thickening riparian vegetation is already a form of natural flood defence in action.

Our croft is not managed for sheep or cattle. We use much of the land for traditional hay* but about 2.5 acres across the river are not harvested. That ground has been lightly grazed by both domesticated and wild animals. Sheep and ponies come to stay at different times during the autumn and winter months, for short spells of ‘mob’ grazing which ultimately benefits both the ground and the hay harvest; deer still roam despite the construction of an enormous fence by the Gairloch Estate**. But for the last year or two, watching the gradual rewilding of the riverbanks, we began to think more and more about trees, about bringing in species that would once have grown in the Erradale Valley before the crofts were established and long before sheep became the mainstay of life here.

With the help of experts (and a generous grant) from the Woodland Trust we developed plans for the creation of new woodland – a floody wet zone for willow species and alder, and two better drained areas for a mixture of oak, rowan, elder, hazel, blackthorn, crab apple, aspen and birch. The ground had to be prepared or else the job of planting would be almost impossible so Rob spent two weeks clearing rushes in 50mph winds and torrential rain.

Somehow, a small group of deer continued to resist efforts by estate teams to clear them from the in-bye land of the crofting townships. More concerning, the canny creatures appeared to be using our riverbank scrub to rest and sleep. We knew that unless they too were dealt with, any new trees we planted would smell as sweet as freshly baked bread, and draw them in. I began to fret; I had visions of myself, stalked by deer as I bent down to plant every precious new tree, in a strange dreamlike reversal of human and animal behaviour.

We needed to act quickly. Dave from Red Point came and began fencing almost immediately. At the same time the trees arrived – 1000 tiny saplings covered in buds of hope, each one a promise for the future. Rob and I marked out where they would all go. We had thought and thought about what should be planted where, had discussed at length with experts from the Woodland Trust about creating natural swathes of woodland, and now with the ground as ready as it could be, we cut open the winter turf and began to plant.

I will be for ever grateful for the weather window. The Northwest Highlands can be so unforgiving at this time of year. Winter will often spill in across the Minches and flay us until our cheeks redden and our fingers freeze, covering the mountains again and again with snow. Storm winds can blow hard and then harder. But although temperatures hovered between freezing and 2^oC, and although the gales swept ice crystals and salt up from the shore, the sun shone, birds sang and we planted as hard and fast as we could. Despite the fierce cold, I loved every single minute of it.

Planting trees is backbreaking work when the ground is hard and cold. We carried everything – tools, trees, refreshments, extra clothing, notebooks, camera – back and forth across the river. I found muscles that had long since forgotten what they were for. Rob dug; I bent down to plant. But oh! the profound joy that bubbled up with every single tree placed into the earth. I muttered a wish and a prayer for each one and felt reciprocal blessings and gratitude run back through my fingertips.

In the clear, cold air, the mountains of Torridon watched us as we worked. Birds flew around us, curious. On three occasions otter spraint appeared close to where we had finished planting the previous day. The scent of soil and turf and river and hill filled our nostrils. As we dug and planted, we re-learned the tiniest details of this land-across-the-river. It was as much as I could do to not cry. While I was poorly, I had simply not been able to ford the river making this precious space out of reach. But now as I planted, my mind remapped every lump, bump and slope, all the nooks and crannies, the frilled edges of the river, the wet patches, the dry, the old ditches and fences. New vistas opened up, ones I had somehow forgotten. The mountains seemed nearer, further, taller, smaller, depending on when I cast them a glance or how brightly the sun danced on their flanks. The river shone and sparkled, rumbling now and again as showers, having fallen in the hills, finally rushed past us towards the sea.

Somehow, the soul of this place felt deeper, the life stronger; somehow the sea felt closer, and the skies brighter. I felt ever more aware of the flow of energy, of the connections between living organisms and the living landscape. And with every single tree, a surge of hope for the future.

Today, I walked back across the river to see if anything had changed, whether any of the trees had been blown away after a few days of bitterly cold and powerful winds. But all was well. The sun broke through scudding clouds of pewter and slate and illuminated a patch of ground. I bent down to inspect the buds now appearing – bright crimson on a bird cherry, livid green on a rowan, rusty brown scales on an oak, plum red on hazel. I will never see our ‘baby’ trees to maturity, but maybe, out of the thousand, one will grow to be as tall as my childhood pear trees with branches strong enough to become a look-out or hide-away for children of the future.

* You can read more about haymaking, land management and rewilding here on the blog: https://notesfromasmallcroftbythesea.wordpress.com/2023/09/23/from-summer-to-the-autumn-equinox/

And in Windswept: Life, Nature and Deep Time published by William Collins: https://www.annieworsley.co.uk/windswept

** The fence encloses the crofting townships of South Erradale, Opinan, Port Henderson and Badachro.

Hello January, hello wild weather

As I write, the gales are blowing hard. This muddy grey January day (23rd) is a relatively gentle filling sandwiched between two enormous Atlantic low-pressure systems. It is raining hard and winds are gusting to 60mph, even in this supposed period of respite. The two storms have been given names, as if somehow this will mitigate their impacts and make people sit up and listen. A man from the Met Office said it is not true for anyone to say “But we always have storms”, and yet, and yet… up here we do!

Each storm is different, with its own nature and distinctive characteristics – colours, sound, wind speed and direction, rainfall, amount of light. The storms frequenting this top left-hand corner of Britain may not be regarded by European meteorologists as name-worthy, but I can always find something suitable.

We are ‘storm blessed’ in the far north. I have written umpteen times about how one big monster after another will come chasing across the Outer Hebrides or from the Northern Isles between November and April. Wind is our almost constant companion but it is also my joy – I am a storm lover*. So here we are, ready for the next one. Jocelyn, following hard on the heels of Isha.

I will go out again in the storm winds, just for the thrill of it. I love to see foam from breaking waves gallop across the shore and up into the dunes. I love to watch storm clouds tear apart and fly over the mountains. I love the light of a big storm, and the lack of it. I love watching birds as they strive in the turbulent and sometimes violent air. Gulls flying low over the peppermint-coloured storm waves are a joy to watch. There is so much beauty and colour in the tempestuousness of winter weather.

But only recently, Wester Ross turned completely white. Snow returned to the hills on January 14^th after a hiatus of several weeks. The mountains of the Scottish Highlands often sport a winter coat although there is a tendency for snows to come and go on the hills closest to the sea. Patches of snow appear on the summits often, coming and going all winter. Here, we are at the mercy of Atlantic maritime weather systems, very different to the Cairngorms where deep winter can last for weeks. The impacts of salty winds and milder air blowing in from the Minch followed by polar air cause thawing then freezing and more thawing, over and over again. Change is typical, atmospheric volatility the norm. Last year, during a strangely severe late spring cold spell, Baosbheinn and Beinn Alligin (the mountains who form the backcloth to our lives) retained their white caps well into May.

On January 15^th we went straight from gales with rain to squalls with snow. Dense blizzards and deep snow, even here, so close to the sea. The post-Christmas period can often be white and brittle with cold, yet this middle week of January found us temporarily cut off. Although the nine-mile, single-track road from Kerrysdale bridge near Gairloch was ploughed (only once, but a first for us), and although the regular piles of grit supplied by council and crofters were repeatedly and kindly spread on the steeper sections, for a time the road was impassable (another first). So, we wandered on foot with crampons and walking poles.

Snow fell on and off all week. There were a few periods of melting and thinning but by Thursday, more than eight inches lay in the hay fields, with snow banked up along the riverbank, ditches and fences. Most unusually, the peach-red sands of Opinan and the cobbles and rocks of South Erradale’s shore were covered. The snow was deep enough to obscure the Seaweed Road, bog pools, the transitions from field to shore, shore to sea, and many of the familiar nooks and crannies, lumps and bumps that act as way markers. Waves wiped away snow piles to reveal a narrow strip of beach or pile of rocks, then snow covered them up just as quickly.

We watched high and mighty, swift-moving squalls gather to the north and rush down the Minch. From time-to-time they completely obscured the entire chain of islands from Lewis to Skye. Turning our faces eastwards, we watched the tumults of cloud flow south over the mainland where they dwarfed the mountains. Thundersnow was forecast. I heard nothing but caught an occasional brief flash of light out to sea, warning of yet another, wilder spell of incoming trouble.

One mean-spirited squall caught us as we walked on the Seaweed Road to Opinan. We sheltered, crouching, by an old shed and sipped coffee as the blizzard tried to whittle away the last shreds of warmth from our bodies. Beyond the fence, the waves rose tall and wild, charcoal-grey and foam-topped. From our semi-shelter they seemed furious in their efforts to overrun the snowy ground.

I think of these storms and squalls as entities. Even without official names, big or small, they are full of character; they grow and swell and blow in and then fade away. Each one is unique, each one thrilling in its own way, each worth a photograph if photography is possible.

By the third day, the snow had settled deeply everywhere. (How the children and grandchildren would have loved the pristine white fields and slopes.) White heaps sat on fences and gates, on trees and hedges and boulders. The riverbank shrubs were waist deep in drifts of pure white. The river itself was hardly visible yet I could hear it running fast. In contrast to the dazzling white snow, the rich, deep blue sky and dark green sea glowed. Clouds continued to build over the islands and mountains but they swept past us turning from charcoal-grey to powder blue to yellow and pink as they rushed over our heads.

            We made the most of this one day, only going in to warm up, have a hot drink, dry our gloves, and warm our toes. It felt wrong somehow, going indoors when the land shone so brightly. The weather was changing; at sunset we could sense the warmer air. Later, the forecast spoke of thaw and flood.

            By the following morning, all but a few patches in sheltered hollows in the valley and on distant summits were snow-free. The clouds curdled and poured in from the west, warmer and saltier. I wandered out anyway to see how the croft had fared. The Red River was in spate, carrying snow melt down to the sea. There were plashes of standing water everywhere. I thought of the dark pools on the surfaces of melting ice sheets in the Arctic, and the rapidly running meltwater streams carrying away the cold blues of ‘normal’.

Everything is changing. 2023 was a year of big changes in the natural patterns here** but 2024 has already shown its face.

            In spite of the waterlogging and although the vegetation is compacted and bleached by winter, the meadows still hold the promise of summer. I closed my eyes and let the cold wind twist around my body. I thought of hay meadows and dragongflies and golden blooms. There is a lot of waiting to go through before then and many, many storms, no doubt.

I walked up onto the peatland surrounding the croft. Although there were pools of black water everywhere and although I could hear running water hidden under tussocks of vegetation, the bog myrtle was glowing with colour and laden with red-russet coloured buds, each one brimful with perfume and the promise of spring.

* Windswept: Life, Nature and Deep Time in the Scottish Highlands published by William Collins.

** https://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2023/12/shadows-reflections-annie-worsley-windswept-red-river-croft/ in ‘Shadows and Reflections’, Caught by the River.

One golden day and a storm named Babet

The Highland ponies have departed, the croft looks rather bare but the animals have done a good job trimming rushes and churning the ground in between patches of gorse and alder. Now my neighbour’s sheep have arrived. They graze in a different way and over the next week or so, they will neaten the margins of the cut hay meadows and their feet will patter down the wet soil and turf. Then the land will be left to rest. After all the heavy rain, the croft needs to settle down, ready for the long dark months to come.

Our recent weather has consisted mostly of wind, torrential rain, hail, great big squalls, and more rain. We have not had an Indian summer nor any decent spells of brightness (unless you count the high light from enormous updrafts of cloud or fleeting sunset dazzle, which we always do, of course), nothing like the extraordinary warmth in the far south. But we have enjoyed a few hours of relative calm in sheltered pockets here and there. On one strange morning at the beach, we sat on the sea-log-seat, our faces and fronts catching horizontal rain while our backs were dry and warmed by the sun.

There is some compensation for these wild autumn days. In heavy showers and darkening skies our fields glow and flicker with deep rich auburn and amber, while the sheep look clean and well-buffed, washed and blow-dried, as if ready for a county show.

Recompense has also come in the form of big skies, great sweeping vistas filled with rainbows, and whole hillsides coppered and leafed in gold. I especially love the spellbinding almost neon orange of moor grass as the last of the summer greens begin to leach away.

But last week we were blessed by one almost completely still autumn day. In a delicious interlude of calm, the daylight hours were bookended by a red and pink dawn and a sunset of oranges and yellows so bright my eyes ached.

We should have been doing jobs – there are always so many to do – but in the afternoon we decided to go for a walk among the trees of Flowerdale and through the arboretum adjacent to the ‘big’ house, home of Mackenzie, the laird of Gairloch Estate. It is said that Osgood Mackenzie lived at Flowerdale House for a time and he may well have overseen the planting of rare trees and plants from around the world just as he did for the now world-famous Inverewe Gardens more than a century ago.

Among the great trees the air was still and quiet. There were enormous beeches, giant conifers of many kinds, huge gnarled oaks and an understorey dense with holly, rhododendron – some in flower – and other exotics. Mosses, lichens, and ferns covered fallen tree trunks or grew high in the clefts of large branches. The only motion came from ribbons of afternoon light the colour of thin-cut marmalade, or tiny birds flitting about, and our slow quiet walking. In one small hollow we found evidence of an old pond now entirely infilled by years of leaf fall, but still edged by giant Gunnera and other strange looking plants.

To wander there felt akin to stepping into old stories. It was a near-silent world, one so different from the open landscape around the croft that I felt transported to a place where fairy tales are real, and back through the ages to a time when giants roamed the land.

Living at the coast, where the forests vanished millennia ago, where we watch storm clouds rushing in across the Hebrides, where we can watch the dawn light play on the Torridon mountains, where the views from home can reach for tens of kilometres, means we forget the joys of forest walking, the scents of rich loamy soil, leaf mould and bark warmed by sunlight.

The grand old trees appeared to be watching us as we passed by; they stopped to listen to our occasional chattering and laughing; they seemed to relax when we sat quietly to simply breathe in the thick gold-flecked air. In the same way the great mountain peaks of Wester Ross make me feel small, insignificant and humbled, the largest and oldest trees found in our fragmented woodlands generate a shared sense of slow, deep time. It felt good to pause there for a while.

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At this time of year, big storms usually begin to track in from the North Atlantic, filling our autumn days with noise, squalls, downpours and occasionally, hail and thunder. It is unusual for gales and rains to blow in from the east, but a few days ago, Storm Babet, a large low-pressure system, tracked much further south due to instabilities in the jet stream. Where we would normally have suffered the torrential rains and storm winds driven along the southern extremes of a severe low, this time Scotland faced easterlies blowing around the ‘top’, the northern edges, of a powerful storm. Life threatening deluges and gusting winds attacked the entire eastern side of Scotland and northern England. As I type, many areas are still very badly affected by flooding. The impacts of Babet will be long lasting.

Here in the NW Highlands, the easterly winds were just as powerful and turbulent as with any Atlantic low, but they flattened the surface waters and waves until the Minch appeared to be flexing and writhing like a snake ready to shed its skin. The sea glowed in aquamarine and cobalt, then shimmered in silver and turquoise. Huge towers of cloud flew by, each catching the light as they were torn apart by the streaming gales.

At times, even as the sky darkened into purple or indigo, the sea spilled light from every breaking wave. In the strangeness of those storm conditions, the clouds seemed lit from within, or by the deep waters of the Inner Sound rather than the sun. At low tide, water was smoothed across the sands of Opinan by the gusting winds until the entire beach became a mirror reflecting all the turbulence above. Then, at high tide, the shore was completely covered in creamy froth.

Babet brought unfamiliar conditions. She prompted the sea into unusual behaviour. The air sounded and smelled strange. I am used to big storms arriving from the west and north-west, from the ocean beyond the Outer Hebrides. I can see them coming in the far distant cloud tops and read the squalls’ intentions by their variations in shape. I have written about these creaturely weather systems often, here in the blog and in Windswept, but these bold winds from the east brought different forms and colours to us. If, in a warming world, the jet stream flows further south more often, we will need to find new names for the storms of autumn, and rewrite old tales about wind.

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Windswept is making its way in the real world. I am humbled and delighted by the responses from readers. So many of you have made the effort to write and express how you feel after reading the book. Thank you!

This week I hope to meet some of the book’s readers. I will be in Fort William on Tuesday at The Highland Bookshop and in Corbridge in Northumberland at Forum Books on Wednesday. If you can join me there, I’d be thrilled!

The links to the events are here:

Fort William https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/annie-worsley-book-launch-signing-qa-tickets-688773619437?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

Corbridge https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/forumbooks/forum-books-presents-kerri-andrews-and-annie-worsley/e-yxlxzk

From summer to the autumn equinox

Beyond the shelter of our garden hedges autumn now rushes in full throttle, filling the gaps left by the departure of a remarkable summer. Dry heat and gentle sea breezes, unusual for the Highlands, provided perfect conditions for paddling, swimming and sand castle building. And so, from June to September’s start, our home was filled with family and the noisy exuberance of grandchildren.

On the croft, all summer long, the flowers and grasses strived to reach the sun. They thrived, just like our small visitors. After a stuttering start due to the very wet cold spring, and as soon as the heat and light began to flow, the blooming was swift.

Of course, by the end of August, just as the meadows ripened and plans for this year’s hay harvest were coming together, the gales returned carrying heavy rains in from the Atlantic. While the young crofters from Opinan smiled and bided their time, I waited impatiently, hoping the showers hadn’t done too much damage to the dense deep vegetation. But following a forecast for a few dry days in early September, ‘M’ came with his father’s tractor, and within a few hours the hayfields were cut.

Then, overnight, a rogue shower dampened everything. The rows of cut grass shone; everything and everywhere glistened with raindrops. My heart sank. The advice from wiser heads than mine was to “wait, be patient, the warm winds will return”. And so they did. Over the next few days, the piles of grasses and flowers began to dry and pale. Slowly, gradually – too slowly it seemed to me – temperatures rose and gentle breezes sang of the sea. Soon the perfumes of cut grasses and wildflowers swelled to fill the valley. The aromas do not last long, a week at most, but they are exotic, mystical and enriching.

Each year, at the height of haymaking, windows are pushed wide open and the scent of hay rises and seeps into the house. In the deepening nights, pillows and quilts seem made of dried aromatic flowers sewn together by threads of perfumed grass. It is easy to dream. No wonder folk used to stuff their mattresses with grasses and scented herbs. Coumarin has power.

                                     *******

We are a few weeks on from the baling of hay. Six ponies have been grazing the field margins, browsing the shrubs and spreading the last seeds about. They are labour- and machine- saving organisms, trimming where tractors cannot cut or where scythe work is difficult. And they are happy to clamber up and down the steep riverbank, ruffling edges and ultimately providing a new foothold for riparian species while helping the natural wiggling of the river itself.

The ponies are beautiful. Two are the dappled greys of autumn mists, the others, the dark umber of Highland peats. They cope well with the fast-changing conditions – rain, shine, rain, gales, shine, rain – and as autumn weather becomes increasingly volatile, their silky coats begin to thicken.

Once again, around the croft rowans are almost bending over with the weight of crimson berries while close to the house an ancient hawthorn is covered in dark red haws. It has not produced this many before. I wonder whether together these trees are speaking of hardships to come. My grandmother always said fruit-laden rowans predicted harsh winters, but hawthorns? I happened to ask a friend in the US about whether they grew near her home and she replied that across the ‘Pond’ there are dozens and dozens of varieties with traditional uses as varied as their names. I only know Crataegus monogyna which across the UK has a long history of medicinal and culinary uses as well as close associations with myth and legends. There are few hawthorns here in South Erradae but rowans are everywhere, protecting houses both young and ancient.

We have continued to walk back and forth to the beach since the little ones stayed here and the blustery spaces are filled with happy memories. There are more birds about now the shore is less busy. Perhaps it is a trick of memory. I recall, and have recorded on my phone, plenty of birdsong at the beach even when the children were running in and out of the waves, but I must have been too busy with buckets and spades to really take notice. When we sit at the sea-log-seat now, both shore and sea birds ignore us. They have reclaimed their place. But I miss the children terribly.

I have written about haymaking and the beach in Windswept*. Both are important in different ways. The book marks key events in the annual cycle of life here in South Erradale using nature’s indicators – red berries on the rowans, swallows leaving, hay-making, late flowers blooming – but this year there are strange and unsettling differences. Many of the predictable markers recorded over the last decade have been upended this year and I’m not sure yet what any of it means.

My eyes have been on the skies as well as the sea, shore and croft, and as the weather has worsened, I have been looking to the hills and well as distant islands. Together, they appear to converse with our wee valley, transmitting energies and influencing the flow of light and sound. Colours seem to be shifting; new scents riddle the air. But there are such dreadful stories of very dramatic weather events and natural disasters across the world that puzzling over the much more subtle changes here has felt unwarranted and unnecessary.

One day, while walking along the shore, I fell and broke my wrist and arm. I yelped in pain, not realising at first that bones were broken. I was furious because I was wet and covered in muck. And yes, I cried, mostly because I was cross. The topsy-turvyness I had been feeling all around this place tripped me up. At least, that is how it felt.

When I began to type this short piece (very slowly with my left hand) the wind shifted round to the north with a loud suddenness. It was cold and gusting strongly and I hoped it was not a warning of more shifting and perturbations to come. My wrist and arm, safely cocooned in a cast, ached.

But today is the autumn equinox, the point at which Windswept really begins. The weather is golden, the air wistful, calm and warm. It is lovely to have the spun-gold light of September back after a week of hard rain and grey cloud. The light feels serendipitous somehow, a celebration of sorts, for words written in a golden September a year or so ago, words that are winging their way around the world.

The long walk into deep dark begins now but there are many wonders to be found in the shorter days and longer nights. Today, it is time for a reset. And I am getting my rhythm back, cast or no cast.

* Windswept: Life, Nature and Deep Time in the Scottish Highlands is published by William Collins and is available at all the usual places. If you can, please do support your local independent bookshops.

Fragments, memories, flowerings

It has been raining. Lochs, rivers and peatlands are recharging. Yet the threat of fire is still with us. Large areas of the Northwest Highlands remain at risk from wildfires particularly because the June drying was so intense, the drought-like conditions so extreme.

However, at last, as a result of this wet July, the croft is blooming. Everything looks so clean and shiny after the recent warm rains. Underfoot the greenery squeaks. But the usual sequence of flowering is topsy-turvy. The first bell heathers appeared in early June while some orchids did not appear until much later. Common ling has been in flower for a week or two, almost a month early. Ragged robin is still flowering when in past years it has come and gone by the end of July. Bog asphodel burst into hot mustard-yellow blooms in peaty parts of the croft then vanished almost as quickly. They are still in flower on surrounding moorland but their sudden flaring and disappearance on Red River Croft was unusual.

In the hay meadows many of the grasses which also flower in familiar succession have set seed at the same time. I wonder what the effects of these small but nevertheless unusual changes might be on insects and birds. Yet the meadows look beautiful – billowing, rippling pale gold-tipped grasses. Underneath the yellow and gold there is dense rich greenery, signalling the growth yet to come. I am hopeful that with this continued warm and intermittently damp weather, the hay meadows will mature with enough of a grand flourish to produce a good harvest.

The rains and strange timings have reminded me of all the difficulties entailed in managing meadows for hay, how dependent crofters and farmers were on the weather when haymaking was common here, and on their own ability to read all the signs nature provides.

My neighbour showed me a picture taken when she was young. A fragment of history and her family life. It shows the flat riverside meadows on Red River Croft, taken in the years before any fencing separated one croft from another or subdivided parts of a field, in the years before sheep became the mainstay of crofting. Those same flood meadows we love and now manage for biodiversity as well as hay were traditionally harvested, the hay gathered into stooks, just as my maternal grandfather had done on his farm in Lancashire and my paternal family did in Ireland. The photo sent a jolt of longing and memory through my body, and again with each and every subsequent viewing. There is a strong sense of shared history, of intertwining threads of time as well as farming practices, stretching from Wester Ross to Lancashire and across the Irish Sea and back again.

There is a golden aura to the image. It must have been a hot day for the sky is completely bleached of colour; the light would have been fierce. The Trotternish peninsula on Skye is invisible so there may have been a summer heat haze, or even haar out across the Minch. The stooks are tall – tractor wheel height – although the vehicle is old, compact and cab-less, with small front wheels, just the kind of manoeuvrable vehicle needed in these oddly shaped old sections of this complex small holding. In fact, the young crofters of Opinan will use a similar nimble old tractor when they come to cut hay for us next month. Weather permitting.

For a long time, although there had been a miscellany of flies, spiders, beetles and bees a-plenty, I hadn’t seen any butterflies. I was concerned. Then a sudden appearance brought a sweep of relief – green-veined whites, cabbage whites, red admirals, fritillaries, peacocks, Scottish speckled woods, meadow browns and common blues emerging here and there to dance whenever the sun shone. At the same time, two colonies of busy mining bees, one in the roadside embankment just outside the front gate, another in the dry bank in our top meadow, added their throbbing music to the air.

Red River Croft has a range of micro-habitats and I love the marginal fragmented spaces most of all. The transitional zones between riparian scrub and meadows and along the ditches are so full of life. The riverside margins have widened naturally. There are new self-seeded trees – birch, rowan and alder – and a few we have planted – willow, ash and wild cherry – and plenty of shrubs including bog myrtle, heathers, broom and gorse. The river itself is changing as a result, wiggling with light and shade, new gravel beds and rock pools.

We are close to the sea, close enough to taste salt and feel the impact of sudden squalls, close enough too to gather seaweed for our vegetable garden, so the whole croft has the feel of a marginal place, an ‘edge land’, closely bound up by high mountains and the deep waters of the Minch.

A short walk along the Seaweed Road* which runs from South Erradale to Opinan, takes us past other special marginal habitats – places where land actually meets the sea, where land and sea merge in tangles. There are more wildflowers here than ever – sheep cannot get through from the crofting townships and surrounding hills since the laird built a tall strong fence to enclose us all and keep his deer out. As a result, the coastal edges are rewilding. All these wildflowers and grasses are stage one. Shrubs and trees will follow eventually.

South Erradale’s shore of sands and gravels has become a summer flower garden. The plants (and insects enjoying the blooms) have steadily and slowly been heading seawards – sea mayweed, wood sage, sea campion, skullcap, meadowsweet, thrift, stonecrop – there is quite a list and from just one or two individuals a couple of years ago they are thriving and spreading, creating fragments of colour and scent. Its an edible garden too, with species such as spreading orache, sea plantain and curly dock. In late afternoon or early evening this coastal garden glows.

There are plants in flower all the way to Opinan. Although land appears to have crept west this summer, when the winter storms blow in from the Atlantic, the sea will wreak havoc and have its revenge. As global climate changes, storminess and higher tides will continue to chip away at our coast and the flower garden by the sea. But there is power in seeds too. They will be scattered around waiting until next year and with luck, when the time is right, when the weather is relatively benign, when the mixture of sands, gravels and seaweeds provide the best growing conditions, the garden will appear once again.

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* There are more stories about the Seaweed Road, Red River Croft, hay making and this incredible part of coastal Wester Ross in my first nature non-fiction book. Windswept is published by William Collins on August 3rd. It can be pre-ordered and will be available at any bookseller. Please, please support our independent bookshops if you can.

Wells and wishes

The hills are tinder dry. Peat is crisp underfoot. Sphagnum mounds are bleached and if you pick at one, it crumbles. But cotton grasses are in bloom. They are dancing in the sea breeze almost everywhere. Across the croft the ground is hard, bare patches of earth are dusty, the grassy tracks are yellow. Even in our traditionally soggy flood meadows beside the river, the relative dryness has slowed growth here. When I compare images taken at the same time in recent years, there is a marked difference in plant height, as if vegetation is reluctant to grow until the rains come.

Yet there are patches here and there where the soil still feels damp. After all, this is a wet valley. And in the small paddock, sectioned off years ago for its deep peat, are places where the cushions of Sphagnum are still springy and patches normally too wet to step on, where orchids are flowering. So, there is water about, it is just much deeper than usual.

Cnoc an Fhuarain, hill of the springs, on the northern side of our crofting township, is rightly named. Water flows out from its base under the road between Opinan and South Erradale, and from there it passes through nearby peats and hollows, out of sight. Eventually, waters reappear – in a large, deep burn draining the peatland and crossing the croft where it meets Abhain Dearg, the Erradale (Red) River.

Both burn and river are suffering. Trickles of reddened water flow slowly between boulders normally underwater. If ever the river and its fish needed a messy, shrubby riverbank it is now. There is a broad band of protective growth – old birch and alder, young rowan, willow and ash, bog-myrtle, gorse and heather – in a complex mixture, completely different to the snooker-table green turf of the past. This messy regeneration – riparian rewilding in miniature – provides shade over the remaining pools and ribbons of water. I asked our local expert about the risk to fish and he assured me they would be hiding in the shaded spots or waiting in the sea for ‘regular’ river flow to return. I need to take a closer look.

There are springs all around the valley and on the flanks of Cnoc an Fhuarain. Most were opened long ago by people who understood local hydrology, to be used as wells. Many are lined with stone, and once provided drinking water for crofters and animals. I have a map which shows the position of seventeen wells around the township and there are dozens more springs and sumps on the valley sides and crofts. Today, some of the wells are little more than green mossy hollows, unused and only remembered by a few people. Others are well-built with stone sides, and one or two have corrugated tin roofs and still provide water for sheep.

My neighbour and her son recently cleared out a well on the lower slopes of Cnoc an Fhuarain. Donnie dug away the debris – moss, turf and soil that had clogged it up over many years. Water appeared almost immediately, black and sweet-smelling. The well is beautifully yet simply made, with large rock slabs on two sides and another lying flat for use as a step or bucket-rest. The water is deep and a pail fills quickly. I went with Cathma to have a look at it. It reminded me of springs in Ireland. I said we need to plant a tree nearby and leave a few gifts to thank the fairies. Springs are a blessing, my Irish family used to say. In this terrible (yet beautiful) dry spell, water is a blessing too. It is good to know where the wells and springs are located.

In the hot weather peat and turf smell of Mediterranean Terra Rossa soils and I wondered whether the sheep and deer might smell the wetness as I did. Amongst all the brittle dryness, the aroma of moisture seemed thick and rich to me. When I passed by the well a few days later, I watched birds dipping down to sip the water and saw that the overflow had already greened a narrow stripe of moor.

From time to time, a heat haze, so dense it almost looks like smoke, wraps around us. We fear flames now, more than at any other time. The images of enormous fires in Canada and orange days in New York are dreadful. If the dry peats ignited, it would be as catastrophic as the fires in North America. We need rain. How precious the wells, springs and sumps feel now.

The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) has warned of serious water scarcity in this part of the North West Highlands. Hydro-power operators are supposed to stop extracting water and release it back into adjacent natural systems. It is strange to think of water shortages when we often grumble about the rain, hoping it will cease for an hour or two, just so we can hang out our washing. Many habitats up here exist because of the very abundance of water and its movement around the landscape, both seen and unseen. Such extreme shortage is worrying.

The summer solstice approaches. It usually rains then so I have been taking as many pictures as possible of sunset skies and multicoloured seas to keep as treasure, a hoard of bright jewellery to enjoy in the darker, wetter days to come. It feels strange to even mention darkness and dampness when our nights are so light. There is no need for a torch if we want a midnight wander. Last night we roamed down the track to the sea. The air was succulent and cool; and no midges. The sea was like an old mirror – all tarnished silver edged with copper.

As I write I look at the mountain ash in our garden. Like others around the valley, the tree is laden with flowers now dying away; there are hints of the berries to come under browned petals and sepals. My grandmother used to say that a rowan filled with flowers in summer and laden with berries in autumn meant a bad winter was coming. Degrees of severity predicted by the density of blossoms then fruit.

In an old peat cutting nearby, the exposed face has dried. It doesn’t look like peat; it is rock-hard and cracked. The drying has exaggerated the banded colours – from cappuccino to jet-black. The different coloured layers cover several thousand years of climate and environmental history. Lighter bands indicate cool wet periods, dark layers when climate was generally warm and dry. In warmer years, plant material is broken down more readily, becoming humified and dark. In colder, wetter years, bacterial breakdown is not as efficient – hence the paler peat and clearly identifiable remains of ancient Sphagnum. Beyond simple descriptors of colour and levels of homogeneity in the peat structure, there is a whole raft of scientific techniques which yield more information, chemical analyses to assess colour and composition in fine detail. Yet even without advanced analytical testing, the story of our changing climate is there to see in exposed peat banks.

This year’s dry spell will add to climate stories already held within peat bogs. In the distant future, scientists might investigate them and describe a warming world, unless the peatlands themselves have vanished.

Dry peatbogs and a barely-there Red River may be warnings, harbingers of a hotter future. They are certainly part of the current topsy-turvy spring-into-summer weather here in the Highlands. But the rains will come, the peats will soak up water and the meadows will bloom and flourish. I look at the rowan tree again. It seems to be saying wait, make the most of the sunshine and warmth, there is a very cold, wet winter to come.

Hidden jewels, layers of history

The fullness of late spring is upon us. At last, from garden to croft to shore, plant growth is physically discernible. Insects move in cloud-crowds and the flowers that benefit from their presence are in bloom. Burgeoning growth is adding to the sheer weight and volume of living material. Yet eventually it will diminish and become another layer of organic matter and soil, filled with information about the passing year.

This landscape, this place I call home, is made of many layers. It has taken some scuffling and digging to get to the roots of them all but they are there, signals held deep in the earth, names on old maps, and crofters’ tales. Over the last decade our various activities – planting trees, cutting meadows, moving animals, allowing wildflowers and grasses to set and drop their seeds – have created new layers. Riddling through them all are our own stories, themselves added to the living land every day. I love the notion that our actions as well as our physical lives leave imprints upon the land which may be read in the future.

A library of history and prehistory lie hidden under peat and turf; the books open and pages unfold if you know how and where to look. And there are places too, with paths to lead you there, that sing of a remoter past.

One storytelling trail weaves through large expanses of peat-bog and alongside hidden lochs. It runs from our home in South Erradale to the village of Badachro, just a few miles away. The track rises gently up the valley sides and follows an ancient route inland once used to herd cattle towards the main drover routes out of Gairloch. Part of this old path appears to have been laid with stones, probably to protect the slope from erosion, and at one time it may have been a substantive, relatively easy walk. Now, it is strewn with moss-covered boulders and tough clumps of heather and at times, after heavy downpours or prolonged rain, it can resemble a waterfall. It takes time or nimble feet to pick a way over and between the stones whether wet or dry.

A new deer fence surrounds the crofting township now and for a few hundred metres, it runs near the old road. But as the path curls around the ruins of a once substantial house and byre and turns upslope away from the crofts, the deer fence picks up the line of an old dyke. The wall is big and, in its heyday, must have been a formidable structure possibly with palisade type fencing on its top. At its base is a wide, deep ditch. The dyke and ditch may well have completely enclosed South Erradale in the past, however, there is no clue to its real age or purpose, although one report states it was built to demarcate the crofting layout in 1845.

The path rises. Higher up, the stone ‘cobbles’ disappear, engulfed in peat and hidden under the spreading aromatic turf of grass, sedge, heather and myrtle. Eventually, the ‘road’ dwindles and becomes a knobbly yet spongy path curving between low hills capped with sandstone akin to Dartmoor’s tor-hats. In the distance are the mountain summits near Gairloch known as ‘The Miniatures’, and beyond them, Fisherfield and the blue haze of the Great Wilderness.

Once over the top of the col an expansive back country of bogs, meads and lochans opens up. A basin filled with riches. It is relatively sheltered here and at this time of year the sweet aromatic air can be as thick as jelly, fizzing with insects and nodding cotton grasses.

The distant south-eastern edge of this hidden world is overlooked by the high peaks of Torridon. The great mountains form a dramatic backcloth and barrier to the rest of the world. Four lochs sit within the basin, their edges ruffled where peat appears to have been cut away by a giant’s spoon. Each frill is splashed with a small, bright red sandy beach, and littered with the broken branches and roots of ancient trees, remnants of the mixed pine forests of long ago. There are countless smaller, nameless water-filled hollows everywhere, some no bigger than bathtubs and buckets, and on a bright day they flash like newly minted coins scattered on a carpet.

The largest, Loch Clàir, is an unusual shape. A broad flat bank of peaty ground the size of two football fields noses into the water. Long ago, local flocks and herds were driven there overnight. The site was fortuitous, close enough to the townships for an easy return home, with water on three sides to do the job of fences, and sheltered by the hills. Those large numbers of sheep and cattle are long gone, and with little or no disturbance the grazed grasslands have been subsumed by thriving wetland flora. One crofter recalls large numbers of lapwing when grazing kept the grasses short but now curlew, snipe and golden plover sing up from the tufts and mounds, dunlin, greenshank, oystercatchers and ringed plovers shoal in from the coast, and hen harriers and eagles patrol above. For a time, the cover of Sphagnum mosses would have diminished under intense sheep grazing and trampling but in the intervening years large mounds have once again grown across the bogs.

The path disappears between the two largest bodies of water, Loch Clàir and Lochan nam Breac Odhar. Water levels and peat depth have increased so much that the original route is buried and now wooden posts mark the beginning, middle and end of a safe passage across a narrow isthmus. A bog walk can be as treacherous as it is beautiful; wandering from a trail invites trouble. Thick cushions of moss may conceal deep, black pools of water; bright verdant greens can hide weight-sucking quagmires and the mossy crowns are extraordinarily magical and alluring – blood-red and jade-green, stippled with knots of pink and purple orchids in spring and tassels of white cotton grasses and shards of pale gold asphodel in summer. On one summer’s day a few years ago, I walked between the way-markers thigh-high in vegetation. Every stride was accompanied by a penetrating alto hum of insect wings beneath soprano birdsong. Hundreds of tiny moths, lacewings and craneflies settled on my arms, head, face and body. I felt drenched in life, cloaked by the sheer abundance, almost completely absorbed by the living biosphere, slowly breathing in birdsong, larks, curlews and all.

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Peat bogs, drenched in Atlantic rains, can eventually consume anything: plants, animals, insects, buildings, walls, boulders, fences, paths. As plant matter dies then decomposes it turns into brown and rusty black gloop topped by a multi-coloured glowing carpet of Sphagnum moss, and threaded by the fibrous roots of herbs, heathers, bog myrtle, sedges and grasses. This living blanket absorbs and assimilates, transforms then preserves, ingesting and digesting anything that lingers or falters nearby, only to reveal them now and then, like secrets or trophies.

Some peat is carbon black with rusty nodules and occasionally studded with glittering opalescent gems – the long dead carapaces of beetles, luminescent, vitriol green or ultra-violet, shimmering and tiny. Some peat is cow-dung brown, dull and thick, in which tiny corpse pieces of plants are visible, ages old. Where exposed in hags or cuttings, peatlands can yield their secrets, like snippets of ancient stories, or long-lost songs – the remains of ancient forests, huge trunks or roots of Scot’s pine and oak; the remnants of human lives, the stones of old walls, field boundaries, bodies or burial cairns.

Peat is dense yet filled with water, and wobbles when you stride across it. But this living, breathing blanket is strong. It is vivid and vibrant, russet and dun in winter, lime and jade in spring, eyebright yellow in summer, purple and bronze in autumn. Plant life appears otherworldly, often strange in form and function, yet adapted to drenching rains and severe winds and able to create its own micro-climate. There are insect-devouring sundews and butterworts, creeping herbs, grasses with ‘breathing tubes’, scented dwarf shrubs. And in the wetter places, Sphagnum moss – in pillows of cochineal and crimson, corn-gold, straw-blond or lime-green – grows towards sunlight, to the rain and mist, capturing carbon and retaining water. Here and there are pools of still, black, peaty water; some are tiny, no bigger than a plate; others are hidden by heathery overhangs or grassy tussocks, treacherous and deep enough to swallow whole sheep or trap unwary cattle, or people.

Walking onto the hill peats or along the valley bogs is a journey into the past, into old songs and stories of peoples long gone. Their voices and lives are remembered in the names of rocks and crags, lochans and burns, and in the peat itself. Peat becomes an archive, a natural library of landscape, recorded not in pen and ink but in the very fabric of its being. To look out across these boggy blankets, to carefully pick a path or follow an animal trail between hummock and hollow, to squish across cushions of rubies, gold and bronze, is a time-traveller’s step into the magic of myth and legend, and a storyteller’s stride into ancient songs and chronicles.

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A few days ago, we walked the old trail again. The recent unusually long spell of good weather had desiccated the peatland. Yet although the stony road out of South Erradale was bone dry, sundews were scattered every few paces, pin-prick bright in the sunshine. The peat and lochan wetlands were also crisp and tinder-dry, the mounds of Sphagnum bleached and shrunken. A stray match would set it all alight. But in a lively breeze and under forget-me-not-blue skies, the great blankets of bog shimmered and glittered. Distant mountains danced in the haze – Boasbheinn, Beinn Dearg, Liathach, Beinn Alligin. We sat on a boulder atop a mound surrounded by peat bog and water. On the far side of Loch Clàir a pair of eagles swooped low. Around us, small birds flew back and forth. Insects hummed. Our dog, Dram, lay flat out and snoozed in the warm sun. I am not sure how long we lingered there bathed in light and scent.

Beyond the basin containing bog and lochs, the land rises quickly. We followed the path as it eel-wriggled about the foot of knobbled hills carefully planted with native trees a few years ago. This place is changing. The new fences and plantations have disrupted the movement of deer through this back country. Sphagnum is disappearing once again from the hillsides where trees are growing. The dynamics of wildlife communities are responding and adapting to the new conditions. 

Soon the path rises steeply into clusters of mature birch, rowan and hazel. Chattering and busy birds whisked through sprangles of green and yellow light. And strewn across the path were dozens of butterworts, their livid green leaves like stars, their bright blue flowers opening to the dappled sunlight.

Beyond the trees the path overlooks a small and hidden valley and a broad winding river. There are hut circles here, remnants of lives lived over two thousand years ago when the landscape of lochans and burns contained more patches of woodland than today. The valley and hut circles are overlooked by a small hill whose name, Sithean an Loch Clàir, expresses the magic of a place that perhaps once had its own fairy tribes.

Eventually, the rising path escapes the gaze of the fairy knoll and Loch Bad a’ Chrotha appears below, its fringe of oaks a green-gate to the tarmac-road home. The magical, secretive world of bog and mead and magic knolls is left behind.

The Cailleach’s hammer

Just as January became February thunder and lightning swept through the mountains. A final furious berating by Beira, the Cailleach, Queen of Winter? I very much doubt it. Winters here have a habit of returning in brutal, fast-moving surges, always fighting the return of spring.

January has come and gone with ‘hare and tortoise’ changes of speed. Time has both stood still and galloped away. I am blaming covid. As the new year began, I was finally caught; my whole family were. As someone who shielded for two years until the Scottish programme was effectively ended, I had been anxious about its effect on my immune system, a system already compromised, and anxious too, for the children and their little ones. They (we) have all been so careful, but clearly not careful enough.

We went south for Christmas and New Year, for a long-awaited family gathering, all of us testing before our journeys began, all virus-free, testing again during our time together. Quite how the virus found us, we are still not sure. We had been together for almost two weeks when it struck, all starting with symptoms within a day or two of each other. Presumably the same source infected us all. From the youngest at eight months to the eldest, attacks came in different ways and with differing degrees of severity. Soon it began to feel wickedly personal, as if the virus had specific business with each one of us, with deliberate and targeted impacts on our bodies. Some recovered quickly, some of us are even now struggling with coughs, aches and pains.

I think illness, wrapped up with concern and nursing, warped time. At our worst, we helped look after small ones at their worst, while parents struggled to deal with their own symptoms and lack of sleep. The days lengthened and shrank in peculiar drifts, passing very slowly then incredibly quickly. As we started to feel better, in some unspoken way we began to recognise the need for space and a gentle return to ‘normal’. So we came home, avoiding human contact, masked and apprehensive, still feeling dreadful, guilty leaving the youngsters behind.

Once here, recovery stalled. We tried to get on with work on the croft, but I could only manage short walks with the dog. Their purpose was to gulp down the fresh Highland air; I desperately wanted it. I watched the sea from my favourite small space at the top of the cliff.

My first sight of the sea after covid fever dreams was a blessing. Such strange, otherworldly colours, the lines of light and thick drenches of cloud. I let snow clouds rush past, gusts of cold wind wrap around my body, and salted ice settle on my cheeks and eyelashes.  When stillness came, biting frost seared my cheeks and bursts of light warmed my back. There is healing to be had even in the harshest weather, in the stark glare of a fierce winter sun. I love it all.

Squalls flew towards us over the Minch with thunder hanging on their coattails; others ran through the mountains with bright frills of ice-white around their deep purple hearts. On several dark days, the only light came from within high tumults of cloud and a sea shivering in arctic blues, from white foaming waves cresting the shore and the wings of geese as they flew over the croft. As wind speeds increased, the storm clouds shredded then coalesced; mountains appeared then vanished. Biting cold filled every nook and cranny, wrangling into the house.

Often the dark grey roof-slate skies rippled with strange granular light while pinprick beams of pale yellow struggled to reach the valley. We tumbled through those days, washed, rinsed and blown dry. We alternated between feeling good then a few short hours later, wanting desperately to sleep. Strange effects on both body and mind, temporal shifts, strange tastes and scents in the air. Recovery then relapse, in time with the storm winds and flickering light.

Bursts of sudden calm restored us. We felt ready for action, happy to get on with the business of preparing the croft for spring, blessed by blissfully blue gold and silver mornings. The gentle air breathed in time with the sea, and I forced my own breaths to match the deep pull of cold air and long sigh of release.

But after each spell of glacial calm, beyond their sunsets of red and orange, we watched sooty smudges and smears of high distant cloud, warning of wilder weather gathering again over the Atlantic.

One day the Outer Hebrides and Skye completely vanished. The Minch was covered by bling, fragments of precious jewels thrown across the green sea, skittering about and flashing brightly, the turbulent glittery sea in stark contrast to the dull sepia and rust of our fields and surrounding bogland.

During the last week of January squalls clustered together as storms. Nameless, violent January storms. With every one, great clouds lifted high overhead, ink-blue and murderous, then dissipated in tufts and fluffs of dirty cotton. Snow-melt and torrential rains filled the burns. As they ran in spate, they re-sculpted the beach, meeting and fighting with cacophonies of waves. The Red River spilled out over the croft. The ground squelched and leaked black water with every step. But gradually, ever so slowly, each new bunch of storm clouds also carried brief hugs of warmth and light. Now the light is more than a ghost, it has heft.

Then, on January 26, in unison with a spell of rainbow coloured calm and waters still enough to be written upon by breaths of air flowing from croft to sea, song thrushes began to sing, their voices lifting around the croft, so full of life and joy and determination, they made me cry. I think I was crying with relief, at the thought of winter passing and hints of spring. I wept too for all the losses, not just the wilder creatures lost in storms but for those lost to covid. Since the virus struck my family I have constantly talked about how lucky we all were, how blessed. The wildness of the weather is also humbling; it is not only the pandemic causing damage, but shifting patterns in nature, the intensification of storms, their increasing frequency. We are all bound up together, nature, weather, people, place.

There is much to be hopeful for too. Although the croft is still drenched and sodden after all the snow and rain, here and there, next to small rocks are piles of snail shells, song thrush kitchens, evidence of very busy lives. There is otter spraint on the riverbank by the old silver birches and in sheltered spots, small groups of flies briefly glitter as they dance. The return of life is a promise held in lemon yellow beams of sunlight and crevices of almost-warmth.

The thrushes sang strongly through the latest big storm, this end-of-the-month unnamed storm that roared in over a sea made of azurite and malachite, and is still blowing hard.

I do not know if the thunder woke the wildlife at midnight on January 31st, but as I got up and looked out at the dark, I saw the Cailleach’s hammer glinting as she smote the hills. She will not give up so easily; she is not finished with us yet. There is more wild weather to come.

To the Winter Solstice

Snow lies on the mountains and until the sun rises over Maol Ruadh, the low dark red-brown hill bordering our valley, they are all pink and purple and dusky rose. On the peaks of Torridon, after a few days of wintry showers, the drifts will be deep, the white dazzling.

The ground is shrink-wrapped. Everything has hunkered down or huddled together. Around the croft are patches of ice, frozen hail and thin drifts of snow. We rarely get a complete covering of snow so close to the sea; here, there is always a breeze laden with salt. But just occasionally the Arctic comes to South Erradale. For a few days ice has rimed the grasses and rushes and mounds of dung in the meadows. Only heathers and bog myrtle are free of frost and snow. Caught in the morning light, myrtle glows rusty red. It sings to me, and I feel compelled to gather a few buds and scratch them to release the tightly enfolded perfume. There. Breathe in deeply. The living world in incense.

Recent weather has been both brutal and benign. Snow squalls riding on the Cailleach’s storm coat-tails steal the light and run away with warmth. Beira, Queen of Winter, the Cailleach, rides her wolf across the skies, bringing tumult and fierce cold. Her storm clouds are wolf-pelt grey and tangled.

Standing at my favourite go-to place – an old strainer post at the cliff’s edge near my home who’s gnarled wood offers scant protection from winds so cold my eyes ache – I have watched sunset skies blaze with the colours of heat and fire and furnace. Then in small pockets of shelter on the croft or local beach, I have whipped off my wooly hat in sunlight so bright and warm it has made the ground steam.

Over the last 48 hours winds have been running swiftly down the Minch. Nor’easterlies and northerlies are cruel. They delight in finding our weak spots; they trick and tease us, bringing bright white light one minute and coal-dust dark the next. There have been sunsets mottled with orange and turquoise, and sunrises of blood-red and purple. Red sky at night, red sky in the morning – Beira has been toying with us.

On Sunday, the first day of bitter cold and bright sunshine, we drove to Applecross, to see the Bealach na Bà without regiments of tourists. It was minus 9 at the top of the pass. My legs struggled to get going but I laughed with excitement at the wind and filled up with joy at the views. From the nearby summit a full panoply of peaks and mountain ranges opened. A grandiflora rose in full bloom, landskein and layers for petals.

Since then, in between jobs on the croft and Christmas preparations, we have wandered back and forth to our local beaches, snatching the dwindling hours of daylight whenever possible. Colour has come and gone, stolen by drifts of light and the pull of competing darknesses. Once, for a few calm hours at low tide, Opinan’s peach sands were decorated with symbols and shapes, where waves and sediments carefully measured and crafted repeating patterns, or drew strange organic structures – trees and roots and creatures from other worlds.

When winds turn to the north, the whole character of the sea changes. Colour, sound, the way it moves, what it does to the little beach. The relationship between the north wind and our coast is feistier, more so than wind from any other direction. Waves generated by northerlies are filled with noise and energy, they are tall and strong, broad and long, and generate mists and spume. Even if the winds themselves fade the sea contains such latent power the waves continue, darkly green and luminous, booming and resonating.

During these winter days, the croft settles itself into slumber. In such drenching cold, the living turf closes in on itself. Life has been absorbed back into the soil, and now the cold itself acts as a blanket, tucking in all the loose odds and ends and smoothing out the surface. Although it looks severe, this tightening and shrinkage will protect the earth against further extreme cold or intense rains and wind, and will keep vital carbon locked in. There are many places around the valley and beyond where the protective envelop of green has been lost. When heavy rains return, soil will be washed into the sea, and lost for good.

Three young Welsh mountain ponies are staying with us for a couple of weeks. They have a small section of croft to nibble at and the old byre for shelter. I pulled open a small bundle of their hay and the scent of summer poured out. I tried not let my mind run forward to haymaking, to the abundances of summer. Under our feet this year’s seeds lie, buried in darkness and frozen, but they are the golden source of next summer’s hay. Even with all this reduction and freezing and lack of colour, the promise of renewal is there, all wrapped up.

This mountainous part of the country possesses the ability to alter time and perspective. Our days shorten swiftly and vigorously. The winter solstice approaches. Christmas is coming.  As I write, official sunrise at this latitude is 08.55 but the sun does not actually breach the hills for another thirty minutes. When it comes, there is a fanfare of golden light. While we wait, the croft fills with pale lavender light and dark purple shadows, and the Red River runs blue.

The sun sets beyond the Old Man of Storr on the Trotternish peninsula of Skye, some fifteen minutes before its appointed time. On good weather days the great peaks of Skye are bathed in all the colours of a rainbow and the sea gathers the last rays of light. At other times, shafts and beams of pale gold may be sifted out of the darkest denim blues and plum-jam coloured sea. And on a clear day, all the hills reflect the heavens and seem to be made of glass, pure blue Murano glass.

This is a dynamic, turbulent and wickedly playful time of the year, no more so than when great squalls and snowstorms sprint through the gap between the Outer Isles and mainland and sweep past us.

They drag the light with them. They radiate light from within. They shine as if made of glitter and tinsel and Christmas baubles. They dance; they writhe. This is the kind of weather I truly love – great fistfuls of billowing storm clouds and fighting, snarling showers. But with myrtle buds in one hand and a scoop of frost in the other, I am ready for the shortest days of the year.

Light from the dark

There is a point on a journey home when the sense of homecoming is physically palpable and so strong you exhale slowly and deeply because you feel you have in fact already arrived.

For me, there is one such place at the head of Glen Docherty, where the A832 crosses the watershed between two great basins, one containing Loch Maree, the other, Loch a’ Chroisg. This is a special transition, from east to west, from light to dark, from considerable age to deep time, from a former life into the magic of a new one. Even though there is another 25 miles or so to South Erradale, I am struck by the same visceral sense of having stepped through a portal every single time we pass over the 200m col and begin our descent into the Glen.

Here, the sharpness of eastern light metamorphoses into the gentle illumination of the west. Here, the whole valley, grand and long enough to hold the 14 miles of Loch Maree, directs my eye away from mighty summits on either side to the source of the light I know is there – the distant sea. There is always a hint of pale turquoise or silver or the seep of sunset gold born from air that has travelled across an ocean.

The moment of crossing is joyous. I feel bathed in the romance of the west and its gorgeous light. I sense home. I feel at home.

There’s more. At this point the landforms and landscape transfigure. We pass over rock strata that are ancient (the Moine Schists more than 500 million years old) onto geology that defines this part of Wester Ross, rocks old beyond imagining including the Torridonian sandstones (1-2 billion years) and Lewisian Gneiss (2-3 billion years). The road crossing the col into Glen Docherty takes us from the relatively young into the Archaean, up and over the evidence of tremendous tectonic upheaval geology has named the Moine Thrust.

The softer mountain landscapes to the east are beautiful but these mountains in the west to me seem crafted by fantasy. Their pinnacles and spires and saw-toothed tortured turrets are superb, their grand shapes and forms universally recognised. Combined with the special light of the west this land passes from remarkable to superlative. And I cannot help but deeply feel the shifting and transitioning of not only light, but of the earth herself.

Most bare rock looks grey or brown, weathered and chemically altered by algae and bacteria, mosses and lichens, plant roots, by time spent under soil or water. Many boulders and exposures are covered by lichen in patchwork colours. Only when we break open a rock can we see the truth – Torridonian sandstones may be peach or purple or crimson, gneiss can be rich deep green or burgundy, its quartz veins anything from white to rose to orange. Weathered ancient rock influences our perceptions of light and a landscape’s hues, possibly even our attitude to landscape, after all, many great peaks are named for their colours as well as their topography.  And yet newly exposed rock releases the light and colours of earth’s remote past; they reveal the geographical processes of the Archaean and the environmental conditions in which these sediments were formed. For me, this is sensational. As we cross the Glen Docherty threshold, all such thoughts crowd in but as the west falls open before us, the magic begins.

Of course, the view down the Glen today would not be quite so colourful. There is a November hoolie blowing as I write. Typical late autumn weather. Through my attic window great sheets of white billow across the bogland opposite the house. The sloping valley sides are invisible behind curtains of rain. From the opposite window, I can see the Red River running through the croft, its turbulence is dark, metallic, and unwholesome. The river’s race westwards has the power to swallow anything and everything and spit it out into the sea.

On days like this it can be hard to remember the bright light of summer or the delicious colours of fresh cut rock. The heavy dark blanket dampens spirits. Water pours over and around boulders and rocky slabs until they darken to coal-black. Yet there is still light within these Atlantic lows. They can turn the skies and sea into cascades of blues and greys, in tones and hues of every conceivable type. Everywhere one looks there is motion and changing colour.

The light of the west, even under storm skies, is special. It jostles with rushing clouds and fights with torrential rains, growing and swelling where least expected. Light emanates from rock and sea and plant life and moving water. Features are transformed by transient darknesses, our perceptions of shape and form are altered. Light swells and pulses in different ways, and drags our moods along for the ride.

Over the last few weeks the autumn winds have been deepening and strengthening. By the shore waves are taller and bring spindrift and sea-salted caramel-coloured froth to the beach. Sands are piled high then dragged away. Under fast-moving skies spells of sunlight are supercharged then cloud cover darkens to midnight-blue. Across the Minch the Outer Isles simmer in hot orange then squid ink black. The flicker-flitter of light and dark is testament to the speed of changing weather.

Today’s gusts are noisy and the rain biblical. This is the second day of awful weather but there could be worse to come over the winter. It is too early for the big storms, I say to myself. But a corner of my mind whispers perhaps not. Everything is changing. Everything has changed since the pandemic. This place is in flux. The weather is having hot menopausal flushes and temper tantrums. I am not certain what to expect this winter.

Yet even when we drive over Glen Docherty on such as day as this, while silently and internally marvelling at the geology, I can only exhale loudly and laugh in astonishment again, for the magic of the west is still visible, over there, in the distance, calling me home.