Highland Insider

In his book Island Years, Frank Fraser Darling described how he and his family were affected by living in a place that had almost constant high winds. On the occasional days that were calm, they found all they wanted to do was lie around, relaxing and relishing the stillness (and presumably the relief from having to chase their belongings around the island every time they dropped something).

We’re getting a sense of that here on the west coast. As we expected it’s much milder than it was in the eastern hills, but also much wilder. I like it. When I got homesick for the wildness of Scotland after living in a very pretty part of Yorkshire for a few years, it was the wind that symbolised it for me. The wind here is the one that I missed: it pulls no punches, it blasts and gusts and howls and hammers with no apology; it’s almost as if it knows folk can cope with whatever it throws at them.

And folk do. There’s none of the hysteria that you get from the national media about gales and storms. People just batten down the hatches, weigh down the wheelie bins and get on with life. When it all calms down there will be an ad or two in the Ullapool News inviting the owner of some inadequately battened article to come and collect it from the garden on the other side of the village where it came to rest. Then we can savour the stillness, until next time.

There are a lot of artists, artisans and writerly types in Ullapool. It would be easy for an insular wee community like this to take itself a bit too seriously, but thankfully that’s far from the case. You only need to read the letters page of the brilliant Ullapool News to see evidence of a fine willingness to poke a bit of fun at everyday life and its absurdities. Or tune in to the most eclectic music selection on the planet on Lochbroom FM.

I hope I’m not jumping the gun by forming an opinion after only three months of living here, but for me the Ullapool attitude is summed up in this photo from the beach. I don’t know who put the first old fisherman’s glove on a fence post but the idea has been enthusiastically taken up by passers-by who all seem to have an eye for a nice line of repeated shape and colour and a good sense of the ridiculous. There are a couple of dozen there, all sticking up like the hands of a class full of kids all eager to speak out. And that’s another Ullapool trait…

Being woken earlier than you want to be is a feature of living in the countryside. When we moved to our house in Nairnshire, there were some hens and a cockerel already resident (abandoned by the previous occupiers) and we soon got used to Mr Oats crowing at the top of his voice any time from about 2am onwards in the summer. After one particularly frustrating morning which saw me in my nightie and wellies flinging open the hen house door and yelling SHUT UP! at a row of bewildered blinking hens, we admitted defeat and re-sited the run at the far end of the garden.

Then there were the baby swallows that went mad every morning when their breakfast was brought – right outside our bedroom window. And the cuckoo on the telegraph wire behind the holiday cottage. And the seagull tapdancing on the caravan roof…

This morning it was an enthusiastic robin serenading a lamp-post just outside the house. It was 4.45am. I turned over, started to feel annoyed, then noticed how beautiful the sound was. The wind had dropped at last and the music was streaming out of the silent night. I lay there for a while just listening and eventually drifted off again. Lovely.

A wee gang of wigeon have been gathering by the shore of the loch over the past few days. There were about a dozen when the PL first noticed them, increasing to thirty-one last time we were able to count them.

The reason we can’t always count them is that sometimes we walk past that spot in the evening, when we’re taking Nosy Norris for her late walk. Then all that can be seen is the reflection of moonlight or the flashing marker buoys on the dark water, but we can still hear the birds chuntering among themselves. It’s a lovely sound, the more gutteral calls punctuated with what sounds like a mini swanee-whistle, reminiscent of the whooOOo0 of the eider ducks.

I don’t know why I’m always surprised that ducks are so beautiful, but somehow I never expect it. Wigeon certainly are, especially the males with their golden foreheads and rosy breasts. I don’t know whether they’ll stay here for the winter or head somewhere further south. We’ll just watch and see, and that’s the pleasure of living among wild things and learning about them day by day. We got to know our local wildlife in Nairnshire so well, I thought I’d miss that familiarity when we moved. To some extent I do, but it’s quite exciting to have a whole new cast of regulars to become familiar with. Like making new friends.

No posts since June, but I have a note from my mum to say I was too busy upping sticks to log on.

You’ll notice the view at the top of the page has changed. We’ve left Nairnshire and headed west to that magical bit of coast where our hearts have been twiddling their thumbs for years, waiting for us to catch up with them and move there. It took longer than planned as Nairnshire turned put to be more lovely and interesting than we ever expected, but we wrenched ourselves away at last and here we are, in a seaside village, renting a house while we look for our own place.

The view’s certainly different – it’s weird to be living on a street again, even a small, quiet one, after years in the hills. But just beyond the streetlamps are hills more rugged and sunlit than any we had before, and just round the corner is Loch Broom leading out to sea and the Summer Isles. So we’re happy to be here for a while, enjoying the convenience of having two bookshops and several pubs and cafes nearby, not to mention the local market which is a treat for anyone keen on beautiful arts and crafts and seriously good food. The market is only on once a month during the winter so we’re looking forward to our first visit on Saturday.

Nosy Norris is missing the woods but loving the beach and riverside, and making us lots of new acquaintences whenever we take her out.

The village is a lively wee place and we’re almost overwhelmed with the sudden choice of things to do. Which pub to try this time? A potter in one of the bookshops? A live music session? There’s even a cinema in a van that parks up every few weeks. We’ve got a few months here to try them all, if we want to. But we won’t forget to just sit back now and again, and enjoy our new view.

The slate sphere fountain at Cawdor Castle

Our recent visit to Cawdor Castle was partly to check out a new piece of art that’s been added to the gardens. We’d seen it being lifted in by helicopter a few weeks ago and were curious to see it in position. There are already three other sculptural pieces there, all of which I love: a copper fountain in the Paradise Garden and my favourites, the paired sphere and semi-circular bench representing the sun and moon in the Slate Garden. (See above, and look here for the artist’s website.) So I was anticipating something quite special. 

I read in the press that the new addition was a ‘Tree of  Life’, designed by artist Tim Pomeroy from Arran and cast in bronze by local company Black Isle Bronze. This got me even more interested. I liked the concept. I love anything in bronze. I reckoned it was going to be spectacular. 

But it wasn’t. 

It’s not that the bronze isn’t beautiful. It’s very tactile, and up close the details of the twigs, leaves and planetary symbols are delicate and intricate. There’s a sun, a golden disc that sits in the branches  which some of the other folk in our party loved. It did glow wonderfully, even on the overcast day that we visited, but I thought it looked strangely out place plonked among the branches of an oak tree (one with curiously few leaves) as if it was trapped there. It reminded me of the old story where the sun is captured and dragged down to earth with ropes. 

I liked the way the tree is set in the ground so it looks like it’s growing there but now, looking at the photos we took, I think that may be part of the problem. In a room or a small flower garden this bronze oak would look magnificent. But ‘planted’ at the end of an orchard full of big old lichened fruit trees it looks a bit puny. Maybe it will come into its own in winter when the other trees are bare too. See what you think. 

The Tree of Life in the Walled Garden

The sun has fallen!

White over in June

I usually avoid talking about the weather here, but yesterday’s was so spectacular, and apparently so localised, that it deserves a mention.

It was around five o’clock, after a dull afternoon, that we had an inch of rain dumped on us with no warning in the space of a couple of minutes. It was accompanied by enormous, pellet-shaped hailstones which left the garden white.

 I’d left my walking boots outside the back door and they were filled to the top in seconds.

 The PL was driving home at the time and missed the whole thing. He reported that, at the bottom of the hill (about three miles away) the ground was completely dry; half way up it became wet; but only at our house did the white appear.

Later, when the rain stopped, a warm mist rose up from the earth and we had a lovely soft sunset, straight out of a romantic movie.

Fast changes of weather are a feature in the highlands, but yesterday’s was so sudden it had me staring out of the window with my mouth open. 

Ardmair Bay from the campsite

Every week The Guardian newspaper invites readers to send in travel tips. Last week’s subject was ‘Beachside Campsites Around the World’ so I sent in a tip about Ardmair Point in Wester Ross which I’ve written about before, here.

My tip was selected for printing in Saturday’s travel section and if you’re looking for a good beachside campsite, you can read it online here. You can also search for the other tips in the section, including one about Skye and one on Mull – Scotland was well represented!