First, to the Barbican in London, for the launch of Evald Flisar’s latest novel.
The next day, to Brentford. At the Musical Museum, along with inspiring speakers, including Terry Boardman and Andy Thomas, I talked about the reprint of my book about travels with the musician John Renbourn, Every Shade of Blue.
Back to Joy’s at Folkestone the next day, and after that, a visit to Margate.
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| Margate's colourful house & shop fronts |
After this hectic social round, I head to the Isle of Bute, for sea and sunshine.
West Island Way, Argyll & Bute, Scotland
I had this whole beach to myself. Red sand, red rocks, with spindly black seaweed on them and stars, whole constellations of limpets on the rocks. Seabirds, lots of them. Seagulls, oystercatchers and others I don’t know.
The walk begins at Kilchattan Bay. I took the bus from Rothesay and arrived there after 10 am.
First – go close to the sea, greet its waves plashing on the shore, which is stones, shingle and shells. One wave also reaches my feet, runs over my boots in that intense and utterly unstoppable way that waves have. I step back but not quickly enough. The sun came out after a cloudy start. There is no one else here, no one in sight, for the village of Kilchattan is already behind me.
I have to walk back through it to reach the part of the West Island Way I intend walking today. I pass one person with a dog. Almost at the far end of the street – the only street in the village – behind a bus shelter, there’s a Community Garden and two women are sitting there in the sunshine, on chairs. I compliment them on the garden.
I do what I can says the elderly white-haired woman. But I can’t do as much as I used to.
She wears a turquoise cardigan, that glows in the morning light.
People seem to appreciate it here she says. The plants, herbs, flowers, the benches. The hikers come on Saturdays, there’s often groups of them, they like to sit here.
And there are chairs in the bus shelter I say, really soft, comfortable chairs!
They were donated to the garden, but they would just get wet outside so I put them in the bus shelter. Everyone is pleased with the chairs.
Past the community garden, I’m on the path. It skirts the edge of a wood and sunlight is filtered through the branches of pine trees, like streamers. I am filled with joy.
I remember a vivid turquoise cardigan I used to have. I gave it away. I don’t know why. These days I would covet its brightness.
In the next part of the path, in open ground between two fields. I meet a couple with a dog. It’s important to note this for they were the only people I met on the path, apart from a man, much further on, also walking his dog.
The path dodges a little way round a gold course, with warning signs of flying golf balls, reminding us we walk here at our own risk. There is a risk indeed, as the beach and the sea approaches and the sea is shimmering, hazy, and beyond this haze this corona of pale blue above the sea, there are shadowy mountains rising up, a risk of such beauty overwhelming. It reminds me of the lac Leman, hazy in sunlight, with the Alps beyond the water, with points of reflected sunlight dazzling on snow peaks.
So I sit down on my own whole beach, with its ribbed sand and its shadowy sentinel mountains beyond. Every single stone is a thing of beauty. And every shell. I spend a long time, every step reveals more, every exquisite stone has to be examined. Then I take off my boots and socks and wade out into the water. The first wave over my feet is icy cold, but then they get used to it and it feels natural and right, to be wading in this water. And that’s another risk, of merging with sea and haze and sprinkled light.
Further down the beach, the oyster catchers chatter and the seagulls fly from one patch of sea to another. The risk of falling into the water, the haze, the mountains beyond and the red sand, so that you never truly pull yourself away. You stay there, in this ocean and this red rock, red sand landscape, the rock all smooth and hollowed and rounded with little cups for the limpets and the mussels and other shelled creatures to drink from and rock-hug, and the limpets crowd together like a flock of birds, a starry group, patterns on the soft red rock, glinting in sunlight.
When I first came onto the path at Kilchattan, among the pine trees, my heart lifted up I could feel it shift position, into its rightful place, and open its wings – oh, the heart has wings that’s what has been missing… its element is air, flight and soaring up into the blue, with the seagulls, or skimming over sea-surface, like these small birds that fly in groups of four or half a dozen.
Some smaller red rocks are draped in lacy seaweed and look like creatures half of sand and land and half of water, a seal-species, about to move back into the water and swim and find some rock further out, to bask on.
All this sand and light and water experience is present tense, a now that lingers, stretches, turns into soft and sculpted red rock.
I walk the length of the beach looking for the next part of the path but either a signpost is missing or I don’t see it. I’m still part of the beach, I’m looking at these coloured stones and shells with rounded edges, the sand is jewel-strewn, so probably I was not looking in the right direction.
The light shifted too, became less subtle, turned into afternoon. The path, once I find it, leads away from the beach, going slightly uphill.
At the top of this track, there’s a farm. I have to climb over two gates and a herd of cows and calves is corralled inside these gates. I do my best to reassure them that I just want to slide around the side of their space, to climb over the other gate. They move away, wary rather than hostile. I hop they will not be held in such a small space for long, hope it is just temporary. For cows like to roam free, spread out across the fields. Enjoy the view out to the bay, across the sea, to the hills of the Isle of Arran.
And so the path continues, slightly uphill and looking back, there’s a fine view of the hills of Arran, clearer now than they were in the hazy morning light close to the horizon. Sounds of skylarks. And from the highest point, where there’s a marker stone they used to use in map surveying, you can see from the red rock bay on the west, right across the island to the eastern side and Kilchattan bay where I’d started. The cloud formations had swept across the sky in subtle shades of blue and grey and now the sky was overcast with the sun glowing behind the cloud cover. On this plateau, heading towards the east side of the island, I meet another person, walking his dog. Isn’t it a wonderful day he says and I agree. He is staying in the white house nearby and says he’s going to retire here. His small dog drops its ball at my feet and looks at me expectantly.
I come from here he said, and this is where we, my wife and I, would like to retire.
What better place than this? I say.
He is cheerful, he laughs, agrees, picks up the ball, throws it, and the dog runs after it.
I decide not to follow the path northwards. I’m tired now and I would like to go to the grounds of Mount Stuart and down to the sea.
But the grounds are closed. Enormous trees have fallen, uprooted. Some have already been cut up into logs but many are still lying. Splintered and broken. The recent storm was devastating for the woodland here and the grounds are closed while the fallen trees are cleared. I walk on to Kerrycroy village and wait for the next bus back to Rothesay.
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