Retreat! Retreat!

We all had such a magical time on Tanera Mor in September (see my previous blog post about our week in September) that I've decided to do it again in September 2012.

A writing retreat is a special time. It's a chance to really get your teeth into a new project, to get some pages of that novel under your belt, to draft some new poems, or just to sit back, relax, wander and wonder and recharge your creative batteries.

I've been running retreats since 2006 and I've come to the conclusion that what works well is a loose, mostly unstructured week. There will be a 'creative warm-up' session, writing together for an hour in the morning, a couple of walks out and the odd other mini-workshop to stir up ideas. All activities are optional and your time is your own. I'm always happy to read work in progress and give feedback in confidence, and there'll be lots of opportunities to share your writing with others, especially around the fire in the evenings.

In terms of practicalities, the retreat will be based in one (or more, depending on numbers) of the cottages on the island. The kitchen will be stocked for us to help ourselves to breakfast and lunch and we'll have dinner cooked for us. The price includes the boat trip to and from the island and a cruise around the Summer Isles. There are different prices for different sizes of rooms.

It will be the week of 1-7 September 2012. Contact Lizzie to book or for more details see the Summer Isles website.

Hope to see you in Tanera next year. I'm looking forward to it already!

Fourth and final tiny poetry film - Two Boats

Here's the fourth and last of the four little Loch Roe films Bill has made out of my poems. It started life as a concrete poem called 'Invisible', but nobody seemed to get it, so I changed the name to Two Boats, so you can guess what it's about.

They're both Bill's boats. The dinghy is called Ripples. The big one is his fishing boat, Vigilance (side on, she's just like a Chinese boot). Although his days of making his living in Vigilance are over, he lavishes most of each summer fixing her up to get through the winter. She's an old tender to the lighthouse supply ship, the Pole Star.

two boats from Bill Ritchie on Vimeo.

Zen gardener

Another tiny poem video in honour of the loch.


zen gardener from Bill Ritchie on Vimeo.

And now, given what an utterly glorious day it is, I shall go and do a little mindful gardening myself.

We had the first real frost of the year last night, and woke to a peach cloudless sky over a starched white world. The morning walk took me past the veggie beds, and it's satisfying to see the dug soil crackling with frost. I got the last of the tatties out just in time.

Unfortunately a deer has broken through the fence and devoured the brassicas. So there's net-mending to tbe done. I shall endeavour to remain serene.

Foam

Another video-poem in celebration of the good times to be had beside Loch Roe.

foam from Bill Ritchie on Vimeo.

Seals

On a calm, warm morning like this there is nothing better in the world than to sit on the deck by the caravan at the shore and watch the loch. The season for living there is over, but we miss it, Fortunately it's just a stroll away. We put Kelly kettle in the bag, gathering some dry heather on the way down, then settle in for tea and wait to see who's about.

A curious face bobs up, then glides towards us. Snub nosed, soft eyed and alert, there's no doubt it is coming right in to give us its full attention. It feels like a greeting. It's a common seal. It reaches its body out of the water to scrutinise us. We gaze right back.

The seal sinks below the surface. Circles of ripples radiate out, glistening with sunshine. Its sleek body emerges out of the water with a porpoise's curve, then slices back in. Under the surface it must be powering along. It leaps again, another arc, right out of the water this time, before plunging back under. Then again, with another tremendous surge, as if trying to take flight. By now it's right across the loch beside the skerry. Surfacing, it splooshes into the seaweed. Playing now - a splashing backflip. Then a cruise (panting, surely), head up looking in our direction.

We clap and call 'bravo!' It sets off again, throwing itself up in virtuoso bounds back towards the shore. Its final lunge takes it up onto the bow, cushioned by bladderwrack, where it squiggles up onto the top. There it lies, back-bending into a banana-shape, scratching, flicking its flippers and twisting its tail.

It's a perfect morning for basking, but this young seal is too restless to slouch today. Perhaps it is waiting for another seal to play with, or to squabble about who will get the perfect rock spot for a low-tide snooze.

I've spent endless hours enthralled by these animals, and inevitably a few poems about them have emerged. Here is a tiny one, the first of four of my mini poems which Bill has set to film.

seals from Bill Ritchie on Vimeo.

I'll post the others up here in due course.

Neolithic, Iron Age and Clearance-period poems

I read these poems at the ceilidh in Drumbeg last night, and was asked to post them here.

Over recent years I have written stacks of poems and stories inspired by the stone remains of past inhabitants of Assynt. Last night was the grand finale of the Life and Death in Assynt's Past project (see the project diary here), and it seemed appropriate to read last night one from each of the three periods we have been looking at in this project.

Here they are. The first is about a neolithic chambered cairn I am credited with finding, and it's now known as Mandy's Cairn (or Carn a' Mhandy!) - very exciting indeed to have made an archaeological discovery! The second came from a walk to a possible Iron Age round house in Glenleraig with a very old wall, likely to be a cattle enclosure. The third was inspired by a huge fin whale washed up on Raffin beach, and the pre-clearance township ruins on the south side of Loch Druim Suardhalain.

Chambered Cairn (NC 24051450)

A shrine tumbles up from 5000 years or so ago
into this breezy secular present.

Stones offer a threshold
where dead and living crossover

a territory edge to wonder
where understanding might begin.

Trying to trick nature
to slough below the surface
asking if body-mind is divisible from spirit

I climb inside the neolithic cairn
enter a portal
allow cogs to turn.

I will re-emerge from this tomb
a ghost from the future
in an ancient time.

Were the dead known then?
Was then closer to now then?
Do these doors open?


Proof of iron age cheese

A tumbled line of dyke may tell which side is inside:-
    a wall’s steep face shows where livestock stayed;
    even faces mean winter in but summer out.

Mossy stones:-
    cattle mooing,
    grassy breath and hairy hides…

                crowdie.

Around the lost

circumambulate the washed-up whale
make a circuit of a Clearance ruin

encircle a mystery
pay out a little awe

recognise a sofa-sized tongue
wonder at its song

reach arms out to an angel tail
to people long ago

before these houses tumbled
when trees grew not inside the walls

these heaved-together stones
like that giant baleen

still speak of home
of lives lived where we cannot go

Who goes there? Mink or otter?

Great excitement this morning when we checked the footprint trap - a paw mark! Mink or otter?

This afternoon we went back with ruler, camera and mammal book. We're pretty confident it's an otter print - 7cm would be the Big Foot of the mink race. Phew!

Otters are of course very welcome and we're very grateful that one has taken an interest in what we're up to!