Afternoon in Lerwick . . .

One rainy, gray afternoon, we walked
along the narrow, cobbled streets of Lerwick,
to find a knitting shop 
tucked around a corner,
The Spider's Web, 
the sign did not invite us in.

Instead we stopped for ginger beer,
and as the sun collapsed
into the sea, we took the ferry
back to the Mainland,
knowing without saying
we would never return.

I still remember this ginger beer for it hints at my second book, Years of Stone, set in Australia, then just a glimmering of an idea that began on this trip to Scotland. We had spent hours at the museum in Lerwick. More about that tomorrow!

A crofter's cottage . . .

A crofter's cottage made of stone,
its roof of grasses tied down with rope,
a heap of peat stacked neatly nearby,
A boat upended becomes the roof of a storage shed;
a few sheep in the field overlooking a gray sea,
empty fields marked by stones.

We step inside this small two-room cottage
to find darkness leavened by tiny windows bringing light
to whitewashed walls of stone.
In the fireplace, peat smokes and burns,
banked for a slow fire, soot marks above the fireplace
where a fiddle hangs next to the gun, its powder horn nearby.

I see hard work here:  
this family had a grinder for making flour,
a pestle for pounding grains into food
no stove, food cooked at the hearth 
in heavy iron kettles,
bread rising atop the wooden lids,
the bed a wooden box to the side of the central room,
with doors to close those inside, a patched quilt, 
squares uneven to keep them warm,
no precise pattern, found fabrics not needed elsewhere,
the chair for Grandsir 
almost a coffin 
with box like sides 
to keep the draft away,
the churn nearby, 
a basket of knitting, 
another of raw wool 
to spin into thread.








Hands were never still in this house,
even the men sat of an evening making rope, 
their hands twisting and knotting, 
traps for fish, halters for horses,
baskets for carrying, 
repairing the tools used every day,
for in these old ways,
they could survive the cold times,
the hungry times.

We took these pictures at the Crofters' Museum near Lerwick, northern Scotland. I know from reading about the Clearances that these crofters were displaced by sheep during the Industrial Revolution. Everywhere you still can see empty fields marked by stone fences and the remnants of abandoned stone cottages, a sad history of struggle, survival, and loss, part of the story I wrote about in my book, Standing Stones.

Scottish stones

Traveling down the coast of western Scotland,

to Lerwick, we passed

rolling hills near the sea,

a working croft, smoke rising from its chimney,

scattered stones from walls that 

once divided fields

but that no longer

separate land from land,

and moss-covered stones 

on a bluff in an old churchyard,

testament to those long gone.

Yet the blue sky above remains

as does the land.

I will remember 

the history of these stones.

We travelled south of Lerwick to spend the day at the Croft House Museum, open only April to the end of September. Read a little about this fascinating slice of life from mid 19th Century HERE. 

Back in the days of the Industrial Revolution and before the potato famine, clearances happened all over Scotland and England as landowners evicted fishermen and crofters from traditionally-held lands to make room for sheep. The demand for wool collapsed, leaving empty fields and abandoned crofters' cottages.

Of Trains and Fort William

 I remember a train ride 
in the highlands of northern Scotland,
the famed Jacobite Train

up along the Mallaig trail 

to Fort William,

rolling hills, 

bracken turning 

golden brown in the sun,

until we came to the St. Andrews Guest House,

a restored chapel now open to touring folk

where we spent a night or two, charmed and enchanted,

to stroll through the old part of town, 

seemingly on the edge of the world, 

stopping at museums, a bakery, 

and the church of St. Andrews,

marked by gravestones and medieval arches.

Then back down the Great Glen by bus, 

the romance behind us,

the memories ahead.

Read more about the St. Andrews Guest House HERE.

Today was supposed to be a quieter day. All we did was walk along the River Ness which runs right through Inverness, houses from the 17th and 18th Century on both sides of this shallow river that runs into Moray Firth and then to the North Sea. We walked out to the Ness Islands to find a forest bordering the river, cedar and pines and the first real changes of autumn, dappling leaves green and yellow mirrored in the sometimes swift, sometimes slowly moving water.

I'm drawn to the song "Loch Lomond" and trying to find out its historical context. I read somewhere that "you take the high road" means you'll be living, while "I'll take the low road" (the road that those who have died all must take), and "I'll be in Scotland before you" means the singer who has died will return home well before his friend who must travel by horse or by foot. Most sources tie the song (written in 1841) to a reaction to the lost cause of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the fierce reprisals taken against his supporters following the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

The song is widely sung at the end of any gathering, much like the "Tennessee Waltz" by another generation in another land and time. But the plaintive "Loch Lomond" recalls real suffering and somehow fits so well these Highland hills, emptied of people by war and emigration.