FAVOURITE PLACES
I am not too sure that I have a favourite place but I do have many favourite places; some of which are characterised by emptiness and solitude.
I have memories of being in deserts where there is a deep silence or at sea where you know that over the horizon there is no human and other that horizon is no human nor the next nor the next nor the next, just the waves, the wind, the clouds. Somehow such places fill me with exhilaration as does the sound of sand whispering in the high wind on a long white beach, or snow being whipped into the air on a mountain ridge.
I also like glades between the trees with a river nearby, where I have lain in the grass among the birdsong to cuddle and kiss with Wendy. I like tumbling waterfalls and trickling burns among the heather. I like to sit on a log and fall into the daze of the soft wind. I love to walk on a snowy day hand in hand with Wendy, laughing at what she is saying, watching the glitter of distant hills and the gleam of newly melted frost. I like to stand on a hill while the children shriek and thick snowflakes swirl in the air and the dark day does little to dim our excitement and steamy breath.
Favourite places come with sounds and smells. One of the best is in the dark of the night hearing the trains whistle; hoping it is the London Sleeper taking someone to the start of some long adventure and another is the house when Dash is barking on the cats and James is shouting with excitement upstairs to someone from his Xbox and Wendy and Charlotte are wittering to each other while they draw portraits and something, no one is watching on telly, carries on filling in the silent spaces.
There are gardens I love, Glenarn in spring with its myriad different blossoms, its magnolia and rhododendrons; Gleistone with its daffodils and bluebells and tawny river. There are so many places! All those places in the Highlands; watching the woodpecker on the birdfeeder being replaced by red squirrels and the occasional pheasant eating the seeds on the ground with the sometimes dramatic disturbance of deer in the garden. East Beach in Nairn when it is frozen and covered in snow feeling incongruous with its concrete feel when walking on the sand. The Lilly loch, a friend’s kitchen where we drink coffee and chatter and smell the wood and the coffee grounds. That wonder at Loch Maree where the gale raged and the sky was black with cloud and the wind blew the waterfalls back on themselves.
But those are mainly old memories. Ardmore, with the seals, the coconut smell of gorse in spring, the rich mud smell, the seaweed smell, the sweetness of dog roses as we round a corner, the lap of water on the grass or the slight ripple of it on the beach and sometimes the rhythmic crash of the sea on the rocks with their yellow lichen . So many birds and Dash the dog sniffing every bush, the blink of flocks of oyster catchers as they catch the sun and turn bright white and then wheel away and almost disappear as their black backs merge into sky. That sudden whoop, whoop, and the honking of the geese as they fly low over the hedge, to land in a nearby field.
Best though is my bed. The very, very, best is when Wendy is in it too and we are cuddled up, talking whispering, laughing, making shapes with our arms and fingers in the air above us; kissing but a very, very, close second is when I am alone as I am just now: lying in bed, my lap top propped on my legs, the radio on, Dash sleeping on the chair, knowing there are others in the house but I am here under no obligation, not having to perform or talk or think. Or in bed lost in my own world, maybe about to read a book, sip a whisky, maybe drift into sleep.
It is also wonderful when I wake; maybe three in the morning, maybe with moonlight coming through the velux windows, soft with sleep, startled and amused by the latest and weirdest of dreams, staring into the dark; unalarmed, sleepy; knowing there are hours before I need to get up, knowing I will drift in and out of sleep and reality, free to stretch out in slow exquisite laziness.
I swither; is it winter with frozen icicles or a sluggish slushy sea, or summer with the drone of bees and a warm hint, but just a hint of a breeze? Is it when the rain pelts my face and I feel alive? Or when I sit on a bench after the summers heat has passed a little and read a book while sipping at a drink? Is it when I am alone and free, or when I have Wendy all to myself? Maybe it is when the whole family are gabbling and running and generally being gleeful or maybe those times when I sit in company buzzing with the bliss of connection, or when I am lost in a book, lost in thought, or lost in the movement of my body in the bright winters air? So many, many, choices; so lucky to have them!
(Photos Ardmore and my sofa bed. January 2022)
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