Sandbox Blog

I’m just doing a little bit of weeding, really, you’d hardly call it gardening in this tiny postage stamp of a city street garden. Pulling up dandelions. Cutting back rose suckers. Turning over the earth.

That’s when the heathers pop out at me. Rooted now, growing, and thriving.

And I remember, suddenly, a day last summer when I walked out by Loch Fyne. A hot, sunny summer’s day when I walked out along the valley, got stuck with some cattle, jumped over some fences, got lost by a quarry, scrambled down to the water, put my feet in the river.

Sat by the river and ate my picnic, dangled my feet in the water, and kept my face from the burning sun.

I remember now going back to the cafe later, and stopping first at the garden centre nearby. Looking wistfully at plants that will only grow in the west, and thinking they’re not for me, there’s no point in buying them now. Still feel the need though, the urge, to bring back something from my trip. A little pocket of Loch Fyne.

And so I buy six twists of heather, that sit now, growing and thriving in my city garden, connecting this earth: here, to that space, that earth, that moment in time.

Remember too how forlorn she felt. How sad. How far from being in the right place.

And suddenly it all falls into place. Why I need to go west. How it calls me. And that it doesn’t need to be right here or right there, it just needs to carry that feel: of the soft sweet air, the cold clear water on my warm sunburned feet, the lure of the hills, the ridiculous kiss of the soft highland rain.

It doesn’t need to make sense to you. Just to me.

And at last, when I watch this heather growing, it does, to me.

It’s a quiet, gentle, invitation in the end.

The rain that starts to fall, with a smile, as the car drives onto the ferry boat. (Never mind the sunshine in Glasgow, it’s time for some highland rain.)

The radio playing, jauntily, in the cafe at the marina, while I gulp my morning tea.

It’s the oystercatchers who arrive, on cue, when I stop for a moment at Sandbank and drink in the sea, the hills, the holy loch. Who fly by, calling.

Oh but was that the call?

Or is it the tea drunk in a warm kitchen on a sunny Friday afternoon. An invitation to stop, to chat, to make conversation amongst a community of eccentrics, away from the conventions of the city.

The tail of the dog, thumping quietly, as she sits at the open door, watching the sunlight, waiting for the invitation to roam.

I don’t know.

Perhaps it’s the call of the ferry boat, floating above the houses, drifting above the garden that watches above the quay.

But when I stop and think I’d say it was the birdsong: calling, laughing, singing, cajoling, exuberant with delight that I was there. Singing in the garden, laughing as I climbed up the hill, nodding with approval as I crossed the line and entered the wildness of the wood.

I hear you.

I hear you.

I’m coming.

It’s a beautiful day, as I knew it would be, and my spirit soars when I set off early with a picnic in my bag.

No trouble, ever, to get up early at the weekend and drive west: to get through Glasgow and know you’re at the start of the real world.

The sun’s shining on the boat and when I arrive at Hunters Quay the noise is deafening: birds singing, chirping, tweeting, chirruping, laughing. They are celebrating my being there. I cannot believe I will wake up each morning and hear their joyful celebration.

The air is balmy: soft, sweet, deliciously May time.  It can only be a sunny May day in the west Highlands.

I’m nervous about the arrangements for the walk, it suddenly seems far-fetched to find the car park, and hail the bus, and the bus to arrive at the right time and take me to the right place, but I let go and trust. And the bus comes.

The walk starts at Benmore Gardens: teeming with visitors and rhododendrons ready to burst into bloom. It’s an 8 mile walk to the top of Loch Eck, along its west side, all the way from one end of the Loch to the other. The sun shines all the way.

And it’s a photo walk too, taking pictures as I go and this stopping, and noticing, and taking of pictures, oh it takes me so long to keep stopping and taking and walking and stopping. It adds a good hour to a four hour walk.

But it’s worth it. I find hidden treasures. Tiny red thistles, just waiting to be admired. Outrageous gorse bushes, firing up yellow to the heavens. Purple rhododendrons, blooming and in bud. Tiny hedgerow flowers: weeds really, that you’d normally walk past without a glance. But look what happens when you stop, bend down, pay attention, whisper “thank you”.

Look how much beauty you find.

Towards the end of the walk I lie down in the grasses. Oh yes, it’s partly because I’m tired and it’s hot, but it’s mainly because it’s the best way I know to get up close and personal with the Highlands. To lie down on the warm, rough ground, and look out through the moorland grasses. Breathe in her scents. Watch through that grassy frame. Let the landscape move, softly, as the grasses bend in the wind.

It’s a feeling of perfect contentment. Of being at peace, at ease, of being in precisely the right place at precisely the right moment in time.

And giving thanks.