Where we went part two: in the pines, in the pines

 

 

 

The above is Tentsmuir Forest, which bristles along a hump of coast North of St Andrews, and which hitherto I had not known about.

 

 

Sadly, there is no overnight parking right in this spot, where the dunes and grassland roll out forever towards the retreating sea, so we drove up to the small town of Tayport and hiked a little way back, camping in a dune edging on heather, in view of the Firth of Tay (the Tay estuary) and the lights of Broughty Ferry on the far shore.

 

 

With the tents set up, a barbeque had in the brief but nearly torrential rain, and many friendly dogwalkers greeted, we went out for a walk.

 

 

 

 

Super-saturation effect – taken at the time, to show how bright the woods were. My camera was struggling to catch their glow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That big estuary sky. We walked back to camp, then on back towards Tayport, where we had seen some World War Two defense huts still set up to watch the placid horizon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a bit of peering and scrambling and wondering, it was time for another barbeque and to watch the sun set (I should add that the first picture of the camp was taken at around 9pm, but we walked out and about earlier). The evening was in perfect light as the sun set and barred reddish gold through the trees.

 

As we started to get ready to turn in for the night, a fox came close to our tents. It circled twice, eyeing us and sniffing at where we had cooked. It was the only slightly unsettling part of our stay at Tentsmuir – how much difference can a sandy, dry heathland make to our sense of peacefulness. Even those odd remnants of war only seemed empty, catchments for dust and pine needles and graffiti. We slept well on the soft sand, though it was cold. We walked back to the car, lipping the wetlands and the huge sky overhead bore us no ill will.

 

Where we went part one: woods dark and deep(ish)

 

 

On Friday as we traveled North-West, the rains came and did not let up. Our plan to camp near Loch Fyne had to be abandoned, but we decided to have a day out anyway. We went into Cruchan, the hollow mountain – a hydroelectric scheme that was built inside Ben Cruchan in the nineteen fifties. Sadly, no photos from there as since 9/11, there has been some reluctance to let people take photographs inside working power plants. Suffice to say – the tour left lots unseen, and what was shown looked very much like a Bond villain’s lair.

 

 

 

 

But beyond that was Inveraray, a small touristy village that would be in good scenery if the mist had not closed in a little and the colours muted.Though the odd splatter of bloom provided colour against the whitewashed houses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, some places look better in the lashing rain. Textures stand out. There are fewer tourists, and the woods stand waiting.

 

 

 

 

We headed for a garden on the far shore of Loch Fyne that A had visited a year before, Ardkinglas. There was no one in the kiosk on the way in, nor anyone in the garden but us the entire time.

 

 

 

 

It was a beautiful place, managed but not manicured, full of rhododendron blossoms hanging like powder puffs, and moss and yellow- leaved skunk cabbage (which, D informed A and I, does indeed smell of skunk), a river, old stumps grown over with lichens – all hazed over, all damp and tentative in the late spring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this small respite from the rain, a hut full of poems and snippets about trees:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And further along the trail, the tallest tree in the UK, at about 64m in height:

 

 

 

 

and the widest tree in Europe:

 

 

both Firs of some sort, and just sort of there, standing stoic. Us the only witnesses.

 

I’ll leave you with one last picture of a fairy-like pool, with an odd looking tree in the middle of it. It sums up the mood of Ardkinglas quite well I think. A place to be read on a rainy day. A place hat can bear the weight of a thousand glances and still have something more to hint at below the surface.

 

 

 

 

 

We stayed on Friday night at A’s flat, in a lot more comfort than we would have been had we tried to set up camp in the downpour.  We spiked out all hopeful the next day to the East Coast. Tomorrow, I’ll post pictures here of our second adventure of the weekend – and a completely different landscape.

Where I go

I’m heading off to the hills with D and A, to camp and walk in the woods. So this space will be quiet for a few days. Before I go, two nice things:

 

1. My next Supernatural essay is going to be posted on The Female Gaze later tonight – you’ll be able to read it on that main page once it goes live. It’s about Episode 11 from Season 3, ‘Mystery Spot’. My essay likens it to Groundhog Day (for reasons that will be obvious) and also to Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘One Art’ for perhaps less obvious reasons. I hope you’ll enjoy it, and if you’re on Tumblr, share it around.

 

2.  I tried to buy Casey Hannan’s excellent Mother Ghost today, wily-like, by ordering with a gift card from Blackwell’s Bookshop. Sadly, they weren’t able to access it, so I shall have to order directly from Tiny Hardcore Press when I have the money to spare. How do I know Mother Ghost is excellent? I’ve read some of the stories – check out the link to Hannan’s blog over to the right>>> and click on his sidebar to immerse yourself in their smoky dream flashes.

 

I hope you enjoy whatever the weekend brings you, and that I’ll be back on Sunday with photos of the dark woods and the foggy sea lochs of Argyll.

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I am off,

To pitch a tent at the foot of the mountains, in the dark.

To try not to succumb from hypothermia (it’s 8-10c here, 46-50f, and raining).

In other words, to have an adventure. To run with the reindeer in the morning.

 

Tumblr revisited

I wrote a post about using Tumblr some time ago, and I thought I would check back in about how that’s going.

In one word, well! There are quite a few writers, journals and online literary magazines on Tumblr, posting interesting snippets of their work, along with book reviews, pictures of books (so many pictures of books) and thoughtful quotes.I also follow two tumblrs centred around women in history, and a few from people posting nice landscapes, hiking and camping, and art:

(Marie Bottineau-Baldwin via Cool Chicks From History)

(Image by Brice Portolano via Fuck Yeah, Hiking! )

(Hardanger Retreat via Juwlzzz)

(image by Neyagi via Bookpaperscissors)

 

There is also quite an active contingent of the American ‘Alt lit’ community, whose work is hard to quantify, other than it uses multi-media aspects is often self-published, and tends to be quite droll and/or full of ennui. I think of Russian writers of the late nineteenth century, stripped back, more explicit, and with an affection for Gchat and consumables of all kinds. I’ve already talked about Gabby Gabby (another poem of hers here).

 

I’d like to have a bit more of a conversation with some of these writers, but the downside of Tumblr (as compared to, say, twitter) is that the arrangement really only allows for 1.one person posting 2. second person ‘liking’ this post, possibly reblogging it to express their appreciation. You can send messages or ‘ask’ the person something, but not everyone responds to questions, preferring it seems to let their posts speak for them.

 

I could see why it would be quite an investment of effort and time to get into Tumblr – unless you are posting purely your own work, like Chris J. Rice, some time is, and must be spent in searching out interesting things to share, unless you’d rather take a solely observational role.

 

For me, I find it an odd mixture of soothing and stressing; like being in an art gallery whose walls are constantly rotating content, and there are a few unspoken rules on how to respond to the – performance? Game? Institution? – which I am still picking up on. It is just another community/space on the internet, but a little more self-selective than most – so that whenever I go over there, I am placed, for better or worse, in an active, curatorial role. I’ll keep at it for now, and hope that it keeps drawing me towards other writers, other intriguing rooms in the gallery.

Image/feeling

 

 

1. A reclining figure. A grainy texture. A view of red sandstone houses, curving downhill.

2. Smirr and mist and threads of trees. A village at the head of a loch, sped by half-witnessed.

3. Blackened branches, gathered from the mesa top. Foiled food slow cooking, steaming.

4. A collapsible nylon room. Clarity on the stones, the bright green leaves.

 

It’s like this: Low evening light, morning light. Fire, ashes. Desire for a certain place, now far and in the past, or an instance that was understood only later, in pictures. Or a place that was Spring, in a remote desert camping ground. Or a beautiful third-floor flat, long since leased out to others. The one who helped find it, dead too young. It’s the sorrow and the striving, the echo down the corridor to the tiny impossible bathroom, to the living room with the bay windows where the light has room to let itself sprawl, golden, grey, pink, to the bright aquarium with the mouthing goldfish, Shen-Long the weather loach undulating in the current.

 

It’s the collecting of other people’s photographs of a path or break through a looming green forest, the human figure tiny, laden, fragile, in tartan-patterned flannel and thick walking boots, carrying a metal cup and sleeping bag lashed to their knapsack. It’s the wishing for more than stone, however well-weathered that stone is, for a wild range, at last, rather than muted sickness. For the outdoors, the flimsy, the breath of plants, the movement and rustle of the body passing along the trail, the cooking in ember, the tea over flame. The chik of bats spinning in the gloaming, the wave on the dark loch.

 

And for you?

 

 

Location Scouting – A few sights that fired the mind

I

Jemez mountain area Pueblo ruin - opposite some kind of Buddhist religious area, where men dressed like Catholic priests were marching all in a row, just after dawn

Frijoles Canyon, Bandalier National Monument

Pueblo Cave Dwelling (c. 1300-1600 C.E.) In Frijoles Canyon

Wandering around Frijoles in the early morning while it was still fresh and not too hot was marvellous. We had all the valley, the birdsong and squirrel mischief to ourselves.

Inside the canyon

The sweep of Valle Grande

Another spot, randomly discovered while driving to Farmington after the weirdness of Tierra Amarilla. This photo does not capture even a part of how huge it was, the remnants of an ancient volcanic explosion, now a nature reserve.

Jemez Falls campground - not shown, the freezing damp that gnawed our limbs all the night long

Tumbleweed! Just on the Arizona side of the border. Huge behemoths darting for your wheels...

What will stick in my head is another matter, as well as what I’ll be able to construct out of all this visual flotsam.