News from Nowhere

After dinner I went for one last walk.

Down to the harbour, over the Heugh and down the other side to the beach immediately across the water from the sandbanks where the seals hang out. I couldn't see any seals, but I could hear them cooing to each other. The tide was quite low, so I walked round the headland towards Saint Cuthbert's island. The sun was just breaking through a grey sky, tracing a faint silver path across the wet sands:



Photograph taken at 9.20 pm. The solstice is past; the nights are drawing in.

Just a little walk: it's not far from here to the harbour, then across the meadow onto the village green, round behind the church and down the track to the shore. They've made a display in the old lifeboat house, about the lifeboats: tales of courageous rescues, a comedy photo opportunity (of the 'your face here' variety) and - completely simple, but I found it very effective - the painted outline on the floor of the boat itself. I sat on one of the benches, and watched the swallows, and the play of the light behind the clouds over Saint Cuthbert's island:



With a little goodwill, maybe you can see the slanting rays of light coming down onto the island. Those clouds keep trying to rain, and a few drops hit me as I left the beach on the footpath up through the field, but they didn't come to anything. I cut through the churchyard, but there's scaffolding there, too, between the church and the priory, so I turned, and discovered there's a dangerous tree round the other side of the church: it didn't look dangerous, it looked as if it was lying down and resting, but the notices said it was dangerous, and who am I to argue?

Past the shiny new village hall, and along the village street. Passing the Impressions Gallery I was invited in by the artist, and he told me that the excavation on the Heugh have found Saint Aidan's church - a bit of poking around the internet tells me that that is what they were looking for, but I can't find any up-to-date information.

Something to investigate tomorrow...

The summer continues as grey as it was during our week on Lindisfarne: on the last day of July we dined on mutton strw, mashed potatoes and dried fruit compote, and didn't feel that this autumnal meal was in any way inappropriate; I lay snug in bed this morning and thought that the heather must be in bloom on the hills, and perhaps... and then rose, put on a warm jumper, and thought, perhaps not. I'd like to claim to be a hardy northerner, undeterred by weather, but the truth is that although I still have fun when the skies are grey, there are things that I don't do, that I would have done if the sun had been smiling. That applies today, it applies to much of our trip to the Western Isles, and it applies to our week on Lindisfarne.

Fun under grey skies, then: ( with photographs, obviously. )

The important thing is the sunrise: it was raining, the sun was not seen to clear the horizon, but we were there. We being the hard core of durham_rambler and myself, D. and valydiarosada; occasionals G. and C. (with family); and neophytes, the Bears. Only Richard was absent. I could say his spirit was with us, or some such, but I don't believe that, so I won't. He wasn't there, and this was wrong, and we missed him.

durham_rambler had enlivened Friday evening with the discovery that he had failed to pack his medication, leading to a whip round which demonstrated that between the other five of us we could supply all his immediate needs (this says something about the age of the party, but I'd prefer not to explore that), but did not have enough supplies to see him and us through the week. So on Saturday morning, having failed to raise our GP by phone, he and the Bears and I headed into Berwick in search of medication (and other supplies). Once there, we set to work to accomplish our various missions: durham_rambler consulted the pharmacist at Boots, who recommended the drop-in centre at the infirmary, while GirlBear bought some postcards at the stationer adjacent to the market hall, BoyBear and I scrutinised the secondhand / antiquarian bookshop at the back of the market itself. So by the time we were reunited, I had found the next two books in the Aubrey / Maturin series (and asked the price of what turned out to be the most expensive volume at the shop, on the prehistory of Malta, at £140), BoyBear was in the music shop, I was stocking up on goodies in the Green shop and durham_rambler had an appointment with a doctor at 2.30. This gave us just time for lunch at the Curfew, a tiny pub with a good range of interesting beers and a tapas bar next door. The appointment went smoothly, a prescription was issued and in due course filled at Tesco's (all bar one item), and we also did some heavy duty supermarket shopping.

Which was just as well, because we served dinner for 11 at Coble Cottage on Saturday evening (the table is described as accommodating ten, so this is a plus, to be recalled when I come to write, as I will, at greater length about the cottage). We went to our several beds, sofas and in one case van, and emerged at four a.m. into the rain. I am proud to announce that no-one bailed at this point. We straggled down the road, past the castle and out to the edge of the island, and we were all eleven of us gathered there by 4.30, when we declared that the sun must surely be risen by now = or else not - and that the world would either carry on or it would not, and either way there was no point in standing around any longer in the cold and rain.



The party continued en masse a little further along the shore, then some of us turned back to the village, while others continued to the white pyramid (it's a navigational aid) on Emmanuel Head. Some of the younger members of the party declared it to be climbable, if only we had some rope (which we didn't), and if it weren't wet from the rain (which of course it was). Older hands pointed out that it was clearly in need of repainting, and the imperfections this revealed in its surface made it more approachable now than it had been for years, a state of affairs which would probably have been remedied by next year. By now the rain had stopped, and the party splt again, some returning the way we had come and a hard core continuing along the dunes, getting wet all over again in the long grass, before turning inland and home across the nature reserve. The castle floated in a moat of mist, but the sun was shining brightly by the time the last few of us reached home, and bed - and all of this was right and proper.



Sunday was a blur of peple getting up and different times, and lingering around the long table eating different meals and discussing different plans, declaring they must go, they had things to do, but well, if you are making coffee... In the course of these conversations, G. revealed that he has been looking into his family history and discovered, several generations back, that durham_rambler's surname crops up. When this happens, we have a simple test: are you related to the boy V.C.? G. said, yes, it seems that he was my grandfather's cousin. As he was also durham_rambler's grandfather's cousin, the two of them must be, in some degree, cousins: which was unexpected, but pleasing. The day ended with all visitors departed, and with the resident party raising a glass of prosecco, above the bowls of more strawberries than we could eat, to Richard Turner, our absent friend.

durham_rambler spotted that the octagonal tower house at Seaton Sluice is for sale - which is tempting, but very silly. He described it to helenraven, and she was curious enough to see it that we decided we would pay it a visit on our way up to Lindisfarne (while valydiarosada and D. took the sensible route, via Sainsbury's). It's a charming, chunky little tower, a Vanbrugh jeu d'esprit, with a sea view and a tiny garden, and helenraven conceded that she could see the attraction. But she was stern: "You are the last people who should buy a listed building," and she is probably right. So instead we strolled around, admired the sculptures, and went for fish and chips at the Harbour View.

We took the scenic route north to the island (including getting lost in Newbiggin - when 'lost' means knowing where you are, but not how to get out) and were still there not long after the tide went out. And the rest of the day is a blur of unpacking and other people, with time for a stroll down to the beach. By now the tide was low enough that just meandering along, looking at the tiny shells and the fragments of pottery, picking my way between boulders and clumps of bladder wrack, listening to the seals singing on the mainland, brought me past the Buoy House and round to the path onto the Heugh before I was really aware of it.

There isn't much to be said about the sunrise: I have bought some postcards showing a hazy view of the harbour and castle, with the caption "Sunrise on Lindisfarne", though you can clearly see the bright patch which is the sun halfway up the sky. This appealed to me, because that's exactly how it works. You go out before four in the morning, in not quite full daylight:



and you look at the bank of cloud behind the castle, and know that you will not be seeing the sun clear the horizon today. You walk beyond the castle, and maybe you see a gleam over to the left and maybe you don't, and eventually someone checks their watch and decides that it must be up by now. We waved to R's friend C, who, after delivering him to Farne View had gone off to climb the Cheviot, but without much hope he would see us - the summit was hidden by black cloud; helenraven said she would walk for a bit; durham_rambler, D, R and I turned down Crooked Lonnen and followed the lane back to the village and home.

For obvious reasons, Saturday was a quiet day. valydiarosada and I set off together for the shops, and got as far as the mead factory (and gift shop and deli). I found my way into the URC next door, which I have always just walked past before: it has an attractive garden of almost-wild flowers, and inside there was an exhibition of paintings of views of the island, with the artist in attendance, and he told me about the gallery he is about to open in the village (next Saturday). There have been other small changes: the fudge shop which replaced the generic souvenir shop (next door to the Celtic craft shop) is making a big fuss about its ice cream (Spurreli's - which I'm pretty sure we met in Amble) and has an artistic window display, combining themes of ice cream and art glass; the bookstall that used to be outside the Island Oasis café is now in their courtyard, and I relieved it of a Rex Stout which I hadn't read before (I can never tell from the titles, which are all general-purpose crime titles, or the covers, which all have orchids on them, but this is the one in which Nero Wolfe's daughter turns up, and I reached the end without at any point finding it familiar).

We had planned to eat out, but all the pubs were fully booked. durham_rambler and D. persuaded the Crown and Anchor to provide us with fish and chips to take away - and at huge personal cost to themselves sat in the pub and drank beer until it was ready.

Sunday was as traditional as we get: various people were sent off after breakfast to ring bells, various other people went out for walks. I took my camera down past the car park to the point where the causeway meets the edge of the island. If there are any poppies at all on the island, you'll find them growing along the wall there, maybe not entirely wild but not the cultivated giants either, and I had noticed that there are a fine display this year, an abundance of flowers and enough fallen petals below to make it look as if they are growing from a pool of blood. This was some consolation for missing the thrift entirely: once upon a time we would cross to the island through a carpet of pink, but recently it has been mostly over by the time we arrived. Last year I found a last few clumps of flowers, but this year it is all papery dead heads as far as the eye can see. We reconvened for lunch at the Ship (they do very good crab sandwiches). Much later I walked through the churchyard and down to the beach in the evening sunshine.

I am blocked on this post: that is, it feels like the next post I want to write, and when I am not actually working on it, the various ideas that feed into it go round and round in my head. But when I try to write it, it looks a) muddled. b) either self-evident or obviously wrong (or both) and c) boring, boring, boring. It gathers up into one incoherent mess some ideas I've been kicking around for some time, a book post and some thoughts about a recent concert which loop back into some thoughts about a less recent concert. For the past three evenings I have sat and looked at it, crossed bits out and put them back in, tried reversing the order and then decided I liked it better the way it was to begin with, and meanwhile if I play a couple of games of solitaire it will all make sense. This hasn't worked so far. I'm tempted just to delete it and move on - there's so much else to write about. But I'm afraid that if I do that, it will carry on spinning around in my head; the only way out may be through. So tonight I press the button and post it. No-one has to read it.

( Random thoughts about folk music, and the general unhelpfulness of defining your terms )

( A book: Georgina Boyes'The Imagined Village' )

( It's different up north. )

And that's quite enough of that: normal blogging will be resumed as soon as possible. Meanwhile, have a picture of St Mary's Church, Lindisfarne:

I titled this post on Monday, when I wrote it; I had posted to LJ - with photo - the previous evening, and was confident I could do so again. But I never again managed to maintain a sufficiently stable internet connection to do - well, anything really. I'd get online, and then lose it, and eventually I decided that I had better things to do. So that "delayed" is doubly apt.


At ten o'clock last night I turned off my computer, and saw that the sky beyond the window was stained pink with sunset. So I rushed downstairs, and went out for a walk round the village. I was too late to choose a vantage point from which to watch the sun go down, or the rosy clouds frame a landmark, so I just strolled along the streets, admiring the plants rising above the garden walls and the sweetness of the scented air. There will be other evenings to benefit more fully from the sunset (visibility permitting) - but not tonight, for tonight is the night of the Midsummer Phantoms.

So far, it's been all about the flowers - the flowers and the lazing with a book and the sleeping quite a lot. I had noticed as we crossed the causeway that the carpet of thrift, which is usually well past its best during our week on the island, was in full bloom, so yesterday morning I walked back to the causeway and had fun taking photos: single blooms, and one clump half of which was regulation sea-pink pink and half pure white, and general views in which the posts which mark the pilgrim way across the sands rose from a foaming sea of pink - and then I came home, we all went out for a fish-and-chip lunch at the Ship, and I snoozed away most of Sunday afternoon.



This morning I went out again, this time across the nature reserve, to the dunes. Again, the orchids which would normally be past their best, still numerous but with their purple spikes singed to brown, were at their peak, some barely emerging from the buds - there are some advantages to the lateness of this year's spring, for my selfish enjoyment at least!

Walking down the lane which leads to the nature reserve, I met a couple, each with camera, telephoto lens and tripod, carefully flattening the grass around a lone purple orchid - admittedly the first I'd seen, but I knew this was just the first outlier of many. They asked me, was this the Holy Island orchid? If there is such a thing as the Holy Island orchid, I know nothing about it, but I said I thought that might be the marsh helleborine, which I've only ever seen once. I might have told them where, but they said they had a map which marked the Holy Island orchid, so I didn't insist. I meandered on until I reached the sea, at the beach just beyond Emmanuel Head, where I took off my boots and paddled. I might have looped on to the castle and home that way, but there were people about, and I was tempted by the possibility that the marsh helleborine, too, might be lingering later than usual, so I took the path from which I had seen it last time. No sign, but many more orchids, and a vivid white patch of bog cotton waving its banners below the distant castle.

And so home, bath, lunch - and soon out to Phantoms.

helenraven's post about the trip to Lindisfarne prods me into posting about the end of our week there, which was shaped even more than usual by the tides. Lindisfarne's a tidal island, accessible and inaccessible at times of day which shift as the days pass. This worked well for us on Tuesday, when we were able to dine out in Newcastle and still get back to our beds on the island. By the end of the week - well, I'll come to that.



On Wednesday we drove up Tweeddale, through Cornhill and Coldstream to Kelso. I love the Borders: the Highlands are more dramatic, but harsh and barren, between the rich green land to the south and the open lands and big skies to the north. The wet summer had left the fields an almost luminous green. Coldstream is a nice little town, and we picked up a leaflet with a guided walk - another time we might visit the museum.

We returned via Wark, because durham_rambler wanted to see the castle; and as we drove towards the village, a large mound of grassed over rubble did indeed dominate the road, but we were distracted by having to brake quite suddenly to avoid hitting a hare. We paused to poke around half-heartedly, and I think might have seen more, but not much more, if we'd made the effort. But it was late, so we headed home, braking rather less abruptly on the way out of the village to avoid a couple of pheasant out for a stroll, and drove through the receding tide onto the island.

The solstice was observed on Thursday: which is to say that some of us got up at half-past three and walked down past the castle, where we gazed at the total cloud cover and consulted our watches and eventually conceded that the sun was now as risen as it was going to be. I blame durham_rambler, who refused to get up: if the ritual is not observed, how can the sun be expected to sise? But there was some magnificently rosy pre-dawn cloud:



After which R. walked out to Emmanuel Head, and D. and I returned to the village by the lane between the fields, and the rest of the day passed in a haze of sleepiness and rain.

As did Friday. Too wet to do more than stroll round the visit, tide times too awkward to visit museums or other wet weather entertainments on the mainland. What could we do? We stayed home, read, did crosswords, may have opened a bottle or so - I'm not complaining.

Sunrise was observed on the morning of Sunday 19th June; all paricipants had reached the island before the tide cut it off on Saturday afternoon, so we were able to dine sociably over a couple of bottles of Madiran, before an early night, followed by an even earlier morning and a brisk walk down past the castle. We might have been too late to see the sun clear the horizon, except that the usual layer of cloud hid that crucial moment anyway. We were there in time to see the sun emerge from this shroud - as in the picture. It isn't necessarily the best of the batch of photos, but it's the one I don't think would be improved by editing. More may follow.

Then valydiarosada and D. went back to the house (more about the house later, too), and helenraven and durham_rambler and I walked along the coast, past the hide, where there was a great twittering of small birds and a great cloud of birds taking off and swirling down the edge of the lough as we approached. We turned inland not far past here, and walked down a lane bordered with purple orchids spiking through the green grass, and home and back to bed.

Thereafter, a quiet Sunday: late mornings and independent degrees of lunch and cups of tea and ginger cake and lying on the sofa reading Val McDermid and the Saturday and Sunday papers, and going for walks. We dined at the Bean Goose, a tiny organic restaurant - the best food we have so far discovered on the island, and the most expensive. The spicy crab soup was delicious, rich and creamy with coconut, but only very mildly spiced; the lemon posset dessert was wonderfully silky, and pleasantly lemony (which is to say that I would have liked it a bit sharper, but that's often the case: I'm not all that subtle). The main courses appealed less, and intheend I chose a goat's cheese salad which was offered as either starter or main - and was happy with my choice, though it might have worked even better as a starter. We drank a New Zealand white (blanc de pinot noir) which - again - was a bit bland, and an Argentine torrontes which I liked very much. Both wines, I think, from Vintage Roots.

And this morning helenraven and I walked back down to the castle, and then we left D. at home, took helenraven to Berwick station, and valydiarosada, durham_rambler and I came to the Wetherspoons pub for lunch and wi-fi.

Picture taken at four o'clock yesterday morning, as we left the house to walk down to the end of the island, beyond the castle, the point from which we traditionally watch the sun rise - or more often, struggle up from behind a band of cloud on the horizon. This year, not so much of a 'band' - the sky was clear, with just a few scatter clouds (like scatter cushions, plump and fluffy, but more decorative than functional). Except for a big mound of solid grey, piled up behind the castle.

Still, it wasn't too cold, and it didn't rain, and eventually the heap acquired a gleaming edge of copper lustre, and the rather fluffier clouds back on the other side of the castle turned marshmallow pink, and we went home and - variously - made coffee, or went to bed, or ate breakfast.

And in the evening Iwalked out along the Heugh, and watched the sun set slowly behind the causeway, while the seals sang to each other around Saint Cuthbert's Isle.

Today being the actual solstice, we could, of course, have set the alarms and tried again. But somehow, we didn't.