thoughts of childhood

If you wake up thinking about what you might blog, does this mean you've gone through a rites of passage as a blogger? In my case, probably not.

Skye is peaceful. As a city chick, I wouldn't want to live here, but there are aspects of it which are enduringly appealing - the one way roads with their frequent passing places and courteous, friendly nods and waves to other drivers; the complex coastline - a series of peninsulas, islands, spits of land; the greeny brown grass, bracken.

I always have visions of sitting on the beach at sunset, hearing a plaintive cry of seagulls, inhaling the pungent smell of seaweed, watching as islands turn darker and pink light on the sea fades to black. The reality is more likely to be returning from a wet walk, removing muddy walking boots, hanging up sodden fleeces and cagouls to dry and indulging in muffins and chocolate, slipping effortlessly into an evening meal of pies and beans and mashed potatoes. How easy it is for healthy eating to vanish when on holiday. In Skye you're more likely to stumble upon a craft shop or gallery than a grocery store.

I love the place names: Waternish, Sligachan (silent 'g' - pronounced 'Sleeahan'), Torrin. More like caresses than words.

Having mentioned the weather on Skye more than once, I should add that fortunately on an overcast day, unless the cloud is very low, the island still looks beautiful, in a different, more atmospheric way to how it does when the sun shines. It's to do with the constantly changing light, the misty greys and mauves around the hills contrasting with the yellows, greens and browns of the grassland, the pools of silvery light on the water.

While here I've found myself downloading music from folk bands like Gaberlunzie, from another era of my life, reconnecting with songs such as 'Mingulay' while typing away; even worse, singing so loudly that I've disturbed my partner and son while they were watching 'Lord of the Rings' next door - yes, horrifyingly my tuneless warble could be heard over battles with the Orcs. That's the problem of listening to music with headphones: you have no idea how horrendous you sound when you join in.

As children we holidayed on the west coast of Scotland, first Arisaig then Morar. Memories of these times linger. The excitement of my father attaching the trailor to the car and letting us bump along the road in the trailor. On the day of departure we'd leave at seven, which seemed so early that when we stopped for breakfast at Bridge of Orchy I couldn't believe it wasn't lunch time. I remember floury white rolls, the aroma of bacon, orange juice.

In Arisaig we shared a farmhouse with friends. It was a working farm and on my fifth birthday, the milk maids dangled me over a huge basin filled with milk, threatening to drop me down. Outside the farmhouse there was a grassy hillock sprinkled with buttercups. From my height it seemed like a mountain.

When the location changed to Morar, we stayed in another farmhouse, again sharing it with our friends. Camusdarach is famous for its 'silver sands', ( the venue for the beach scenes from 'Local Hero'). Although we had this beach to ourselves, my father was called upon to divide it in half, one side for John, the other for me. Despite this huge, magical, empty space for two seven year olds, within minutes we'd be arguing about territory. We spent hours on this beach, building elaborate series of sandcastles with moats and grooves on which to roll down golfballs.. We would tumble down the sand dunes, too young to be environmentally aware.

There was a huge pile of logs outside the farmhouse, ideal for playing ships. There was also a campsite with a shop which sold chocolate. Even at that age, chocolate was a passion, worth spending all my pocket money on. I'd never considered myself as a 'do gooder', my flirtation with the girl guides short-lived as I was unhappy about doing a good deed every day. But I have a strong recollection of one of the families who lived at Camusdarach. I remember how upset I was when the mother said to her son, maybe aged about eleven, 'I'll give you two bananas if you feed the hens,' and my muscling into the conversation with an offer to feed the hens for nothing.

Strange, the power of childhood memories, how years later a smell or sound can erode the intervening time. The stirring of wind through fir trees whisks me back to Camusdarach, a pile of newly sawn logs reminds me of the excitement of imagining them as a ship.

My mother hated those holidays: they were hardly a break for her. For us children it meant sunny afternoons on the beach, the gentle walk back over the field to the farmhouse, everything caked in sand: our canvas shoes, wooden spades with red metallic blades, our hair, the pink buckets and my yellow plastic binoculars whose smell I loved. Or a trip to Mallaig for icecream, a walk along the pier to watch the fishing boats returned with their catch, squawking gulls swooping down on the fish. For my mother it meant yet another washing, or a dreary walk up a hill on a day too damp for the beach. For us the summer month would stretch pleasantly for ever; for her it must have seemed interminable.


Nostalgically yours,

Jane