January 4th, our last day of holiday, an impossibly beautiful day of snow and glorious sun. This amazing train ride on the Settle Carlisle Railway through the Dales and into the hills, and a walk to see a stone circle and an incredible saxon cross. Lovely, sparkling.
In Glasgow giving a book talk to students at the School of Art. They were amazing, bright, full of questions and the need to talk about cities and justice and architecture and language, I loved them. Eight of them bought books. They. Bought. Books. My beautiful nephew Reuben’s second birthday, all too short and wonderful time with T and Laura, the science museum.
The world frozen, beautiful from their Hamilton window.
A quick run up to Chatelherault Country Park where I remembered again how much I love winter. I love this place. The ancient Cadzow oaks and the earthworks dating back to at least the 12th century. the Cadzow castle ruins looking over the river. Frost. Mist. Bare branches against the sky.
THE HOUSES stood like squat, disgruntled cocker spaniels along the snow-mantled streets, wearing thick woolen snow-white shawls puckered by the black-ribbed line of gutters running along the sides of the rooftops, the serrated slates showing thinly in thawing patches. Where the main traffic ran a long mushy path of dirty-brown slush had been churned up; kids were already making slides down the road, using for toboggans frames of prams long outgrown by the babies who had used them, the lids off ashbins and sheets of tin uprooted from backyard railings. At first the snow had fallen in heavy, slanting veils, obscuring everything between ground and sky, mounting thickly on pavements and the golden-privet hedges of the little square front gardens, blocking the front paths until the men had to come out with jackets buttoned up to the neck and heavy Russian boots to shovel a passage through the encrusted snow for their womenfolk to get to and from the shops; then slowly it had thinned out and rare bits of sky broke the uniform dullness of the wintry scene, and a weak sun appeared, as timid and weak as a convalescent after a long time in bed.
From the window of the back-bedroom backyard spread out like a checkerboard, cut up into black-circled squares heaped with snow; mongrels prowled for food, moving like dark asterisks on the frozen earth, noses to the ground, snarling and snapping viciously at each other, bony with hunger; the cats walked with a more dignified gait, sliding gently under hedges and bushes, whiskers quivering like antennae, lean backs arched sinuously over bins and buckets of waste pigfeed, crouching under trees, almost hidden, merging with the shadows, ecstatic and intent with watchfulness… (64)
Brown, Christie (1970) Down All the Days. London: Pan Books.
With some Resting and Being Thankful in between…
It is so hard to photograph trees, but the burn of Kelburn Castle was of surpassing loveliness and contrasts on this mid-February day. Wind through branches filled the world, an icy roaring mostly above our heads — a few branches came down around us as we were walking. One huge crack and a falling of one just in front of us provided some photographic comedy gold (Much as did my wearing three shirts, jumper, hoodie and coat), but also a slight thrill of danger.
But the woods, oh the woods. Empty of people, full of forest soundings. They sang impossibly beautiful around us in traceries of twigs framed by moss covered trunks. The red of fallen leaves still glowing.
My little brother, who at over six feet isn’t actually all that little but seemed hidden and small in this place…
Trees surrounding the falling of water…
This incredible mossy bark…
The wooly character of branches
The microcosms that live here
And then to slowly emerge from the trees to see the view of the Firth of Clyde and its islands and snow-capped mountains in the distance:
And its unexpected additions
From there we returned back to the castle, to a most wonderful walled garden and trees tamed — yet not entirely.
Single trees, enormous and ancient yews, some of them planted over a thousand years ago and framing more formal gardens alongside Kelburn castle. Three of Scotland’s most historic trees are here.
The first spring flowers I have seen this year, and a few other budding branches:
This whole place is primarily geared towards kids, families, campers — there were wonderful things for kids all around, though I was glad that the weather meant we had the place to ourselves and I imagine it is heaving in the spring and summer. I quite love what these Brazilian artists did to the castle when let loose on it:
But the last bit of the walk brought an unexpected reminder of some of the underlying social relations that have clouded this place. Not least that it is privately owned, but also in how it connected to power and Empire. All of this beauty was once owned by the Earl of Glasgow, who also served as governor of New Zealand — in an old not-very-waterproof shed sits a small museum with some of his collection. The faces of those who had their own wilds stolen from them stared back at us.
