Thursday 15 October 2009

Postcard 43: Dreams of Skye


Boat ride back to Elgol from the brooding waters of Loch Coruisk


The foreshore, Elgol


Cuillin Sunset


Skye Collage
Click to enlarge.
('Here's one I made earlier' - after our trip in 2008)

I seem to have had a lot of deadlines recently, and am only just catching up with myself since we returned from our week on Skye last month. However, the Misty Isle continues to live in my mind, and I felt it was about time I mentioned it on this blog.

To my great delight, I have just been given a secondhand copy of A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland: the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides by those great traveller-diarists, Johnson and Boswell. The book has been edited by R.W. Chapman and is an Oxford Paperback. The Folio Society have also produced a (magnificent) edition.

Since our return I have had a Skye poem accepted for publication in a winter anthology. It refers in passing to the mournful, heart-rending Pibroch laments, played on the bagpipes. Speaking of music that tugs at the heart-strings (and in some cases, the harp-strings), we bought a most evocative CD, 'Skye the Island', from the Aros Centre in Portree (the lochside town with the coloured houses in the collage above). We have been driving around, enjoying the music of Blair Douglas and friends. We have also been entranced by the Gaelic music of Maeve Mackinnon. This is the link to her official site: here. You can even catch a snatch of her music: enjoy a breath of island air!

  • Seals: we saw lots of seals on Skye. Closer to home, there are also a few around the Pembrokeshire coast. Click here to see my post from last weekend with movie clip of a mother and pup.

4 comments:

The Weaver of Grass said...

Glad you enjoyed Skye. Nice to have you back in blogland though. You mention seals in Pembrokeshire. For many years we holidayed in Verwig, near Cardigan and walked various sections of the Pembrokeshire Cliff Path - we used to see numerous seals and dolphins. I really miss that part of the world - we did many sections around Mwnt, Gwbert, Ramsey Island, Fishguard and always went to St David's. Happy days.

donnie said...

nice pic of elgol's fizzing sea

Crafty Green Poet said...

Glad you had such a good time, Skye is such a wonderful place.... Your first photo particularly is wonderful. Congratulations on your accepted poem

Q said...

My parents spent their honeymoon there. Great photos Caroline, - now I want to go there.