"Jottings" from our guest Philip

June 6, 2021

Our guest Philip Chambers who stayed with us in May this year sent in some wonderfully evocative "jottings" reflecting his stay with us in words and pictures. They are a real treat to read and beautifully echo why we choose to live here and why our guests love visiting.

REFLECTIONS by Philip Chambers May 2021

ACHABAN HOUSE

In the purlieus of Achaban House a cuckoo is calling, as hooded crow sidles by, handsome in black with mantle of grey.
Ahead the warmth was yet to dry and light yet to illumine the dew-soaked magic,
the living green of grass, smothered now but soon to breathe again;
wound up in readiness for a day of song, harmonic motion, potential energy, a lark,
a coiled spring, glancing in the secret of the sky.
Grace in silver-grey, wing tips dipped in ebony ink, hen harrier glides with easy elegance; halts, holds the air in stillness, hovers and strikes.
With flirty tail flick, amongst golden gorse, stonechat in high dudgeon competes with sedge warbler, scolding from scrub;
gleaming white against heath and heather, the drooping, silky heads of cotton grass nod goodnight in the building breeze.
Curlews’ plangent tones penetrate slowly fading light, and unstirring in the gloaming, the young stags, tines sprouting, watch my every move;
all in the purlieus of Achaban House.

Still Life: 06.30 Loch Pottie

This is still life, the stage is set,
compositional balance correcting,
quality of light colouring,
shades and tints harmonising.

To see as a painter,
to find the right word,
coble and trees colour
and shape the canvas
with texture and pattern
of water and of reeds
of reeds and of water.

DUNLIN AT THE END OF FIDDEN’S RAINBOW