.
WORD MNTN (Costa Head, from Rousay); poem, Alec Finlay; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
'But the sea
which no one tends
is also a garden
when the sun strikes it
and the waves
are wakened.
I have seen it
and so have you
when it puts all flowers
to shame.'
– William Carlos Williams, 'Asphodel, That Greeny Flower'
Two Gardens: Sea-Garden & Wind-Garden
Before we make for Rousay we head through Stromness, Innertown to Outertown, for a visit with Tam of the bookshop at Don. Alistair wants to show me Gunnie’s garden.
Tam & Gunnie were old friends of my mother's and back in the early 1970s they lived for a while on a steading near Ellery, which belonged to the Argyll branch of the Lockhart family. My childhood memory (mis)places the house in the very middle of a beach, surrounded by sand, and I recall going endlessly to and fro through the shell bead curtains that Gunnie had made. I'd never seen such an exotic design before and the only thing I could see that the beads were made for was walking through over and over again, cool shells trickling and tickling your cheeks, giggling.
That was before they moved to Orkney and become part of the fabric of the islands; Tam at Brown's bookshop, Gunnie with her photography and her garden.
Tam & Alec; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
To Alistair and my delight as the van noses out to Warebeth, this is the very morning the tugs are passing through the sound of Hoy, pulling the enormous platform and foundations for the new Oyster 2, a pioneering wave energy generator which will soon be installed at Billia Croo. You can see it here, between our smiles. The great prongs of the rig are more lobster than oyster; soon they will be lowered and fixed to the sea-bed, ready to grip fast the turbine workings.
This is the future; this is some of your Orcadian blue-sea thinking.
Mesostic, Billia Croo; poem, Alec Finlay; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
ebBing
tIdes
spLish-
spLash
In
A
Current
wheRe
Oysters
flOurish
I asked Alistair if he knows where the name for this bay came from and he directed me to these notes from his talk in Kalmar.
'Billia Croo is a beautiful name, but no one knows what Billia means. The Croo bit is probably the same as in planticreu, and also -kro, -kreu, -krue (and planticrub in Shetland). It derives rom ON krókr, a corner, as in an odd piece of land, or a yard, but planticreu means an enclosure for a vegetable plot (to keep out animals), as does kalykro, which is the same as kailyard, of course. Formerly it was more often an enclosure to keep animals in, like a sty. But since it's a shore it's hard to say why it might have been called by that name, though it's a shore at which – due no doubt to the shape of the bottom and the currents, a lot of driftwood and other flotsam tends to fetch up.'
A sea patch then, with the whole sea garden glinting beyond.
circle poem (sea flowers salt waves sea flowers stone)
poem, Alec Finlay; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
Gunnie’s sea-garden is a series of colourful waves, thickets, low spinneys and soft stems, among the remnants of sheds and stables; salt-bleached blooms secreted within protective flag kists; an enfilade of dwarfie willow, a draggled blue and yellow Swedish flag which sings of remembrance for her Nordic presence.
poem, Alec Finlay; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
Salix salix
sea-bleached
dwarfie willow
allowing for the
sea view
proposal for Billia Croo
proposal for Billia Croo, Alec Finlay, 2011; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
Rousay
a black sheep on Rousay; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
Later that day, a ferry ride on, we rounded the east of Rousay, spinning around the top of Kearfea Hilll. Alistair pulled in opposite Blossom Quarry where my father dug and barrowed stone in the late 1950s. A tough job that he recorded in this poem, written in Edinburgh in the early 1060s, missing Rousay.
BLOSSOM QUARRY, ROUSAY
"Blossom" they call this quarry of grey stone,
Of stone on stone on stone, where never white
Blossom was sweetly blown; wet dynamite
Would blossom more than seeds in this place grown.
And yet as Blossom quarry it is known.
And who knows but the namer named it right?
Its flowers are on the hand with which I write:
Bent backs, sore bloody blisters it has grown.
Here, 50 years after his days on the road gang, with the help of Neil & Andrew and the Pier Arts Centre, my father placed this inscribed stone.
IHF, the promontory; photograph by Alistair Peebles, 2011
GODS OF THE EARTH
GODS OF THE SEAS
after IHFIn his day, rather than the whirling of two-bladed windmills that now measure one's journey around Rousay, the wheel that turned or sat still was that of the watermill at Sourin.
drinking
smoky
tea on
Rousay
rolling
up my
jersey
sleeves
looking
over to
St Magnus
on Egilsay
JOHN SHARKEY IS PLEASED TO BE IN SOURIN AT EVENING
How beautiful, how beautiful, the mill
-Wheel is not turning though the waters spill
Their single tress. The whole old mill
Leans to the West, the breast.
Sourin, Rousay; poem-label, Alec Finlay; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
from Fa Doun
the mill at Sourin
is a child's toy
word-mntn (FITTY HILL); poem, Alec Finlay; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
Now Alistair has brought me to the promontory overlooking Saviskaill Bay and Westray; and here I add these views following and realiging of IHF's sight-lines: a word-mntn looking towards Fitty Hill, a conspectus, two poem labels and a new inscription.
Saviskaill Bay Conspectus
a net of stone lines
cast over waves
meshing islands
Eday, Westray, Sanday
as rocky Agean atolls
afloat in aquamarine brine.
poem-label, Alec Finlay; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
an evening curlew
calls from
the Anston burn
to the stone at Blossom
I can't help recalling the birds calling over the moor, and the boggy turf reminds me of the wilder parts of Stonypath, where flowers are flints of colour.
at Blossom
not roses
but louse-
wort, tormentil
and yellow vetch
And the inscription, only names, reflected in a mirror
GODS OF THE WAVES
billia croo
GODS OF THE WINDS
rousay
Without intending Alistair has guided us through this mirror: the morning view west toward Hoy, finding symetry with this afternoon view, bathed in the same full sun, east over Westray. Gunnie’s enclosed garden, her memorial, mirrored by this peaty headland, dominated by a single immense slab of Portland stone, memorial to Finlay’s Rousay. But we aren't here to look back.
Proposal for Rousay
proposal for Rousay, Alec Finlay, 2011; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
The inscription acknowledge today’s journey between two gardens, two compass points, two islands, and the Gods of two forms of energy.
Wind-Garden
Fa Doun, Rousay; photograph, Alec Finlay 2011
gRey
Or
blUe
Sea
And
skY
Before the full circuit of Rousay was done, travelling deisil, back to the cottage at Fa Doun, Alistair turned us up the wee road that heads inland to Curquoy, just above the Suso Burn. From there we could see the diggings for the new community turbine that will soon be raised on the slope of Knitchen Hill, a wind-tower which will finally catch Rousay up with Eday and Westray, neighbour islands which each have one or more turbines producing a shared communal income from wind.
Ervadale, Rousay; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
Curlews, geese and oyster-catchers called across the fields and heather moorland; an Arctic Tern plied swift overhead. At the third to last house, Evadale, we glimpsed a wee cluster of small turbines of all kinds, like a thicket of sharp-petalled exotic flowers.
Ervadale, Rousay; poem, Alec Finlay; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
towers
that
flower
Alistair parked the van and I asked if we might look around their pastoral-technological installation, and take some photos.
The Ervadale folk had come up from midgie Mull three years ago; they were kind enough to give us a tour of the various renewables that made their back garden workshop into a wind-garden.
There were sunflowers, in the form of photo-voltaic units mounted on angled stands, fastened to old van wheel axles and linked by motorbike chains, trained to move with the sun. The wind-gardener explained how this imitation of nature can increase daily output by as much as 30%.
Poking up from the shrubbery were three guyed pole towers, each one at a different height.
Ervadale, Rousay; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
as every wind-gardener knows
you should always grow
your wind flower towers
to different heights
and never put your turbines
too close together
or one will interfere
with the wind of another
HWAT turbine, Ervadale, Rousay; photograph, Alec Finlay 2011
Unusually, there was also a horizontal axis with paddle blades waiting for the strong winds it needs to rev into gear.
This wind-garden of renewable blooms was one ingenious island way of making a living. The wind-gardener was also a kind of self-proclaimed energy ‘Minister’ for Rousay, preaching conversion and taking responsibility for most of the new wind installations on the island. Soon this back-garden test centre will expand into an eco-business based in Kirkwall, back on The Mainland, as they call greater Orkney here.
We discuss the issues around small turbines and innovation. The feed in tariffs the Government makes such play on are only available for approved designs of turbine, and as a result many of newer designs have no such accreditation.
Bi-bladed Rousay
photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
The first landmark anyone sees as the ferry approaches Rousay is the tall handsome two-bladed turbine installed out on the shore, near the ferry pier, by the local farmer at Trumland. It’s a beauty, with a blue nacelle as beautiful as sea-holly.
photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
But by far the most common type of turbine design on the island is a simpler and smaller two-blade device, which has the appearance of a propeller on a stick and looks to furl and turn easily.
proposal for a symbol for bi-bladed Rousay; photograph, Alec Finlay 2011
These were all imported from a French manufacturer, via a concession in Kirkwall. Our local expert was of the opinion they are not really robust enough to last long enough in the veery gusts and squalls of Rousay. Over time, with wear and tear, they may not prove economical. They can also, he said, be noisy, whiny, and they vary greatly in the amount of electricity they can produce.
poem-label, Alec Finlay; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
lend us
your arms
The quantity of small turbines on Rousay is testimony to the willingness of islanders who are on-grid to also become producers and earn additional income.
Rousay Philosophy
the Rousayian is a wind-
gardener by day
and a wave-
gardener by night
Alistair shared with me a lovely story he was recently told, about when cars and tarmac roads first came to Rousay. People would go a drive around the island; so he asked, naturally, if they didn’t get bored with the same view driving the one road around and around. The reply came, in the Orcadian manner, why would they get bored, for if they did then they’d only to drive around in the other direction. A form of island zen: one need only look at a thing from the other side. Life, for example.
Tam & Eck, Don & Hoy; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
Wedder Forecast
for alan
Orkney bright
Shetland wet
Orkney wet
Shetland bright
A Shetlandic Coda
wind-garden, Burra; photograph, Alistair Peebles 2011
Alistair's blog records a delightful contemporary wind-garden he happened upon at Burra, Shetland. This assemblage of 28 models or wind-toys was created by Ewan Hynd, at The Riddle.
wind-garden, Burra; photographs, Alistair Peebles 2011
intimations
Visitors to the Shetland wind-garden are welcome by appointment: contact hyndesign@btinternet.com
Alistair Peebles: Brae projects | blog
Amy Todman: bring me the head of William Stukeley
Photograph at Sourin Mill by Around Rousay
Linnéuniversitetet: Stories in Wave and Stone
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