|
| Welcome | Production | Project | Materials | Media | Links | Thank you | Odyssey Blog |
taking BC for a walk
Anne explains
walking back from the foghorn to the northlight
sheep at the Lairds House
and seals near the southlight
Barry
|
Odyssey Blog - a journal of events 27 March: by Claire Monday. With a heavy sky we set off for the airstrip. We can hear the plane coming closer to the island, but there is fog heavy enough to obscure the top of the sheep rock. No-one is suprised when the plane turns back. Stuart comes back to the Laird's House with me and we sit down to work out our options. Helen rings to let us know the ferry from Aberdeen is arriving late in Lerwick, after a rough crossing. (She drove the harp up from Manchester the day before). We tell her we are stuck and to stand by for contingency plan. After letting the taxi, the car hire company, our lodgings on Unst, Alice (music teacher at Baltasound) and Mark (head teacher at Cullivoe) know the situation we decide it may be better for Helen to carry on up to Yell and tackle the workshops alone until we can get there. Events are complicated by the ferry strike planned for the next day, and our concert in Lerwick Tuesday evening. If Helen is in Yell she cannot get south the day of the ferry strike for the concert. As education is our priority on this trip, we decide to keep Helen in the schools on Yell and reprogramme the concert for horn, violin and clarinet - Marcus and Evgeny start working out a programme that will work for that combination. Marcus starts to arrange a couple of pieces to include a piano, which he will play. Later the sun comes out, and Stuart and I go for a walk to the southlight. The cat, BC, follows us... we bump into Nick who is checking out the birds and pass the time of day. We see seals basking on the rocks and excitedly take photos. Anne shows us her knitting photos - a record of wonderful swatches and Fair Isle knits she's made. She also shows us some great atmospheric photos of storms she'd taken, for a book she's writing on shipwrecks. I am again struck by how multi-talented she is - and how much energy she has! I notice a postcard stuck on the wall in her study (which the poet, Tom Leonard, has given me permission to use here). Maybe it's because I have been gently nursed by Anne these past few days of sickness, and the whole knitting connection, but it captures a feeling for me... in hospital I like seeing nurse frieda knitting it's not just the future, knitting the future © Tom Leonard from 28 March: by Claire Tuesday. Today is not officially a flying day - LoganAir fly to Fair Isle Monday, Wednesday and Friday. However, as they didn't manage to get to us on Monday, they will try again today. We all gather at the airstrip not reckoning our chances much - the fog is still lying across the top of the sheep rock. Yet again the plane is forced to turn back, and so do we. Yet more phone calls and reoganising, breaking it to John Bulter that we will not be able to make the concert that night, and on it goes... Later on (past LoganAir's office hours) the weather clears, and we enjoy being outside taking in the stunning beauty of Fair Isle. I take far too many photos - particularly of sheep! Today for the first time since my gastric vileness I feel hungry, and when Anne makes a tomato and bacon pasta special I eat everything in my bowl. Anne and Barry beam at me happily as I reach for my second helping, delighted that my appetite has returned. Anne takes me up to the northlight, and the harbour, we walk the narrow spit out to the foghorn. I try to imagine what it must have been like to make that walk in the midst of a storm, when the horn used to be manually worked. I spend the rest of the evening working on the website for this project... I am terribly behind with everything, and it is good to feel my normal head returning!
Fair Isle, view from the Kirk - 28.03.06
and sheep at the harbour
Claire's Blog (the project in chronological order):
|
 |
