The seasons have changed, summer into autumn, but today there is a reverse. A walk around the Peedie Sea and Kirkwall marina feels like St Tropez. Perhaps it is a slightly more down to earth, creels are stacked on the pier and bustling trades are fixing up buildings on Bridge Street.
It is a day to savour. A respite.
On Tuesday this week I concluded a set of creative sessions for The Blide Trust. It is a welcoming place, the door to Laura Grimond House is open, there are friendly, compassionate individuals within.
There is also a rejuvenated, renovated and reimagined garden. It has a pond, crossed by a bridge. It has seating and thoughtful planting. It has an area for growing crops – the final tomato harvest was only a week ago. There is a trellis where one afternoon the arc of the year was on display in the form of a glorious full-scented, pale, yellow-hearted and pink-frosted bloom, neighboured by both rose hips and small purse-lipped buds defying the lengthening nights. Glorious.
The group sessions have brought together wonderful ideas, stories, poems and flights of fancy. The prompts were all based around the theme of the garden. We began with a scrawl crawl around the newly opened garden, taking close observations of the things under our very noses and before our very eyes. Other sessions we journeyed over bridges on adventures and indulged in feelings of awe and wonder. Finally, we came to our own secret gardens, and created individual places of perfection and rest.
My belief in words and the positive effect of writing together and sharing together is strengthened by spending time with these participants, both familiar and new.
Could a place be more perfect to write in than the new garden room? I don’t think so. It feels like it was always meant to be there.
Like the soul of a rose.
