Drop by drop
Lochgoilhead on a February evening
A quick stone skim over my current portfolio clearly shows a penchant for water. Eighty-five percent [Edit: now 100%] of my images include a loch, a river, or the sea. I live in Argyll, so it’s kind of inevitable. Lochgoilhead’s claimed “10th wettest place in the UK” moniker is questionable, but understandable.
I like being near, on, or in water. It was up there, along with “no traffic”, in the list of must-have’s when we hunted for our home in Scotland 12 years ago - the briefest of expeditions as it turns out, as we bought the first one we saw. It wasn’t the rain, you understand; the (sea) loch and the river were the fluttering eyelashes that caught my attention. I’m so easily hooked.
We don’t get much of the dramatic coastal pounding here, with huge, angry waves battering cliffs and lighthouses as in so many wonderful photographs. No - our little, moist world is generally more benign. Calm waters. Reflections. Riffles in streams. Rain. A fair proportion of the area is considered temperate rainforest. Mosses, liverworts, lichens, and fungi of all shapes and hues cloak the soil and every rock and branch. It’s wonderful… especially if you’re a midge.
If I’m not snapping away at a puddle, peddling through the drizzle, or puffing away with a paddle, I can often be found, fly rod in hand, wading quietly down a river. I’ll be smiling at the beautiful wee Dippers who flit and bounce (dip) and follow my footsteps as I disturb the gravel and pebbles, releasing tiny snacks for the brave little birds. I get that fishing isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and interfering with a precious creature on a perilous journey can seem cruel and pointless. But I justify my pursuit with the facts that a) I generally don’t catch anything, b) I gently release any fish that I do catch on my barbless hook following our brief, wondrous encounters, and c) I spend hundreds of hours caring for and improving the habitat in which wild fish thrive. It’s a meditation. A solitary pastime, soaked in nature. So there.
A rare, dry February afternoon saw me plodding in wellies over the gently revealing sand and mud flats at the head of Loch Goil (Lochgoilhead) as the tide receded. Thousands of lugworm casts shared the glistening sand with mussels and clumps of bladderwrack. Oystercatchers and curlews warbled and busied away at the water’s edge. Hooded crows hunkered like teenage Goths at a city bus stop, waiting for more of the mussel beds to be revealed. Their clever vertical take-offs, dropping and cracking shells onto roads and rocks, have been copied, though not quite so elegantly, by the wheeling, squealing gulls.
Out here, it feels like I’m walking on water. The village more distant. I find myself at the very end of a raised spit of sand and seaweed, at the edge of the River Goil’s estuary, surrounded by water. I trust my reading of the tide and simply stand in the shallows, watching the river flow out with the sea. The clouds shuffle and part. The light brings colour to the scene. I take a few hand-held shots and, uncharacteristically, take my time. Just being there in the fresh air, the sun, and the water.
I’m so, so lucky. Let this never stop.
