While prime time News teams in the rest of the country are ramping up the weather warnings and speculating on film-able disasters, all living life here just gets on with it. In the battle that comes, rivers breach, lochs rise, and our trees fight courageously against the aggressor, some loose limbs and others are sadly slain. If you venture down onto the beach the morning after, it looks like the sea has had the mother of all parties and left without tidying up. The beautiful pristine sandy beach that was, lies buried under piles of rocks, bundles of rope and mountains of seaweed ripped up by the roots. Boulders weighing more than two tonnes thrown from one side of the beach to the other nestle with tangled lobster pots, boat fenders and trees. Even remnants of Second World War mines, a dead seal or birds can lie as casualties of the sea’s big night.
As you look out at the now almost motionless, peaceful, hungover, guilty party before you, you can sense it saying: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, it just all kind of got out of hand”.
The first experience I had of how quickly storms can build inland was taking the dog for a walk up the strath along the meandering river. We were sheltered by some trees and hadn’t been out long when I looked up and saw a greylag goose flying, only something was wrong with the picture. Yes, it was flying, the wings were moving up and down but it wasn’t going anywhere. It was stationary mid-air. After a few seconds it also recognised something was wrong, so it did its best to lower itself towards the trees and make an ungraceful crash landing into a pile of thistles and cow pats. Unhurt, it carried itself off on foot into the forest, perhaps to contemplate what had just happened.
The wind was getting stronger and louder and whilst thinking it would be a good idea to turn back, I witnessed something quite spectacular. A mallard duck, having been disturbed, flew upwards. Ducks are never comfortable flyers, instead they flap loudly and frantically, as if they know that if they stop, they will most definitely fall out of the sky and that’s gotta hurt. This duck was fine until it rose above the protection of the tree line. For a moment it shifted up a gear, wobbling a bit like a bi-plane in severe turbulence and then it happened. Realisation kicked in. Its eyes enlarged, it took a big gulp, its wings stopped and it cannoned past us backwards with such ferocity towards the west that it travelled hundreds of metres and was out of sight in seconds.
The encounter
You get the picture of our storms, so now to the encounter with the tree root. In my time in Dubai creating and producing artworks and sculptures, despite being in that artificial man-made world, I have never lost the belief that nature is the supreme artist. It’s in a different league to us and never stops to amaze me. The tree root you see in the picture isn’t the most beautiful thing that nature has shown me, but certainly more interesting than a lot of supposed artworks and sculptures I have seen in galleries; but it’s how it came to be there that makes me smile.
During storm Babet the rivers breached and the lochs rose. They can rise two metres or more in some areas. The River Brora was no exception. As this tree root shows evidence that the tree above was cut with a chainsaw, it had likely suffered storm damage some years before. Somebody, a crofter or forest worker, had probably had to cut it down for access, safety or to prevent further damage to other trees.
It then sat there through several storms until this one came along. The river rose and it found itself in it, on a sight-seeing tour of a lifetime as the river made its urgent way mile by mile toward the sea. When it got to the loch it had a little rest to take in the surroundings and it said to the white gloved waters holding it, “This will do nicely, can you set me down here please?”. The waters obliged and as they withdrew they set the displaced sculpture down gently and perfectly in its natural new gallery overlooking the loch.
You are able to see it at this gallery now, until another storm helps it continue its journey. Next, there is a chance you might be able to catch it exhibited at the beach before it continues its European tour, perhaps to Norway.
