Gone with the wind

Overhead a sky of cornflower blue tilted on its axis, as I lazily swung on the children’s swing. I could see nothing but blue, not even wisps of cotton candied cloud. So blue was the sky, I could of drowned in it. The bolts holding the swing together creaked to a steady rhythm and I was yet to decide if this was irritating or comforting to me. Creak, swing, creak, swing, as steady as a pendulum holding the tempo to the ticking away of time. Every so often my foot pushing off would touch the floor, upsetting the rhythm beginning the whole cycle again. Like a ripened sunflower my face worshipped the sun, staring up into the abyss as if looking up at the oceans ceiling. Although not distressingly prominent I could hear various muffled sounds in harmony with my worlds creaking; children shouting in play and a lawn mower buzzing in the distance with the wings of an angry wasp. Most distinguished were the drifting in and outs of various conversations I could hear from the road leading to the village. For along this tourists passed mostly from the campsite and back again, all happy and pleased under the lamp of the summer sun. Swing, creak, swing, creak. So easily pleasing is the summer I thought, in tandem to the swaying orchestra, I have never really been a fan of her. I find her sunny beauty rather shallow, like the beautiful girl on a date who makes no conversation, she quickly falls rather flat. Creak, swing, creak, swing; yes it was annoying me. The sky a monotone of baptising blue, I did not alter my gaze, instead staring back at me from the other side of the table with nothing to say, she simply bored me.

I had not pushed my foot off the ground for some time now causing the swing seat to lull to a gentle rock. Turning my head to the dying light, the horizon began eating the sun, diluting the ocean sky into a milky pink and orange glow. At the back of the house a row of rectangular plant pots lined the edge of the grass like a miniature steam train. This, from where I sat, created a layered forest of stems and flower heads that the sun finding time pushed through. Sending scattered shafts of light into the air. The Cosmos with its snow clean petals became translucent under the intense light. As thin as the paper lining of an eggshell, each petal over lapped another, until joining in full circle the head of each flower resembled a full bodied bridal dress.

The mechanical orchestra of the swing seat only grew in annoyance promoting me to move back inside under the shadow of the house. Though not before admiring the fruit from the lengthy task of hanging that mornings washing out to dry. Heaped like masses of seaweed washed up on the shore line, the saturated bundles of sheets in the basket that morning had risen back to life like freshly baked bread. Emitting a warmth and comfort between the spaces of my hands. Oh yes summer was too easily pleasing for my liking, but then my friend, I have always been easily pleased.

The swing set which had lazily lulled in the summer months was now flying high into the air as the wind huffed and puffed over ninety. The bins, even though originally weighted down, were now rolling over the garden leaving the recycling flapping and tumbling over the grass. It would all need picking up again I sighed. In equal resignation a party of highland cows stood over the fence, the wind untangling their unkempt fringes exposing their eyes to the view. They appeared totally unbothered, instead looking on at the whirlwind of rubbish with resounding derision. In front of them the hedges which had hummed with life during the summer months were now stripped naked by the wind, leaving only thorns where brambles had hung, dripping and heavy in the autumn. The months in their usual cycle had passed one another off and in predictable relay I now stood in the window of December.

Intervals of hard unforgiving hail rained down in sheets as if fired from an approaching army. The cacophony of this consuming my ear drums in a strangely comforting persuasive battle cry. No longer a thick coat of jewelled headed flowers, the landscape was now washed in steely blues and ashy greys. The perimeter of the lands ends outlined with smudges of wet blackened rock. The earth no longer popped and fizzed colour like a freshly poured glass of champagne. Instead the wind in her daily anger stirred the landscape like a pot of boiling broth, a confusion of dark grey cloud running a never ending race. The long stemmed dancing Cosmos of the summer, soft and feathery in its summer matrimony had vanished, leaving only brittle reeds in its divorce with the sun. Across the Loch I could make out other side of the island. Its mountain tops becoming lost dusted in a white snow, bleeding into the white sleeping sky. As if the boarders of existence had over lapped, each not quite placing where the boundary lines once stood. The Paps of Jura were lost to the sea in the sky. Like the summer that had fizzed and popped with a sky of cornflower blue. They had gone with the wind.

From the Hebrides, Lucy ~ Dear friends, I haven’t written to you in such a long time. I am finding I am no longer the mother of three small children, but children who are growing bigger by the day. My time not so much spent with changing nappies and rocking to sleep but answering questions and practising how zips work. With this I am finding a routine and in turn a new routine to fit in writing.

I do so appreciate each one of you who reads, comments and shares. If you enjoy reading Island Wife Hebrides and would like to support my writing then can I encourage you to head to https://www.patreon.com/islandwifehebrides and see how you can get involved. This coming year I will be sharing an exclusive exert from the book I have written every month. I hope to see you there. Lucy