Jura

Wild Ride 

Thursday was a squally day with whips of wind and froths of foam. Would our sea trip be cancelled? No such luck! So we boarded the Jura Passenger Ferry from Tayvallich and bounced across the waters in a cabined box with a bear of a driver/pilot/skipper to Craighouse where I was very very happy to step onto dry and steady land.

The Wicker Man meets The Angel’s Share

I felt there was something other-worldly about Jura – and wondered whether the whisky fumes had infiltrated the bloodstreams of the islanders. Sally and I enjoyed a sticky treat in the Anchors Café with its super-friendly owner (who, reminiscent of Denis Lawson’s character in the film Local Hero, seemed to have a finger in every island pie.) Chris and Harriet took a full tour of the distillery and emerged alive!

Craoibh Haven

Jura felt stranger than many of the Scottish islands we’ve visited so far, although it ranks as one of the Inner Hebrides and I’ve yet to travel to the Outer Hebrides. A display of Ye Olde Photos of Jura in the local church had some quite disturbing historical visual records but I imagine many remote islands would have similar dark episodes in their past. During our week we had one meal out at The Lord of the Isles in Craiobh Haven (pronounced Croove Haven.) The restaurant served excellent food (monkfish, steaks, fish n chips) and had welcoming and jolly staff, as well as locals dining in alongside tourists like us.

Bonnie Scotland

It’s hard to explain why our holidays in Scotland always seem to suit us as a family: the awe-inspiring landscapes, the twisty, fascinating history, the welcoming people we always seem to meet… the habit we have on these holidays of hunkering down in the evenings with good food, good wine (and beer), a tiptop jigsaw (see bottom collage), playing cards (Uno), board games (Ludo), reading books and putting the world to rights.

Releasing cares

Scotland feels like a place where I can forget the cares of everyday life. I’m sure there are economic and cultural pressures on those who live there permanently, particularly in the remoter regions. But the rewards of the seasonal lifestyle seem, to me, satisfying. The views certainly are.

The Crinan Trail and Chamber Tombs

Crinan Harbour to Castle Dounie

Crinan Harbour was peaceful and still. The Crinan Trail began on a seaweed-strewn rocky beach and wound upwards through wet, muddy forest to coastline views. We had coffee on a bench overlooking the Argyll skerries and then climbed higher and higher to Castle Dounie, the ruins of a fort on a headland peak with a staggering view north and south along the coast.

Down to the coast again

The descent was through sap-dropping, moss-blanketed, lichen-sprouting forest glades on paths that merged and emerged, twisted and meandered back to the surprising sight of the car – a metal incongruity in such a primitive, natural landscape. 

Arduaine Gardens

Arduaine Gardens is a lovely, lush semi-tropical paradise with winding paths and yet more romantic views of the Argyll coast. Rhododendrons, azaleas, magnolias, giant Himalayan lilies and forget-me-nots compete for attention in what seems like a series of hidden “garden rooms.” Very relaxing. The garden was begun in 1898 when collecting exotic flora from around the world was a favourite pastime for intrepid plant hunters who had the resources to fund journeys of discovery, sympathetic retrieval, and collection.

Kilmartin Glen's Prehistoric Treasures

An imaginative guide gave us a guided tour of Kilmartin Glen taking in prehistoric burial cairns, stone circles and standing stones. There was a Canterbury Tales-style hotchpotch of eccentric fellow travellers from around the world to keep the guide on his toes. I learned a new word: cists – meaning a stone-built “coffin box”to hold the bones or full bodies of the dead. A deluge fell from the heavens as we returned to the on-sight café – were the ancient gods displeased with us for disturbing the ancient burial chambers?

Lochgilphead

Corlach Peak

Our first adventure on our September 2019 Scottish holiday was to heave ourselves up to the top of Corlach Peak (above our rented house) to gain an appreciation of the jagged coastline stretching across the horizon. The cows and sheep were very adept at negotiating the scrubby thistle-tangled rocks and tussocks, but we had to proceed slowly, especially on the downward trajectory.

Corlach

Paul and Mary (our hosts) welcomed us and revealed the quirks of Corlach (our rented house, not far from the town of Lochgilphead.) The view was mesmerising, and it was hard not to simply gape, slack-jawed at the waters of Loch Craignish which fed into the Sound of Jura and the distant Paps (the high peaks) on Jura. Somewhere out there was the Atlantic Ocean and so, facing west, we had a good chance of a picturesque sunset or two.

Loch Coille-Bharr

Our first big adventure was a hike around Loch Coille-Bharr and through primeval forests to the end of the peninsula (24,614 steps!) A miraculous picnic table appeared in the unlikeliest of spots right at the furthest point of the walk – a wonderful reward. Boy, did we need it, since the blustering wind on our backs and faces was a challenge but a challenge we faced like the intrepid explorers we were. Not another human being appeared all day.

The Living Dead

The sun sparkled on the loch on our return journey as further reward for our efforts and we traversed areas that had been reclaimed for a family of beavers, an eery, primitive wetlands. The path went up, down, high, low, in and out of mossy trees covered in lichen.

Immersion in Nature

We stepped over hoppity frogs and marvelled at weird mushrooms – it felt like a total immersion in nature – no neon signs or concrete pavements to be seen…. The final treat was an authentic Celtic cross, always something that triggers the pleasure zones in me (not to mention a good few minutes of imaginative time-travelling fantasy daydreaming.)

I will be your treasure

Detectorists
I was late to discover this gem of a BBC comedy series but became enamoured at a perfect time: my birthday month. Mackenzie Crook directed and wrote (with Andrew Ellard) this 19-episode masterpiece of friendship, love, hobbying, history, rural life and the search for Anglo-Saxon gold. The writing is understated but underpinned with quotable lines:

• We’re time travellers
• Nostalgia conventions aren’t what they used to be
• Ring pull…83… Tizer…
• Surprisingly bland
• What you’ve got going for you now is that she’s met you, Lance….
• Will you search through the loamy earth for me?

What do I love about it?
It’s a series that presents profound themes in a deceptively light-hearted way. The use of the music by Johnny Flynn and Dan Michaelson connects characters and motifs. (A brilliant cameo song by The Unthanks sisters (Magpie) punctuates a key episode in series 3.) The production values, acting and authenticity to its original premise remain loving and attentive. Lies are told, confrontations occur, but redemption happens, the truth comes out and life moves on. The huge dramas remain buried (in the loamy earth) or are in the distance, fleetingly glimpsed. I was lucky to see Mackenzie Crook live on stage in the brilliant Jez Butterworth play, Jerusalem, a work which reminded me of why I love England; and Detectorists has a similar feel, connecting to ancient truths about tolerance and acceptance, the mongrel nature of our society and how precious is the land beneath our feet. We must learn from history and nature and be better people – there’s a truth to the gold of ordinary lives…. If you’ve yet to discover Detectorists, I envy the treasures waiting for you….

I will be your treasure
The theme song (composed and sung by Johnny Flynn) contains all the themes about digging for the truth of what matters in life and how patience is a true virtue. The compassion and kindness riddling through the seams of Detectorists are patterned into pairings who are all given perfect TV moments:

• Andy and Lance (Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones)
• Andy and Becky (MC with Rachael Stirling)
• Andy and Veronica (MC with Diana Rigg)
• Lance and Maggie (TJ with Lucy Benjamin)
• Lance and Sophie (TJ with Aimee-Ffion Edwards)
• Lance and Kate (TJ with Alexa Davies)
• Lance and Toni (TJ with Rebecca Callard)

And there are telling moments between each pair variation; I’m thinking here of the arc between Rachael Stirling’s Becky and Rebecca Callard’s Toni and their scene under a tree in the final episode. If Andy and Lance are the centre of the show, all the other characters are equally vivid:

• Maggie and Tony (Lucy Benjamin and Adam Riches)
• Art and Paul (Simon Farnaby and Paul Casar), aka Terra Firma, aka Dirt Sharks, aka AntiquiSearchers, aka Simon and Garfunkel

Danebury Metal Detector Club
Then there is the rest of the club, genius characters all (hats off to the casting by Catherine Willis):

• Terry and Sheila (Gerald Horan and the sublime Sophie Thompson)
• Louise and Varde (Laura Checkley and Orion Ben)
• Russell and Hugh (Pearce Quigley and Divian Ladwa)

Detectorists is a character-driven show, though the setting (Framlingham pretending to be Danebury) is also memorable with exquisite shots of the countryside and its creatures, including some memorable aerial shots, by the technical team led by cinematographers Jamie Cairney (13 episodes), Mattias Nyberg (6 episodes) and John Sorapure (1 episode) and editor Colin Fair (all 19 episodes.)

Singer (and actor) Johnny Flynn plus Mark Rylance and Mackenzie Crook in Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem

Full lyrics for Johnny Flynn’s theme song (click here to hear him sing it)
Will you search through the loamy earth for me
Climb through the briar and bramble
I will be your treasure

I felt the touch of the kings and the breath of the wind
I knew the call of all the song birds
They sang all the wrong words
I'm waiting for you, I'm waiting for you

Will you swim through the briny sea for me
Roll along the ocean's floor
I will be your treasure

I'm with the ghosts of the men who can never sing again
There's a place follow me
Where a love lost at sea
Is waiting for you, is waiting for you

Would you drift o’er the rolling fields for me
Hoard me in the highest bough
I will be your treasure

But in history’s rhyme there’s a place and a time
And a truth to the gold
That the folds cannot hold
I’m waiting for you, I’m waiting for you