Beautiful isn’t it? Yet, I felt panicked when I saw the loch was being drained. I stood like an angry lorax at the side, pointing at trees that had been felled to carve an ugly canal in the bank, asking irate questions: Why? When will it be fixed? Why?
It didn’t look quite like that then.
The freshness of the change was jarring. A conversation made things better. It wasn’t mindless destruction. There was talk of a loch-improving grant. There will be an island to encourage wildlife. There are to be oxidising plants to improve the water quality.
Swans started spending the night in the new shallows of the loch:
They left a feathery tide:
Sunrise still happens.
Clouds still gather in dramatic formations.
I walk out onto the frozen floor of the loch and examine long-hidden tree branches, pine cones, old boat jetties and numerous wine bottles (who?). I like getting to know the space in this new way, looking back at the shore, seeing it from a different angle. Nature doesn’t take long to smooth over the tracks of human intervention. There’s been mist, there’s been ice and now there’s snow.
What will Spring look like? I’m not sure, but there’s going to be beauty. There always is.
Set in a fictional castle in Aberdeenshire, Ailish Sinclair’s debut novel, THE MERMAID AND THE BEAR, features an often overlooked event in history, the 1597 Aberdeen witchcraft panic, and a love story.
FIREFLIES AND CHOCOLATE, out April 1st 2021, was inspired by the kidnapped children and young people of Aberdeen. The story follows the adventures of Elizabeth Manteith from the castle and her determined efforts to get back home. There’s love. There’s derring-dos on the high seas… And there’s chocolate!
See the publisher’s Press Release here
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Ailish, I saw that you had written a new post quite early this morning, but I saved reading it until I had a quiet moment. This kind of sums up my life at the moment! The last phase though ‘there’s going to be beauty. There always is.’
I need to remember that last bit and cease the panic that happens sometimes…
Is it already frozen there? And how did they drain the loch?
It has been frosty, yes. They dug a deep canal and the water is being channelled away to a deep drain. It will refill from springs in the ground once the canal is closed.
Interesting. Our city has done something similar with the river – flood abatement. They’ve made a canal so flood waters will flow back into the canal and onto a flood plain instead of flooding our commercial center – but first they drained off a portion of the river. It was weird!
Some of the loch created a flood plain in a nearby field when the drain blocked! Swans swam about on that too…
Truly sublime. Thank you.
I’m glad you liked it 🙂
I like the way you work around to a reconciliation with the process. I’d be cynical of someone draining any natural feature, sure that they can’t actually ‘know’ all that might happen. But it sounds like this one might work.
All I can do is observe. Go back a couple of hundred years and the loch was much bigger. It was drained for farmland. At least this current situation will be reversed.
I too panicked when I read the first line, but found solace in the explanations given by you.. and the pics and the post.. awesome as ever.. like you said, theres going to be beauty.. there always is..
take care
Truely beautiful pictures