Sandy Islet

On Monday I took a walk along the Allan Water towards Stirling and it’s castle.

Leaving Mossgrove, I passed the play-park where children are currently no longer free to play [due to the Coronavirus pandemic]. I miss the young voices – that indescribable backdrop to life, not always heard, but somehow felt, and always fantoosh.

The play-park cherry blossom is now at its best:

Our other neighbour, the Bowling green, is just as silent. The green, still closely cut, offers no spirited competition: the shouts of encouragement from the auld wans as silent as the weans:

Our village bowling green leads to allotments where gentle gardeners sow seeds for the future:

Allotments that form a hedgeless western edge to Sports fields that open to:

From here, the Allan Water flows through my grandfather’s orchard

Long ago, the railway divided this orchard:

Robert Louis Stevenson, as a boy, followed the same route. At Cornton the view opens to reveal Stirling castle:

This is a good spot to fish the Allan Water: the pools are deeper and the water flows less turbulently:

‘Mytholm’:  where the Allan Water meets the river Forth – where a lowland boy becomes a Highlander!

 


Ted Hughes described a ‘mytholm’ as meeting of streams. This film is about such a meeting. Where the Allan Water goes Forth. Some years ago I made this film:

Mytholm:

To play this short film please click here or on the image above

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