Category Archives: Postcards 2023

Unknown's avatar

It’s been warm in the Scottish Highlands

by

Another short postcard written at the end of a day that’s changed itself from warm and beaming, to wet.

In the morning we woke up to sunshine and wind. Clouds raced above fields of sheep, the sun was bright on the grass, and the dark chop of the Beauly Firth just visible in the distance. It was beautiful, but weirdly warm for October. I wondered whether it was normal to see rose buds still clinging to cottage walls in the middle of autumn so far north.

Tonight though is a different story. We are still in Scotland but further south, and the rain has arrived with amber warnings attached. I don’t think tomorrow will be an easy day for sheep or roses up here.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

Unknown's avatar

A day with a view

by

Today we met, and we remembered.

It was a day for dog walks, for family, and for visiting small graveyards tucked into the folds between the buildings.

The tides ebbed and flowed, and the sun came out in sudden shafts. Life itself felt as if it was moving all around us. Skeins of geese poured across the sky unaware of the sadness below, while children, suddenly bored, burst into cartwheels and play. They were excited to be there, and to see this new grouping collect and connect – strangers they had never known, who might re-emerge in faded photographs when they, the children themselves, were old.

The great wheel of life was turning and we turned to – happy to be together.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

Unknown's avatar

The Christian Watt Papers edited by David Fraser

by

Another treat of a book to travel with, and it feels right to be taking it to Inverness and the Moray Firth.

Eland included a short press release with this copy, and it emphasises that the ‘voice’ in the book is that of Christian Watt. She was born in 1833, and it is her words used, as found in the papers and notes she left when she died in 1923. Apparently she was encouraged to write as a type of therapy to help her through the loss at sea of a son, her husband, and four of her seven brothers. The family kept all her work together and after her death passed them on to David Fraser, who organised and edited the collection ready for publication. The first copy was published in 1988, with this edition coming out this year.

I have only just started the book but already the voice and its context are drawing me in. The hardships endured sound terrible. Christian Watt was not even nine when she began work as a domestic servant. She then returned to work back by the sea where her family where from, and eventually married a fisherman.

The introduction to the book ends with these words: “The times through which she lived were hard, and the folk they produced were not only hard but brave and tender. It is fortunate indeed that they come to meet us through the words of so worthy, witty and fluent a chronicler.”

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023