The Lochan

The pew wis a lang, lang timmer sattle, aa sheeny wi the dowpin doon o hunners o docks, smeeth's the face o a lochan on a quate simmer's day.

(The pew was a long, long wooden bench, all shiny with the dumping down of hundreds of backsides, as smooth as the face of a lochan on a quiet summer's day.)

From: The Bonsai Grower by Sheena Blackhall (1998)

Sheena Blackhall is a writer, illustrator, traditional ballad singer and storyteller in North East Scotland. From 1998-2003 she was Creative Writing Fellow in Scots at Aberdeen University's Elphinstone Institute. She has published four Scots novellas, twelve short story collections, including The Bonsai Grower, and over eighty poetry collections. In 2009 she became Makar (poet laureate) for Aberdeen & the North East.