Lakeland Dipper (abroad) 8

Loch Valley, near Loch Trool, Galloway

An impulsive late decision to swim here again. A remote part of the Southern Scottish Highlands below The Merrick. I love it here and have swum here a few times before. It is a magical place, silent and vast. It is like something out of Tolkein with such names to conjur with ... this is taken looking across to the Rigg of Jarkness, nearby is Loch Neldricken, Loch Enoch, the Silver Flowe (a most remarkable bog), the Range of the Awful Hand ... and so it goes on. I saw my first ever Great Sundew, I thought it was Oblong-leaved at first which I also havn't seen before but they were such distinctively long leaves that curled over and all around there was a sea of Bog Asphodel.

Loch Valley Swim

Loch Valley lies still
Long summer evening. Fish rise
Nudging at darkness.

Gulliver

A helpless giant
Among the Lilliputian
World of midge meal time.

Touch Has a Memory - Clive James

Touch has a memory
Better than the other senses
Hearing and sight fight free
Touching has no defences
Textures come back to you real as can be
Touch has memory

Fine eyes are wide at night
Eyelashes show that nicely
Seeing forgets the sight
Touch recollects precisely
Eyelids are modest yet blink at a kiss
Touching takes note of this

When in a later day
Little of the vision lingers
Memory slips away
Every way but through the fingers
Textures come back to you real as can be
Making you feel
Time doesn't heal
And touch has a memory