Many years ago I was able to walk or cycle to the wonderful rocky coastline of Portencross in south west Scotland. My friend and I would set out for the day with a bottle of ginger (lemonade) or money to buy one at the little post office that used to sit quaint and unassuming close by the ruins of Portencross Castle.
I remember as a child hearing the locals talk of the legend that the great kings of Scotland lay in state at Portencross Castle before being transported to the Island of Iona for burial. The castle now restored is a popular tourist attraction.(1)
Today Shona kindly picks me up in her car it is a fresh sunny day and we decide to visit my old haunt Portencross. Of course things have changed to see new houses squashed against the old village buildings shocked me, but of course with the wonderful castle restoration came a large tarmac car park and who wouldn't want to be here for an hour, a day, a week, a lifetime. I wonder as I join the many visitors including a couple of police officers on their tea break, what will become of this place now change is sprinting through its contentment.
I came today to search for pattern I walked from the car park slowly along the worn path running close to the rough and worn rocks separating me from the sea, stopping before reaching the sandy expanse of Ardneil bay. A walk only a couple of hundred metres in total but full of pattern; of ancient and shadowed crevices in the rocks, little plants creeping up with the longer daylight, farm debris of concrete drainage pipes and fallen brick walls and kissing gates which I imaging are a new addition simultaneous with the castle restorations guiding people away from and towards uncertain boundaries.
I took 27 photographs of the patterns around me, my goal being to create small drypoint prints of the patterns and bring them all together as a type of landscape image of this small area walked.
A lovely day catching up with this place so etched in my heart, where ancient meets old meets new.
(1) http://www.portencrosscastle.org.uk/history.htm
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