A Sea Full Of Wonders
Nairn Book and Arts Festival
September 2021
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| jellyfish sketches, Rosebank |
Our sea is filling up: with fish and dolphins and octopus, jellyfish whale sharks and squid. Over the last week I have been working in schools around Nairn, telling stories and listening to children telling me their sea-secrets: from the Moray Firth but also from holidays and occasionally from dreams or simple fantasy! I heard about the two seals who always come back to the shelter of the River Nairn and the seals who pull out on the Culbin Sands. There was the boy who swam with last year’s basking sharks, almost by mistake – and how exciting and peaceful and safe that felt.
Part of Nairn Books and Arts Festival these workshops have
been a reflection of this year’s theme “close to nature’s heart”. We have been
making those sea creatures as puppets for hands and arms and as crowns and
head-pieces. Tomorrow, we’ll gather whoever the tide sweeps in and our sea
creatures will become a sea, a dancing sea washing over the green grass and
cricket pitch of Nairn’s Links to meet the spectacular puppet Storm (designed,
built and managed by VisionMechanics, we suspect she also does Her Own Thing
when no-one is watching…. )[Photo below is from Storm in action from the BBC website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-51125083]
Spaces to meet Storm are already full but after her appearance at the Links, she will wander up Nairn High Street and could be encountered there. Spirit of the Sea, she is appearing all over Scotland in the run-up to COP26 so you might catch another appearance if you check on her website – or you can tune in to her live feeds and see what Storm sees as she explores the coastal towns of Scotland!
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| Millbank Sharks |
This is our Firth, the Moray Firth,
This water, these seas, hold
Basking sharks and bottlenose dolphins,
Cold-water corals and playful otters,
Seals on the sand, in the sea, watching everything,
The sea’s spies.
The Moray Firth holds all these.
There are Orca and seagulls and dragonflies, too.
There are warm rockpools with seaweed houses for crabs and shrimps.
We always look for octopus and hope for squid and turtles.
Once there was a walrus
Stories say there are mermaids but we haven’t seen them, but
There are jellyfish, always jellyfish.
And ice-cream from the cafes at the Beach
An Auldearn windowledge
With many thanks to the staff and pupils of the following schools for their hospitality, enthusiasm and magnificent art skills!
Millbank Primary School, Nairn
Rosebank primary School, Nairn
a Rosebank Lobster 
A Cawdor Seal
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| A Millbank crab |
