The Moray Firth, sort of

 

A Sea Full Of Wonders

Nairn Book and Arts Festival

September 2021

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!

 

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!

Auldearn Primary School

Cawdor Primary School

Millbank Primary School, Nairn

Rosebank primary School, Nairn 

 

a Rosebank Lobster

A Cawdor Seal

 

A Millbank crab