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Weet.

A day and night and day of rain.

I walk the hill,

the steepit earth.

Ditches brim full of milky tea wash clotted cream foam to the margins.

A scuddie wind blaws.

I take a portrait of Ian in boilersuit and wellies.

He looks away in to the distance, every inch a farmer.

This piece will be part of Fidra Fine Art’s ‘Abstracted’ exhibition opening on April 6th. It shows the harbour with boats, the island of Graemsay, and Hoy High lighthouse and the looming presence of the the great sea cliffs of the island of Hoy.

I walk the old route across the city. Mapped in my head. New flats fill the wasteland where the towerblocks once stood. New shops, old shops. I push open the door to Ianeeta’s the sweetie shop in the hilltoon and smile as my english voice struggles with asking for a quarter of soor plooms again. I stuff the twist of a paper bag into my brown corduroy coat. Past the engravers shop where Jimi Hendrix lies next to a sign for a petrol pump now. At the school a wee boy walks home with his mum. She says….’just don’t react, thats what he wants.’ ‘But he says bad things to me.’ ‘What does he say ?’ ‘He says I’m a little loser’. ‘ Well you must tell your teacher. And I’ll be having words with his mum. Anyway tell me something nice that happened today.’ She sighs, opens the gate and they go inside.’ The sun peeks out fleetingly. The lollipop man tells me he enjoys his job, says it keeps him out of the pub, out from under her feet. These streets bring back memories of my year at art school, of making and writing and walking my way into this city. I feel for a sweetie in my pocket. I prise one away, sticky and radioactive green, pop it in my mouth and walk to the end of the line.

Study – ink and charcoal.