Sarah Hill sent me this last week. It’s an old folk song she recorded especially with the folk musician Phil Tyler.  She told me it made her think of me standing on Knoydart’s shore everyday.  I met Sarah when I first came to Knoydart seven years ago and we became good friends over my first winter .

In the same week Jim Manthorpe another good friend who has just left Knoydart posted this video as a way of saying goodbye to the place.

It made me think I should write a short update of how things have been since leaving and returning. Since June 21st I have been to Edinburgh, Dorset and London visiting family and friends and do some teaching work to fund me through the edit. Both Sarah’s song and Jim’s video captured how I felt returning to home to Knoydart.

As well as a renewed passion for the place and I’ve gained a profound sense of how much I have changed over the course of this project. Despite spending most of the last year fantasising about being back in the city, twelve months of quietness and relative solitude made London suprisingly hard and it was a relief to come home to the birds and the mountains and the constant sound of the sea. (Even if it isn’t quite the same without people like Sarah, Jim, Claire and Oren living here any more.) I have a sense of being more able to  accept of what life offers, rather than chasing unfulfilled dreams or trying to escape difficulties, more  greatful of the small pleasures and appreciative of the need to put down roots. I am also markedly much better at being on time!

So on to the edit and looking at the film I have with a fresh pair of eyes. The plan is a rough cut by Christmas at the latest.

I’m still musing on ideas of place and time so keep responding and I will post updates as when people send things.