At the Watershed on the Last Day of Winter

The leap-year day's morning sun shone low and wan, but yes; surprisingly warm - record-breaking warm, in fact - on that windless morning last week above the town. I was between, on one side, the utterly deserted championship golf course at Hazlehead and, on the other, the scrubby edgeland which is made up of the not-quite urban, not-quite rural landscape to the immediate west. Horseriding centres, market-garden smallholdings, deep-infrastructure municipal reservoirs and pine-forested monoculture woods along with all the other usual edgeland ephemera form a patchwork of land use at the western edge of the town. A never-to-be completed network of paths for walkers, equestrians and mountain bikers waits to be discovered or ignored - relaid or allowed to overgrow into desuetude. 

Exploring edgelands like these, where the town frays into the country you might find a path you'd never noticed before. You might follow it through a forested area then between a field of scrubby grass with a magnificent white stallion on one side and on the other, the newly tilled soft rich black soil of this good earth, moist and shining in that warming sun. Your newly-discovered path might bring you to an area you recognise, ah yes, connecting round from a way you'd never come before. And you'd experience an odd mix of feelings. Satisfaction, yes - happy that you'd found a new route that joined up with paths you already knew. But a sadness too - the regret that comes with finally completing a collection, a closing in and rounding off of knowledge, the expiry of a mystery; is that all there is?

Exploring another path - you might find it not-quite-yet overgrown, but hard-enough going, gorse-barbs nipping your arms and legs. Was this an old farm-access road? Was it a drover's road? A tight avenue of mature trees and dry-stane dykes, the once-made now unmade road beneath your feet now grassy green with a desire-line muddy trail up the middle. Who's were the last feet to walk this way? When? And what for? Then the route just stops, cut dead by a recently-built embankment, upon which a commuter's dual-carrageway thunders; Evoque and Focus alike, Hi-Lux and Transit shouldered upon heroic-high revetment thirty feet above your extinguished desire line. You'd have no choice but to turn around and retrace your steps.

And on that anomalously-hot morning last week, that's where I was. Exploring the paths beyond Hazlehead and marvelling at the morning's dew - now sunshine-liberated steamy mist, atmospherically drifting between the pines and highlighting that low-slanting sunshine. Then, secreted somewhere in this liminal zone between the barely-used paths, deep in the small woods I found what I was looking for.

There I found nature's centred silence. A serene stretch of silver-surfaced shallow water amid the trees. These still waters spread wide; a labyrinthine mirror, serpentine between the pines. A seasonally-natural reservoir of the late autumn, winter and early spring months. Then to be exhausted; just-drying cracking mud or even dusty parched concrete-hard in the hottest of summers.

Pushing branches aside, there I stopped and stood by the edge of the still water. As my consciousness slowed and expanded, I began to perceive the sounds which are embedded in silence. A single bird sings to establish territory, or maybe to attract a mate. A sudden gentle breeze ruffles the treetop canopy, it sounds like a breath. Above - dewdrops on the pine-needles come together and surface tension overcomes the tendency to misty evaporation; gravity becomes the major motive force; a drop forms at the end of the needle gathering weight; and more and more, then poink! First one drip, then poit-poit! Two others drip from the branches into the water and make ripples that radiate, disturbing the mirror-perfect surface. Now I can hear, now I know, that this landscape is a waterscape is a soundscape, subtly it is dominated by the gently soft sound of the slowly running trickling gurgles of water flowing from the reservoir. The drips that plopped from the trees above, I knew would find their way to the sea in time; how would they get there?

I perceived that from this reservoir the winterbournes trickle out slickly, slowly propagating and shallowly leaching, following inevitable gravity - reaching down through the woods to the three watercourses which originate nearby. Water branches, like the bifurcations of the trees' branches above, radiating out through the sphagnum carpeted, cone-strewn winter-wet forest floor. This landscape is alive with sluggish silvery gurgles; some streams as wide as I am tall, some as thin as my wrist. A temporary and ever-changing dynamic wetland, the channels altering week to week - day to day. I stood perfect still, slowed my breaths and harkened, listening to the trickles of this three-way watershed. And I sent my thoughts out through the landscape, accompanying the waters on their journey to the sea. Down through finding folds in the landscape; rushing tumbling through gushing gorges and dens; sluggish broad floodplains; dead straight constrained in dug channels; sometimes in the open behind the terraced homes of west end; then covered in concrete culverts and brick-vaulted crypts, audible beneath manhole-covers in the town centre. 

Out from this secret reservoir, those flows which run to the south find their snaking way between the two municipal golf courses, and eventually become the water of Holburn then the Ferryhill Burn which empties into the big famous River Dee near Union Square's shopping complex car-park. And water which spills west from the watershed trickles to Countesswells and adds to the source of the Cults Burn, rushing spectacular and steep down the Den of Cults hanging valley, again into the Dee. But water which runs from here to the north and east forms seasonal streams which empty into the finger-pattern drainage ditches of the woods and become an ornamental stream which is wrangled to run picturesque through the plastic-wrapped-bouquet-strewn garden of remembrance at the City Crematorium, then to swoop down and beneath the Skene Road commuter route, emptying into the Den of Maidencraig and the Denburn, the nearly-river which gave our town its name.

My feet had gone on paths new and old, discovered and forgotten, and came to be standing at the three-way watershed on the last day of the season. The drop of water with its choice to make - to be made for it - from three options, three ways to go. A small change in initial conditions will lead to radically different results. I went to walk away through the trees back to the path, and as I looked at the sunlight shining through the mist between the trees, I realised that there was, of course, a fourth option, for some of the morning's dew had, as I had noticed earlier, formed that thin mist in the woods, now rising high to the sky, absorbed into the air, part of the atmosphere and away. Far, far away.

Hazlehead Externalities

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Long before you can see it, you can smell it; the outdoor odour of hot fried onions being remarkably similar to that of unwashed underarm sweat. Before you can see it, you can hear it; the diesel genny's farting thrum is no respecter of horticultural serenity. Those canned drinks have just godda be served cold!

The school term having just started, and this visit being made at lunchtime, many children from Hazlehead Academy (those both in the know and in the money) were seen queueing for their quarterpounder cheezeburgers and chips and Coke. All children being willing addicts of these foodstuffs, their preference is bound to run to the burgervan over municipal school dinners. 

And we wonder: is that OK? Did the process of awarding this catering concession take this into account? Or is it an unforeseen consequence. And we wonder, as we would, how did this concession come to be awarded to the burgervan of 'Monster Catering'; how much do they pay and to what controls are they subject? And in any case, just who exactly is the customer here? Which party is providing the feed and which party is the consumer?

And we wonder why the already existing modernist snack kiosk, only ten yards from the burgervan - with its already-plumbed and wired services cannot be used by the concessionaire. Indeed, we wonder what has happened to the once stately café, now boarded up and seemingly abandoned, where friends enjoyed French fancies not four months ago. It is said that the market serves all needs. And the burgers are good (not to try is not to know) and the schoolkids are very happy today. But it is clear from the scenario playing out in our town's Hazlehead park that the market both discounts the future and ignores inconvenient externalities.

If you turn your back on the noise and smell of the burgervan and walk past the soon to be derelict restaurant café, (its unique jasmine planting commemorates the pro-democracy struggle of Burmese political activist Aung San Suu Kyi), there, near a car-park you'll find a garden of stonework pods which show historical episodes from the life of Robert the Bruce in concrete-pressed bas-relief. And to think - Councillor Kevin Stewart, when he commissioned that new statue which sits outside Marischal College said that the town had no commemoration of The Bruce! It is particularly interesting to note that one of the reliefs actually has the courage to depict the historically difficult 'Harrying of Buchan' episode, though we don't think it quite manages to do justice to the full extent of the ethnic cleansing genocide, systematic rape and managed campaign of terror, demolition, fire-raising and eradication meted out to the people of this region by Bruce. Shame.

Although much of the park is already derelict and not open, if you continue walking west past what we understand is the second-largest municipal maze in the UK (now free entry, yay!) you'll walk through some well-tended gardens, putting greens, sculpture courts. And at last, the smell of the burgervan and the noise of its noxious generator fades, to be overridden by the spicy fragrance of rhododendron and the twittering of little birds respectively. 

But the Queen Mother garden is suffering from austerity cut-backs.

But next plot to that, the Piper Alpha memorial garden is in good shape. Like the Queen Mother garden, it's the sort of formally laid-out rose-garden very common in Scotland, and that's OK. No risks were taken, no-one was offended.

If any readers don't know about the Piper Alpha disaster, click here.

The Piper Alpha memorial sculpture is emotionally engaging and moving. The three figures, with their attitudes, gestures and clothing, are replete with meaning and symbology. In a still moment, alone with the sculpture, you might just begin notice the tiny things which our photos cannot show. You might begin to feel stuff. If you're old enough, you'll remember stuff. 

But when these photos were taken, the Piper Alpha garden was being tended by two municipal gardeners who had a portable radio with them. Its ill-tuned pop channel was crepitating a cacophonic dancefloor remix of Jerry Rafferty's 'Baker Street' across the formal beds. I did my best to ignore it and took some more photos. A third gardener, older, appeared. Brown-sharn-smudged high-visibility tabard and trousers orange and lemon - suddenly framed at the entrance to the rose garden - he suddenly appeared and started hollering at the other two. Something to do with the order in which they were doing the work, or they were doing it all wrong or something, I don't know. The two with the radio started gesturing obscenely and taunting the newcomer, taking the piss, humiliating him. This sent him into a rage and his shouts became louder and more indignant. The two turned off their radio, the better to hear and laugh at the exhortations of the third who was by now charging towards them, waving his arms about, an incoherent stream of invective issuing from his spittle-flecked lips. Thinking it best not to intrude upon private grief, I withdrew back to the Queen Mother garden, and mooched around for a few minutes. 

When I returned to the Piper Alpha garden, all the gardeners had gone. There was peace and space and air and light in which I could now contemplate the memorial, its 168 engraved names, that dreadful night. 

Then I began to remember.

Then I remembered something of that time...

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With thanks to reader Peter

for the inspiration and ideas which led to this post

Last Exit to Modernism.

Often, the buildings which are created to fulfill spiritual needs are at the cutting edge of architectural experimentation. The medieval cathedrals pushed the very limits of what it is possible to achieve with dressed stone and the pre-medieval basilicas, mosques and temples of the levant similarly created breathtaking precedents in design, building and placemaking for communities. Buildings which to our contemporary eyes now might seem traditional and rooted in the ages were, in their time, jarringly new.

In Scotland, we are lucky to be home to one of the most important modernist buildings which is part of this spiritual tradition in St Peter's Seminary at Cardross. This at-risk building is Category A listed and is thought by some to be Scotland's most important post WWII building.

In Aberdeen, while we have nothing quite of the calibre of St Peter's, we do have an important modernist building which fits quite neatly in this category. Happily, this building is in an excellent interior and exterior condition, and is at present subject to an 'upgrade' (we have qualms about the word in this context). Of particular note is the quality of the interior woodwork, the ironwork details on gates and porticos and the bronze roofing. The stained glass is of internationally-important quality.

If you have family in Aberdeen, sooner or later, you're regrettably likely to be visiting this location. And when you do, you're likely to be in no fit state or mood to appreciate the architectural quality of the complex. So, take the time to have a look now.

The Lost Dreams of the Potential Lions

These are Aberdeen's quiescent lions. They will sleep eternally within the rocks - existing only ever as potential lions.

Originally intended as heraldic gatekeepers to the George VI bridge linking Ferryhill and Kincorth, their birth from the rock was still, interrupted by the Second World War. After the war, the will and means was never mustered to complete their sculpting.

The fourth dormant lion now roars silently as the Ertchie 'Petch' Simpson memorial in Bon Accord Square. The three seen above are in Hazlehead Park's Sculpture Garden. Along with this orphaned plinth which has never seen the statue which it was to host:

All a bit sad, really...

Edit.

One of the lions got a bit closer to being born from the stone than the others:

With a little imagination, we can see the curve of his back, leading to his haunches and rear paws as he sits neatly. The hint of a swishing tail. The curve of the back of his head is visible, with pointed ears sprouting from his lush mane.