Memories of Lammermuir

Footbridge across to Fast Castle, Berwickshire

A month has now passed since we parted company in Saint Abbs and life has resumed its daily cycle. However, like a wheel turning, each revolution takes us onto new ground. Two thousand and ten remains a prospect still full of optimism. The brighter, milder weather that's followed the bitter snows of January carries with it the promise of spring and opportunities for positive action.

It's certainly been a busy month work-wise, having to turn out every day and putting in more hours than some full-time colleagues. The benefit of long hours is seen in my monthly payslip, but the corresponding downside is evening exhaustion. The weekends become so much more precious as a resource. Projects beckon and time has to be so much more carefully managed.

In quieter moments, my imagination has been captured by the Bride of Lammermoor, Walter Scott's tragic tale of madness, oppression and thwarted love. Not an author I ever thought I would be likely to read, I came to his gothic tale via Donizetti's operatic adaptation Lucia di Lammermoor, which in turn I originally discovered many years ago via the soundtrack of Paul Cox's 1973 comedy-drama, Man of Flowers. (One of my all-time favourite films, not least for the way it visualises memory in the flashback sequences.) The Christmas holiday provided the opportunity for my third visit to Fast Castle, the first visit in which I began to understand its relevance to Scott's tale.

Every time I've visited the place, lonely and remote though it is, I've always been surprised to find other people there. One curious thing is that they never look like the kind of people you would ever expect to find in such a God-forsaken spot, the sort that Florence (who was with me again this time) calls "ruff-ty tuff-ty". On this, the bitterest, bleakest day you could ever have wished to stay indoors, we found there a minibus-full of dapper twenty-somethings, dressed alike in smart urban clothes. They were leaving as we approached, so we never got to talk, but never did a group look so out of place as they set off back to their minibus, parked two or three miles away down a snowbound lane. My theory is that they were there because of the Scott/Donizetti connection and might have been musicians or singers absorbing the atmosphere. Whoever they were, seeing them there was a slighty surreal experience.

There are so many brilliant performances from Lucia that it's impossible to choose the definitive one. Joan Sutherland for the voice - or the acting of Natalie Dessay? What about Netrebko? Caballé? YouTube has Dessay's entire mad scene split into parts 1 to 3. Mesmerising and so worth watching!