Windswept: Life, Nature and Deep Time in the Scottish Highlands

by Annie Worsley

A few years ago, Annie Worsley traded a busy life in academia to take on a small-holding or croft on the west coast of Scotland. It is a land ruled by great elemental forces – light, wind and water – that hold sway over how land forms, where the sea sits and what grows. Windswept explores what it means to live in this rugged, awe-inspiring place of unquenchable spirit and wild weather. Walk with Annie as she lays quartz stones in the river to reflect the moonlight and attract salmon, as she watches otters play tag across the beach, as she is awoken by the feral bellowing of stags. Travel back in time to the epic story of how Scotland’s valleys were carved by glaciers, rivers scythed paths through mountains, how the earliest people found a way of life in the Highlands – and how she then found a home there millennia later. With stunning imagery and lyrical prose, Windswept evokes a place where nature reigns supreme and humans must learn to adapt. It is her paean to a beloved place, one richer with colour, sound and life than perhaps anywhere else in the UK.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Scotland, Memoir, Environment, Ecology, Natural History

284 pages, Hardcover

First published July 20, 2023

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d come across Worsley in the Wildlife Trusts’ Seasons anthologies. For a decade she has lived on Red River Croft, in a little-known pocket of northwest Scotland. In word pictures as much as in the colour photographs that illustrate this volume, she depicts it as a wild land shaped mostly by natural forces – also, sometimes, manmade. From one September to the next, she documents wildlife spectacles and the influence of weather patterns. Chronic illness sometimes limited her daily walks to the fence at the cliff-top. (But what a view from there!) There is more here about local history and ecology than any but the keenest Scotland-phile may be interested to read. Worsley also touches on her upbringing in polluted Lancashire, and her former academic career and fieldwork in Papua New Guinea. Her descriptions are full of colours and alliteration, though perhaps a little wordy: “Pale-gold autumnal days are spliced by fickle and feisty bouts of turbulent weather. … Sunrises and sunsets may pour with cinnabar and henna; dawn and dusk can ripple with crimson and purple.” The kind of writing I could appreciate for the length of an essay but not a whole book.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

very interesting book about nature in north west Scotland and how things evolve

[Sibi Rush · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing is beautiful and takes me back to wonderful memories in the north of Scotland, and even makes me hungry for more. I would enjoy reading a short article in this descriptive language, but not a whole book.

[Lydia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely, lyrical writing and a true paean to the beauty of nature and the Scottish highlands in particular. At times it meaders a little and the poetical, drifting nature of the writing doesn't always seem to justify a full book but overall I really enjoyed reading it and getting to know Worsley's corner of the world. Themes such as Worsley's long-term illness and the impact of climate change are introduced but mainly touched upon lightly, if thoughtfully, but mostly this is a conversation between Worsley and the place that she lives. Obviously it makes me want to immediately go there and commune with an otter.

[Leticia · Rating 4 out of 5]

You could open Windswept on almost any page and find a line that conjures a moment in nature so vividly that it stops you in your tracks. The beauty and specificity of the way Annie Worsley writes about her corner of the Highlands is unparalleled. Information about croft farming and incidents from her life are interspersed through the book, but it doesn't go into the level of autobiographical and practical detail you get in farming memoirs like The Shepherd's Life. From the relatively small geographical area around the author's croft, the scope is wider and more diffuse, exactly as the full title says: life, nature and time.

The year is divided into four seasonal/astronomical periods and within each of these periods Worsley identifies and expounds poetically on developments in nature during that time period, forming what she describes as a kind of calendar. With such a loose structure and nothing as concrete as a story to guide it Windswept could be dull and meandering, but the observation is acute enough and the writing so transporting that I never wanted to put it down. I enjoyed every word and wanted to pack up and go to Scotland immediately.

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Annie Worsley erzählt die Geschichte von Red River Croft, der kleinen Farm an der Küste im Nordwesten Schottlands, die sie und ihr Mann nach ihrem Arbeitsleben zu ihrem neuen Zuhause machten. Mich hat ihre Geschichte angesprochen, weil zwar nicht Erradale, das benachbarte Dorf, aber die Ecke Schottlands, in der die Croft liegt, kenne und mich beim Durchfahren oder Wandern dort immer mal wieder gefragt habe, wie es wohl wäre, dort zu leben.

Es wäre sicherlich eine Herausforderung, besonders wenn man mit so wenig Wissen über das Leben auf einer Croft, wie es Annie und ihr Mann hatten, dorthin zieht. Aber es ist eine gute Herausforderung, denn die Menschen in ihrer Umgebung sind hilfsbereit und so wachsen sie Schritt für Schritt in ihre neue Aufgabe hinein und lernen mit jedem Schritt ein bisschen meh

Auch ich habe einiges gelernt: über die Regeln, die zu beachten sind, wenn man eine Croft führen will, über das Zusammenleben mit Menschen, die eben noch fremd waren und trotzdem alles tun, um die Neuen zu unterstützen. Über die Geschichte nicht nur von Erradale, sondern auch über die Region und ihre Bräuche, viele davon von alters her. Besonders fasziniert hat mich zu lesen, dass Torf nur ungefähr einen Millimeter im Jahr wächst, was bedeutet, dass man sich beim Torfstechen durch Jahrzehnte von Geschichte bewegt.

Vieles von dem, was Annie fasziniert und was sie liebt, ist für andere Farmer eine Bedrohung. So sind jemand, der eine Farm als Lebensunterhalt betreibt, Raubvögel Ungeziefer, die neugeborene Lämmer töten. Auch vieles, was in den letzten Jahren unternommen wurde, um die natürlichen Ökosysteme wiederherzustellen, sehen sie mit misstrauischen Augen. Oft ist es eine Entscheidung zwischen Profit oder Natur.

Und was für Natur ist es, die Annie Worsley beschreibt: Sonnenuntergänge über der Isle of Skye, Winterstürme, wie sich der Himmel mit jeder Minute verändert, wenn sie ihn länger beobachtet... mit ihrer Beschreibung malt sie Bilder in den schönsten Farben in meinem Kopf. Auch später, als ihr Körper sie im Stich lässt, ist sie immer noch draußen. Nicht mehr so lange oder so weit wie früher, aber mit der gleichen Intensität. Und auch wenn es ihr weh tut, mehr an die Croft gebunden zu sein, habe ich sie in ihrer Erzählung nie verbittert erlebt. Einfach ein wunderbares Buch.

[Lester Noel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved every second of this book…..her description of an encounter with midges made itch!

[Jane Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lovely book, very unusual and beautifully described. When I started reading it, I thought that South Erradale, where the author lives, sounded familiar and right enough, I have a friend who lives there and knows the author and indeed is mentioned in the acknowledgments. Not that I’ve ever been there but it made it more real to me. Annie’s descriptions and use of language for the colours of sky and sea and mountains is amazing and although life sounds hard and brutal during the winter, her love and passion for that area shines through. She was a geologist and geographer so there is quite a lot of talk about the rock strata and ecology and it is fascinating to hear about all the plants and insect life that they are trying to encourage back into the area. Makes me want to visit now!

[Jessie Pietens · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well written book with a great story. It was set up in an interesting way as well, moving with the cycles of nature, but I just didn’t connect with it as much as I had hoped. This is the story of a woman moving to the Scottish Highlands. Her life ebbs and flows with the seasons and cycles of nature. She describes het life as a crofter in the Scottish Highlands with great detail, which definitely speaks to the imagination. This might have been a wrong book at the wrong time situation. Still worth the read if you’d like to learn about Scottish nature or if you’re a big nature writing geek like me!

[Woolfhead · Rating 4 out of 5]

A carefully observed and poetic love letter to a very specific Croft of land on the coast of Scotland and also a meditation on seasonal changes, annual cycles, history, geography, and botany. Delightful.

[Dr. des. Siobhán · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the wonderful photographs that were included in this piece of nature writing. I know the places the author writes about and I liked how she writes about them, but I was overall a bit bored. Might again be a me problem because I'm ill.

[Judy Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great description of nature and life in the Scottish Highlands..a must for nature lovers.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book to be savoured, and appreciated in small chunks, rather than attempted in one go. It is an almanac of sorts, charting the sun and the flora and fauna through the seasons, and noting very tiny changes. The detail in this book is incredible, and the language immerses you in that wildflower meadow breathing in the heady scent with Annie Worsley, or sitting on that sea log holding your breath as otters run by.

This book is an incredible collection of observations over the the ten years Annie and her husband have been living on the croft, organised into a journey around the sun as the seasons change, and it took my breath away.

I think I saw in Annie a lot of myself. I, too, grew up in that same toxic chemical town, and I, too, escaped to north wales for family holidays to breath in the fresh, salty air. As I’ve aged, I’ve come to appreciate the great beauty of the moors where I now live, and now I just wish I had some land like Annie where I could make a real difference to biodiversity.

A fascinating read about a very small part of north western Scotland, but one with a message to us all - that we are all part of nature.

[sienna · Rating 5 out of 5]

so so lovely. Bought in a little indie in Ullapool on my adventures and it’s come here and Skye, and finally finished in Loch Lomond with tori visiting 💖

[Mezzie Elen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book took time to read. I did not want to miss one single sentence by rushing or speed reading it.
AND I returned to reread some sentences because they were profound and incredibly beautiful .
A master class in 1000 ways to describe weather, colours and meadows .
Annie speaks from an informed and wise viewpoint, her awareness of humankind’s impact on local habitat is huge.
This I read as a library loan but I WILL buy my own copy. I know I will return to this again and again . Please don’t think this is a run of the mill mediocre piece of nature writing . It’s fabulous!

[Rosie Ellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF at 80%
I was really hopeful for this book given the topic and I kept trying but I just found it too dry and not personal enough. It's well written I just couldn't connect.
I've decided to give up.

[Jenny Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the risk of anthropomorphising, I wonder whether Red River Croft breathed a sigh of relief when Annie & Rob Worsley moved in. No-one was to know then what a journey they would take but as 'Windswept' shows us, their custodianship of the croft has been intelligent, effective and full of promise, guided always by messages from the natural world.
'Windswept' is described as a 'vibrant memoir'; vibrant it certainly is. However, if the reader is expecting an account filled with pain, despair and failure on a remote croft in north-west Scotland they will be disappointed. This is not a memoir of a geographer and writer being assailed by the challenges of life in Wester Ross. It is a memoir of place; Annie is simply its scribe.
As might be expected of a Professor of Environmental Change, this book is written with authority and authenticity. Add to that, a writer who is also an artist and photographer, and you find a book - a canvas - of indescribable beauty. Annie fully sees and understands landscape processes; she expresses that knowledge eloquently. The book oozes colour and sound to the extent that the reader is transported to Red River Croft.
As stated in the first chapter 'this book ties nature, place and memory to the solar year'. This calendrical structure gives Annie the leisure to account the changes in the croft and its surrounding land during their first decade of life there.
Annie's professional life will have caused her to reflect on deep and deepest time. That temporal thread pervades the book, from mountains forged during ancient earth-building episodes to her hopes for her grandchildren. Annie acts as a fulcrum from sky, to sea, through vegetation and soil, down to the substrate on which the croft is grounded.
This book is largely an account of the natural world on the croft and surrounding areas, but at times it is interspersed with more factual content to set the writing within the context of historical or contemporary events. Similarly, occasional hints at a struggle with illness give insight into Annie's spirit, but this is not the self-serving voice of some memoirs.
'Windswept' should, and will, remain high in the canon of nature writing, however that may be defined. Annie uses her words to paint a picture of life in the North-West Highlands of Scotland, an image rooted in time and place to which she and Rob have made an important contribution. I recommend this book highly.

[Lucy Cummin]

These are comments. What I write here aren't reviews, that is, I am not recommending or discouraging a reader. My intention is a response and my taste and reactions are mine. At different times I know too I might respond differently to a book. That said. I could not finish reading the book. I found the prose too dense, too many adjectives, repetive descriptions altogether too much -- as in not enough variety? I found myself thinking of the painter who might draw every single brick of a house. That doesn't work and this doesn't either. Not for me. I am sad because this is a genre I normally love. I think of [Connemara] by [[Tim Robinson]] and the contrast is painful. I respect Worsley for her thoroughness, her honesty, her passion for the place (west coast Scottish highlands, on a croft) where she is living and I was almost desperate to like the book. (I did read my 'required' 100 p. and skimmed the rest so that I could comment here.) So a DNF, no stars. But you might LOVE it.

[Lea Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

A blog that became a book which follows the seasons of life in and around a croft in the Highlands of Scotland Previously living in that area of Scotland and witnessing aspects of the nature and cycles of the year that are described in spectacular colourful details i can confirm the writer captures the spirit of the Highlands perfectly! You can clearly feel the atmosphere of the place, visualise the colours, imagine the smells and understand the reciprocal relationship between crofter and the land. A carefully considered text that reminds you of the magnificence of the natural world.

[R.C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully poetic memoir that shines with its keen observation of the natural world of the Scottish highlands, linking past to present and looking ahead to a hopeful future. I would've liked less focus on describing colors in the landscape (I appreciate a variety of creative names for colors, but a little goes a long way--and there are a lot) and more engagement with local residents to get a broader sense of how the community is tied to and relies upon their natural environment. Still, this is a wonderfully wrought nature memoir, and I so look forward to reading more of Worsley's work.

[Mimi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I saw the topic and got super excited as I like nature writing and Scotland itself, wanted this book to take me on a great journey so much. sadly, not this time.
it was so so hard to go through the pages I couldn’t make it. took a break, had thought maybe it was just a bad timing for me, but no, similar experience at a second try. this v. descriptive, super detailed style of writing leaves me disengaged and makes reading a chore. had to drop it halfway through as lost hope it’d get better

[Peter Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t think I’ve ever read a book quite like this. I suppose there is a narrative of sorts- of how the seasons change and the author’s life and struggles with her health- but really it is about creating atmosphere and ambience. The descriptions are so vivid you can almost see, hear, smell and touch them. It is a very beautiful book.

[Ira Theobold · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully colourful journey through the seasons

I loved the myriad of colours used to describe the changing seasons on the croft. I too come from the same area and now live on the west coast of Scotland and can feel the same feeling of being rooted to this wonderful place.

[Deirdre E Siegel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, prose that takes you into the environment, weather and wonder of it all.
Enthrallingly, thank you Annie Worsley for your collection of nature in words and
Carolyn Bonnyman your eloquence, very much appreciated ladies. :-)

[Craig Morland · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely wee book, started when I was up in Wester Ross and Torridon which is where the book’s focus lies. Added a lot to the listening experience feeling the very wind the author talks about while I was hiking.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I loved this book and the picture of the wilds of Scotland that is paints, much of the writing felt over contemplated. More about finding exactly the correct abstract color to describe a thing, versus describing how it makes one feel. Nonetheless, I very much enjoyed.

[Nina]

Putting this one on hold. It wasn't holding my attention when I picked it up in the summer and I keep not picking it back up. I think I'll try again next year and read it differently, timing each chapter with the time of year that it's about.

[Christine Best · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine piece of nature writing about the cycle of the year on a croft on one of the Inner Hebrides. The author has a background in environmental studies and addresses the issues of rewilding in some depth.

[Jeremy Jl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cornucopia of descriptive nature writing.

[Sophie (RedheadReading) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intensely descriptive, painting very vivid imagery but a bit overwritten for my personal taste. Definitely an enjoyable piece of nature writing with lots of interesting explorations!