Aunt Julia Annotation

Hers was the only house where I've lain at night in a box bed, listening to crickets being friendly. She was buckets and water flouncing into them. She was winds pouring wetly round house-ends. She was brown eggs, black skirts and a keeper of threepennybits in a teapot. he felt safe in his aunt’s house metaphors alliteration list builds up picture – how?

Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic very loud and very fast. By the time I had learned a little, she lay silenced in the absolute black of a sandy grave at Luskentyre. But I hear her still, welcoming me with a seagull's voice across a hundred yards of peatscrapes and lazybeds and getting angry, getting angry with so many questions unanswered. Norman MacCaig repetition of the first two lines of the poem – effect? alliteration he wanted to ask her so many questions – he learned a ‘little’ Gaelic too late appeals to the senses – sound, sight, smell + cultural references

1. What is the effect of the structure and word choice of lines 3 and 4 in stanza 1? 2. Why is the single dash used in line 3, stanza 2? 3. How does MacCaig’s word choice build up his admiration for Aunt Julia in stanza 2? 4. How is this admiration / pleasant memory continued with his word choice and line structure in stanza 3? 5. Comment on the effect of the figurative language in stanza Why does MacCaig repeat the opening lines of the poem at the start of the last stanza? 7. Comment on MacCaig’s use of enjambment in the final stanza. 8. What technique is MacCaig using in lines 3 and 4 of the final stanza and what effect does this have? 9. Comment on the effectiveness of the word choice in line 5 of the final stanza. 10. What is the effect of the imagery used in line 9 of the final stanza? 11. What is significant about the structure of line 12 of the final stanza and what effect does this have? 12. What do you think MacCaig means by the last two lines of the poem? Comment both on word choice and structure.

You can often see what look like patterns on the hillsides of Harris. These are the so-called Lazy Beds (and yet life was hard!) where the crofters used to grow potatoes and a few vegetables. They managed to cut strips of land between the rocks and fertilise what little soil there was with enough seaweed to provide them with a bit of something to put with the fish they caught. Today you will still see them cutting peat for fuel.

The famous Harris tweed is made all over both Harris and Lewis. It can be bought in many of the islands' shops and also direct from the weavers (at Luskentyre for example). Genuine Harris tweed bears the orb symbol, the mark of the Harris Tweed Association. The wool is Scottish in origin, but for it to be classed as Harris Tweed, it must be spun, dyed, finished and woven in the Hebrides.

Simple Gaelic phrases: Fàilte! - Welcome! (pronounced faltchi) Ciamar a tha shiv – How are you? (pronounced cimar a ha shiv) Compare the sounds to the ‘seagull’s voice

Catriona Montgomery was born in Roag in the Isle of Skye in After leaving Skye she took a degree in Celtic and Modern Studies at Glasgow University and taught in a Glasgow school. She began writing poetry in her early twenties, and has also written plays and acted on television and radio. Embroidery In the quiet kitchen skilled fingers pushing coloured thread through needle’s eye. Kate, reviving summer, its fruits and blooms; within days the tablecloth will be ready. Nebby Janet sits at the window sharp eyes scrutinising the road for drunks, watching the girls who go to the dance, counting the lights that are lit till two. At eight next morning Janet makes quickly for the houses her embroidery finished her sharp needle in the dark busily stitching lies.