A couple of weeks ago the local Facebook group came up with the news that Wuthering Heights was being filmed in Arkengarthdale with the actors Margot Robbie playing Catherine Earnshaw and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff.

I’d forgotten about it when I set off very early on a beautiful morning to see a poet friend in Northumberland. It was such a lovely day that I decided to drive the 90 miles or so from the Dales by travelling the narrow winding open moor-top lanes up the spine England composed of the northern Pennines. It would take me a bit longer than going up the A1, and a bit of navigating would be needed, but much nicer than a dual carriageway.

Except that there weren’t just sheep on the road. Film crews get up early too, and just past the ruins of lead mines and smelt mills at Old Gang on Reeth High Moor I encountered a series of convoys of everything from horse boxes to lighting gantries to portable toilets. 

Bringing up the rear were some rather plush four by fours with darkened windows that I assume contained the stars, though I didn’t look too closely as driving on a road with room for only one car in the face of oncoming traffic was taking all my attention. Nonetheless, I thought how nice it was that the weather was fine for them; it can’t be easy operating all that paraphernalia when the wind howls and the rain lashes across the open moor requiring actors to clutch their bonnets and hold fast to the reins of skittish stallions.

When I eventually got to Northumberland and met up with my poet friend, the experience gave us plenty to talk about over coffee and lunch in a lovely little café by the side of the River Coquet. When writers meet the burning question usually is ‘are you writing?’. Because more often than not, writers don’t write. 

I’ve been too busy moving to get down to finishing my mermaid novella, and my poet friend is on one hand teetering on the edge of a gargantuan project that is too overwhelmingly large to start; and on the other hand recovering from the loss of their parents and the ongoing legal saga of sorting out the estate. Both of which had shifted them into ‘not writing’ mode. 

So, we walked along the river and looked at the butterbur flowers bursting up along the bank – and talked about how the flowers arrive in advance of the big leaves that give the plant its name because of their use for wrapping butter; and decided that it was important to give ourselves time and space to process trauma instead of constantly fretting that we ‘should be writing’.

We also agreed that when we weren’t writing our subconscious and imagination did not stop churning and processing. Eventually we’d hear the tapping at the window, just as during the storm at the beginning of Wuthering Heights, and we would need to reach out to grasp the ice-cold hand of a new writing project that had been shivering in the cold outside. And then we must have the courage to bring lots of new writing ideas into the warmth and set to work again.

Do you ever feel guilty for not being able to get down to something you know you need to do, but also need to give yourself the time and space to be able to move beyond the blocks and confusions to emerge into something new?

Rowan on the Moor

A Moodscope member