Satsumas 35 pence each?

EB: fruit stall in Seahouses. I left my phone on the coach when we 'disembarked' on Lindisfarne. I have since been reunited with or, but have no photos of my  time spent on  Holy Island. 

The history is: there was originally a Tudor fortification on Lindisfarne with gun emplacements. In the early 20th century, Roger Hudson of Country Life magazine made it into a holiday home and invited esteemed architect Edward Lutyens to make it more home-like inside. He invited an Italian cellist, to whom he was briefly engaged, and several guests from London, to his extravagant gin-swilling parties. Some people, including Lytton Strachey, really didn't enjoy the environmental conditions and the lack of easy access, and couldn't wait to get back to London.

The following poem, if that's what it is, starts from the point of view of a tourist in a group of day trippers, and ends up representing Lytton Strachey's urgent need to beat a retreat.

Confused?
You soon will be.



LINDISFARNE CASTLE 


Jagged walls, wicker lapwing, staring out to sea
Wind whistling, trousers flapping
Coat on, gloves on, hand on hat on head.

Cobbles beneath; silver slivers of sky
Pierce pervading gloom. Lobster creels bobbing,
Visitors sobbing
No, not nearly there yet.

Slumped bodies on benches:
'We'll wait here'.
Rough rope, steep steps, Northern breeze slicing
Bowing of cello, call of marsh birds, footsteps in the sky

Sudden sighting of ship, suspended from ceiling,
Barrel -vaulted, brick walled room
Keeping out winter; wailing winter waiting, biding its time.




Arctic geese arriving, forecasting storms 
Guests departing, fleeing cobbled causeway, 
carriage wheels rattling, leather luggage sliding, 
Hurrying home to London.

'Take me away, hasten away,
from this heartless, no-holiday home
Unholy Isle, cragged castle
At war with wind and water'.