Inspiration

I hope you've had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. Let us pray for a gentle year ahead.  Suddenly, today, when we are all back at work at Ben P towers, I realise that my batteries are fully recharged - not least because I could hardly remember a thing about any projects today, despite making some meticulous lists of what's what a couple of weeks ago before we closed down. It's strange how the mind shuts down for a while - and that is a very good thing.

We've had the most magical time here in Orkney and I'm still here for the rest of this week which is even more magical as we slip into the New Year. You notice things a bit more here. And I can't help noticing that the mornings are just ever so lighter and the evenings just ever so longer than when I arrived back up on the shortest day of the year.

I. Northward Journey

I had a rather lovely journey upward. We'd bought a little second-hand car in Elgin to be our mainland Orkney run-around. We are learning ferry (or call it Island) life and learning that a Rousay car and a mainland car so that you can be a foot passenger (unbooked) on the Rousay ferry makes life infinitely calmer. You just don't want to have to book a ferry and hope there's a slot for your car every time you want to cross. Often there isn't in fact a slot when you want it.  It's a lot easier to walk on and off the boat.

And my task was to drive our new little car up just before Christmas.

I had some time spare between collecting it and my ferry to Stromness that night. What better than to call in to beautiful Cromarty, which I've shown you before on the blog is and one of my favourite places in the whole world.  I posted a photo of this beautiful house, which has been very finely restored, on instagram that day, and received a very nice message a few days later from its happy owner.  What a dream place.  It deserves to be the opening photograph of the new year blog.
Cromarty is a joy, all those little lanes and alleys...

This perfect house, which I believe may be about to get a lot more perfect with its new owners...

And so nice to have sights like this still.  Gentle decay.

What a gift to us all this open gate was.

I finally managed to visit brilliant Gardiner & Gardiner Antiques. Here is Helen standing outside her brilliant shop. I left very full-handed. If you are thinking of visiting I'd leave it a little while, while Helen restocks....

And then I arrived in Thurso, by dusk. Heaven.  I'd always wanted an explore here too.  These are the fine villas on Janet Street - a dream.

Here is the library at the south end of Sinclair Street.  Wonderful and very inspiration for our new town project at Tornagrain.  The simplicity of the past is something that we always need to remember.

I can't be the only person who takes so many photos of old Victorian Hotel signs. They are somehow always in that same typeface, aren't they?

2. Rousay

But then it was farewell to Thurso for now. I arrived in Kirkwall after a very bumpy crossing to Stromness, but I'm glad that I managed to keep my dinner inside, unlike rather a high proportion of the passengers on the ferry that night.  We got in late and I crept into a sleepy Kirkwall for the night. Charlie came over the next morning, we did our Christmas shopping (which was the cause of some comment that we must have a lot of people coming, but actually it was just us) and we were back at the Rousay ferry in good time. A perky green fishing boat was at the dock to greet us.

The Rousay ferry soon arrived.

Nothing quite beats the sparkling view of Westness, after weeks away!

First on the agenda, a walk with Charlie, inspecting the garden.

Woods completely cleared and looking amazing.

Enid had other ideas.

Charlie hadn't been quite so busy in the garden because he'd been incredibly busy in the house. This year's amazing tree, glowing as usual.

Sibyl in her favourite spot.

And I was lucky to have arrived when I did. A fierce storm came in the next day. We'd never experienced anything quite like it since our arrival.  Fantastic. Awe inspiring, maybe a little frightening at times.

Huge waves pounding in on high seas.

Back home the house was buffeted by the wind but stood solid and ancient.  Christmas inside, warm and cosy.  We put down towels for the water which was pouring in through various windows as the house was lashed by rain (we knew things like this would need fixing, don't worry).

The next morning everything had blown through. As storms do.

Big waves still rolled in as a memory of the storm but the air was sweet and fresh.

We went down to the sea.

Always a seal, coming to say hello, whatever the waves (look closely - he's looking at you!).

Back by the farm and church at Skaill.

The sea always an amazing colour.

Charlie had decorated the chapel for Christmas. Nothing was more beautiful in Orkney that evening.

3. Christmas

On the Monday before Christmas, we held our little service in the chapel.  A beautiful morning, flat calm.

The service was at 3.30pm, when the Reverend Brenda Dowie was coming over from Stromness to take Eucharist - tea and cake afterwards.

A fantastic service, with great attendance, and a beautiful evening as everyone went home.

Here was the chapel that evening.

We woke on Christmas morning to the softest light you could imagine, and a pink-only rainbow, over Eynhallow. It seems pink rainbows are very rare.

An amazing light that morning.

Christmas lunch for two in the dining room.

And afterwards we collapsed upstairs to open some presents.

4. Boxing Day

Time to clear our heads with a long walk around the coast.

Charlie for scale:

Incredible waves that day.

Everyone in bed that night.

It's amazing how the weather changes so much, from storm to flat calm.  The next morning the fishing boat was out, floating over the stillness of Eynhallow sound at sunrise.

We were up early to head to town - shopping, and I was collecting Bridie that afternoon who was arriving into Kirkwall airport.  The most perfect colours and waves on the ferry that morning.

We had a lovely time in Kirkwall and then I dropped Charlie back at the ferry before heading to get Bridie. Knowing I had a little time spare before her flight should land, I called in to see the Stones of Stenness, which were completely beautiful and deserted. The stones are believed to be over 5000 years old.

I loved the little house next door to the stones. It's just perfect in its way.

And next door to them, the Ring of Brogdar - older that Stonehenge, a little younger than the Stones of Stenness.  A magical sight in the gloaming hour.

But, bad news. Bridie's flight was severely delayed. We JUST made the last ferry back to Rousay that night. A neighbour kindly messaged the ferry that we were going to be a few minutes late and they said they'd wait. (And we were very glad that when we arrived, we were not the last ones on board - there were several people behind us which made us feel better).

Island living - a combination of great calm with a healthy dose of jeopardy.  But we got there - and after a lovely evening, catching up with Bridie, and decompressing from the journey, we woke to a beautiful morning.

Our neighbours came over that afternoon and things got fairly festive. Putting it mildly.

 

5. Snowfall

We haven't had snow like down south but it's been through - fleetingly, as I think is so often the way in Orkney, surrounded by so much sea and salt air. It comes, and then it's gone.  But for those moments the landscape is thrown into graphic simplicity.

It turns out that Sibyl, who you can just see balling along at high speed in this photo, really loves snow. She hasn't seen much in Dorset days.

The house looks pretty menacing when the render is drenched dark grey.  We will paint it when we start our renovations later in the year.  We're thinking about colours (and will need to get listed building consent).  Watch this space!

The landscape looks like a John Nash watercolour.

It's also very cold.

But that's okay - plenty of fires inside.

6. Saviskaill and Sacquoy Head

We went for a long and bracing walk on New Year's Day. We'd had the happiest night and now it was time to blow away the old year and greet the new.

The wonderful lichen-encrusted steading down at Saviskaill.

And then we set off to Sacquoy Head.

Awesome sights and winds and waves awaited us.

(Charlie for scale).

Finally, after a maybe-slightly-too-long a circuit, we were back at the beach watching the seals play around in the sea as the sky turned pink.

Home, exhausted, but then to be greeted with the most wonderful Northern Lights that evening. What a wonderful end to New Year's Day - something I'd never seen before, and have always longed to.  They are not quite so dramatic to the eye as to your camera, but by all accounts it was a superb display across Orkney and Scotland that night. Amazing.

7. Snow days again.

Heavenly light and stillness the next morning.

But flurries were hurtling through - one minute, beautiful sunshine, the next minute, snowstorm.

Sibyl never happier.

We walked up to Quandale and then home.

The following morning - how fast a week goes by - Bridie and I were up early to take her back to Kirkwall for her journey home.  Charlie drove us down to the ferry on extremely snowy roads and on the other side we carefully made our way to town.  We were due to have breakfast there before the flight but nowhere was open. The world looked like a Dickensian Christmas card.

So it was the airport cafe for bacon and egg rolls instead, and very good too. I will confess to being a bit nervous about Bridie's travel plans but with minor delays they all worked very well and she was safely home in London that evening.  All good. Meanwhile our friend Erland was over for lunch.  Rousay glowed in the beautiful light on the ferry back home that morning.

And that evening, after we'd dropped Erland at the ferry, the light was an astonishing pink on our walk.

The hint of a crescent moon, and Venus, which I think many will have seen that night.

8. The last of the holidays.

And yesterday, we had glorious sunshine.  This was the view over Eynhallow to mainland on our walk in the morning.

Looking down to St. Mary's church.

We were exploring Quandale - this is Tafts, one of the earliest two-storey houses in Orkney.  Its roofless ruin tells a harsh story of the 1840s clearances of this land, but it is a harsh landscape, one couldn't imagine farming here easily.

We carried on to the coast.

Charlie loves peering over edges a bit more than I do. My vertigo simply won't allow it.

Ancient ripples in the stones, from when this was just sand underwater, trapped into the future.

Home via the astonishing Midhowe Broch, a 2000 years old house; can you imagine such beautiful stonework or a more remarkable position?

Amazingly we had lunch outside. The rest of Britain was under snow and rain. We were eating Charlie's delicious home-cooked chips and drinking Orkney beer in balmy sunshine and flat calm stillness.   It's a strange thing. The storms blow through and are magnificent and the days are short, but these flat, still, beautiful days feel even more special because they are not with us the whole time.  You are not warned about just how good winter can be when you are moving here. This is moment I think Charlie and I will remember for rather a long time.

The low, slanting winter light streamed into the house, as it has done every year at this time, I suppose, for almost 250 years.

And then, a rainbow like you've never seen before.

And a flat calm night, as the sun set.

And the moon glowing, and the stars shining, and not a breath of wind.

Happy New Year, and if you've made it this far through to the end of the blog, you deserve a prize for perseverance.

Tonight, as I write, the wind is howling again outside. Inside, all is completely still and the dogs are all fast asleep in their usual spots on the sofa.

At the start of the year, let's celebrate our season turning, this moving back into the longer days of spring, that are not so far away now.