once upon a big sky

...how many words for snow?


Up to four seasons in one day we can enjoy on the island. April feels capricious. If I can start to remember what an after 6 p.m. sun can feel, a sudden U-turn to Svalbard (without the polar bears) still surprises the most astute and tolerant mind... So is our fate in the Far-far North. The forecast hardly changed since the past week. I looked at my flowering redcurrant shrubs and thought, argh, weel...


In an effort to break the spell, I played Kate's 50 Words For Snow, though in vain. Since Saturday, a determined sky began to spit flurries that warned us of more to come. I pit-stopped at the main country shop in the southern part of the island to get basic necessities (including those precious firelighters) as part of my effort to spot an early Northern Wheatear around Spiggie. The bird having been reported on Fair Isle, I took my chances. However, I came home without our felines' favourite food...  (NOT the bird.) Peewit looked at me with disdain. Baboo walked away through the flap and Tystie nearly broke a lamp! 
With snow forecast, I can't afford to mess around. Second shopping spree in the town to return home with a jute bag filled with delights, fit for felines and our own needs :-)

Then north wind began to gust around the walls of our Shetland Hut. N/NNE, as time went by and our hearth began to work on a constant basis once more. From those directions, it really feels cold! My other half later joked about Yule time... "Why not set up the tree again and bake mince pies?" I laughed in the face of whiteness! Snowflakes flew in diagonal and by this morning, we opened our door to a mini-version of Svalbard, or mini-mini Canada, not so unusual for April after all, though still slightly disheartening at first sight. Sparrows still sing during snow showers, though blackbirds vanish from their pedestal and wonder if they won't lose out on courtisanes... 


first view this morning

 Although I expected flurries, I did not imagine so much would stay overnight... Snow does not stick long enough to the ground after the equinox. Still tucked in my fleecy blanket with two hot water bottles at my feet, I did not really feel like getting up at 0830 - especially since I am free from timetables! So I lingered in bed a little. All three cats did not make any fracas on the other side of the door. White, white, white, white!

No snowday disrupted the winter term (oh, barely a February weekend) and, gosh, now it's arrived!


White out, psycho-hail, twisting, ankle-breaker, blackbird's Braille, drifting, avalanche... Stellar tundra, crème bouffant, Hunter's dream, hooded wet, terror blizzard, vanilla swarm, sorbet de luge, as  through the lips of Stephen Fry. 

Let me hear your 50 words for snooooowwwwwwwww! 

My world had vanished once again under late winter's white blanket. This morning's Shetland Times did not read too encouraging either...

the other side of the coin in one day

Trillions of snowflakes melting at the speed of light!

Just by magic, as a bitter NE began to sweep away snow shower clouds, a more dignified spring-like blue filled our afternoon  sky.

This time, white light filling our world!

The garden still bears a few remnants from this morning's  capricious sky - with scarfs around trees and shrubs, blotches of crystals dispersed and and there in the shade... But nothing serious. The cats' passage looks safe from grass level. 

From Arctic spell to spring Technicolour!

I love the island. Its light changes all the time. Now time to listen to Good Evening, Shetland, just in time for the weather forecast :-)

sun stories

6 o'clock sun


Burn, burn, burn, burn! With the advent of the Vernal Equinox, a constant battle takes place between sun and fog.  Incessant duel between earth, air and sea. And yet, every time our star turns victorious, a beaten fog retreats, burnt out... The very first encounter took place last Sunday, as a defeated Haar allowed us to enjoy a very first evening of light till a lazy sunset and dusk. I never tire of those honey skies all around us. 


Latest sightings

Emerging from a cold and damp winter, I nearly forgot how an after 6 o'clock sun felt like. Quendale  & Brake looked so serene in light blue. A quick run around that shallow Loch of Spiggie remains a must in early spring, and it did not fail to amaze us.


Yes, geese, Goldeneyes, Long-Tailed ducks and other seasonal wildfowl - including Whooper Swan, Red-breasted Merganser, Northern Lapwing, Teal, Wigeon, Shelduck, Moorhen, shalder and a grey heron  - dwell on its edge. But somebody spotted the very first Bonxie of 2012 yesterday. So summer's definitely on its way! All seabirds need fresh water to wash off seaspray off their feathers, as salt burns the very fabric of plumage, keratin.  Damaged feathers will only make life difficult to a seabird, just as it does to our local population of otters. Any creature that feeds from our maritime world needs fresh water for survival. 


Pirate spirit, moi?

Not many of us like bonxies on the island. Although they were once highly hailed by crofters as the liberators from the Erne - and the last pair of eagles were last seen in 1911 - great skuas have since replaced the then "evil" eagle, and has been associated with more modern & economic folk tales. They are amazing flyers and fishermen, when our sea feels generous. Moorland nesters, their varied food diet ensures survival. Furthermore, many of us also forget that bird colonies would be plagued with disease during summer, for they act as muckrakers, cleaning off ledges with ill, injured or dead seabirds. Every creature has a function on our planet, or they simply do NOT exist. People need to accept this simple fact. As a species, we may have placed ourselves at the very top of the food web, however, financial greed can lead some of us to abuse of our homeworld's generosity and/or deplete the resources that are so vital to our healthy planet. The animal kingdom needs our help more than ever! Let's be reasonable and the laws of the karma will be favourable to the future generations.


Back to sun stories

Longer evenings enable us to wander around the island till a later dusk, especially in the unusual clement climate we've experienced till yesterday! Folk walk around, go to the beach and tidy up their gardens.
On the first of our British Summer Time season, we ended up on my favourite sandbridge and marvelled at a pale blue world.


The surf was gentle at our feet and my other half showed an amazing mollusc he found partly uncovered at the edge of the Atlantic: Arctica Islandica . Amazing find! 
  
As the sun dipped below our horizon, the edge of our world turns blue... 


The other end of day, I caught a bloodshot sun through the lens of my pocket camera, as we do not see very often. Our northern sky was filled with a uniform of grey but then, an unusual glowing red sun appeared amidst clouds from the front and I stopped the car to admire such spectacle. I trust other folk stopped on a passing place... It was awesome.


And as we are now reverting to a much more typical early spring spell for our latitude, I can only hope that this arctic moment will not last too long, and be kind to our much precocious spring. Our grass needs a first cut and birds begin to nest. It is no April fool.
Looking forward to the return of our closest flamboyant star :-).

from merrie dancers to the haar

Not a same spring blossoms the same...  

This year's is a precocious one.


A wander round the the eastside of the island revealed not only celandine, but unexpected primrose in bloom at Fladdabister. 
Our greylag geese still grace our world, together with a plethora of summer visitors in search of a great pedestal for courtship display. The fertile pocket of lushness that is the Tingwall Valley was littered with shalders (oystercatchers), common & black-headed gulls in full regalia... Summer's definitely on its way! 

And on the theme of green...

Two nights ago, we still marvelled at auroras in much calmer conditions. Oh, not the draping, shimmering ones in my Sandwick sky, but a green glow in this late March starry night. Wonderful moment, for northern lights do remain one of my favourite earth spectacles, together with sunrise & sunset, and storm petrels trading places on the isle of Mousa during the Simmerdim. 


tied a'da noost


The Haar, as this maritime natural phenomenon is known in Scotland, has come early as this year's spring buds. Today, we reverted to summer time in white, as seafog veiled most of our shore on the eastside of the island. Every building turns a ghost shape, every silhouette, a spirit. Yesterday, west and east were heavily shrouded down. The drive to Weisdale proved an eerie journey from start to finish... Today, the Haar turns in to mist, and as I type, begins to lift around my township. 

Magic, mystical, as our world gradually warms up, we watch in white; listen for birdsong, calling gulls  and the sea in a cullen skink sky... I redesign the horizon. 


Kiss of life from our cold North Sea!


We can only hope for a sun that is strong enough to burn it. My friend Debbie, who lives in Aith, on the westside, recorded a morning of sunshine. Mind you, the Haar is a trickster, for wicks and voes vanish and reappear at will.   it wanders around each bay, and engulfs long narrow inlets of water at amazing speed! It could be called Loki... I much prefer a more feminine persona, as Lady Mist. 

venus & the crescent moon

tales from our sky


If you don't look, you'll never see. Saturday night and all is blue. Well, at least till dusk...


 The land is waterlogged. Peatlands,
 ditches, roadsides. That snow remains a memory. And from the roof of my marshy world, I felt water beyond the edge of hiking boots, as I walked around my hillside. In search of the first song of the skylark, I found some early visitors at its bottom: orange-billed, pied, beak inside earth, foraging hard in search of grubs hiding in mud... Yes, our dear shalders (oystercatchers) can dine in style! Saturday bathed in this springlike air and I could not resist making the most of such moment. The Lush fields around Spiggie (though waterlogged too) act as magnets for geese and farmland birds. And geese graze about everywhere! In a game of "catch me if you can", ravens stayed high when they were not hopping around mangers among sheep. Common gulls made me grin from one to the other end of field edges. Shelducks , Red-breasted mergansers and Tufted ducks (now in their pairs) kept well at bay... Redshanks & Ringed plovers patrolled the loch's edge. Whooper swans fed in their usual position (tail up) and large rafts of gulls and maalies ... I later saw a Slavonian Grebe at the southern end of the loch. My Saturday sky filled with feathers against blue. 


I love the island in such light. 
raw, majestic, it shines through the eyes of deep space.
The sky speaks many tongues in a myriad of voices. It learnt to whisper and to shout... it cries and smiles without reasons. Today it unveiled the colours of late February.
And when you wonder to the shore, birds walk the length of ocean's edge. 


And when we begged goodbye to the day, dusk settled its trillions of treasures. I love our sky at those moments. 


Blue, orange, indigo, crepuscular, and still so calm.

 And Venus shone left to the Moon.

february & ravens

LOVE YOUR HEADLAND


February remains an extraordinary month. It is a time when life returns, even if only through whispers. For every journey through the land, familiar sounds add to the light. If gales still prevail through most mornings, precocious signs of renewal become more flagrant after dawn. One hears excitement through the bare trees of my garden. 
Blackbirds, sparrows, gulls, corvids of northern kinds... Geese in gaggles or above heads. All so more noticeable now. It is a hymn to early spring.

That main trunk of tarmac that links the island from north to south. 
My daily run to the town means a good opportunity to watch one of my favourite birds: ravens.
February draped by their early aerial display, those majestic jet black flyers defy laws of acrobatics. Now they come to perch by the roadside for breakfast. Tarmac offers free restaurants for them and all our local gulls that come to feast on carrion. Some unusual and strange way to survive... Yet their success for survival depend on our rate of road kills, mostly rabbits that plague the land.
Ravens have learnt to tame tarmac. Usually found perched on fenceposts, they reconvene every morning in gangs of three, four, five or six and clean the roads of fur and bones...
They've learnt patience and great timing on the approach of vehicles, and will get aloft as headlights become too near to their feathers. As morbid as it may sound,  those muckrakers have turned such formidable opportunists, and their dare-devil flying skills have made them one of the most successful species in our world.


Fascinating species that inspires tales of all kinds.
From folklore to music, their jet black wings do not cease to amaze and awake musings of all sorts. According to culture, they turn devil or gods... In Native American realms, they bring change and  allow you to travel between worlds. In Scandinavian history, Vikings came to our land to collect young ravens as means of GPS - by launching them at sea to find land ahead - on their travels westwards/north-westwards.  
They are present in so many folk tales, songs and omens!

In Music, as here:

And There, the tale of The Three Ravens, Germanic style.

To my humble heart, ravens remain fantastic birds that symbolise freedom in flight.
Every morning begins with them.

Draco dans les étoiles

time to reconvene with fire


It has gained in stature. It is now known around the world. It leaps from island to island... It fills our sky with sparks and light and parrafin lingers in our hearts forever.


Each last Tuesday of January, fire fever sparks off all around town. The dragon's back around our walls, and with it, hordes of boys and men in starting blocks for merriment. In my night sky, Draco awaits curtain of night to show the way. 



On this last day of January, young islanders turn warriors and invest corridors inside their own institution. Everyone gathers to applaud and marvel at shiny helmets. The atmosphere is bon enfant, as staff and pupils play the game until our squad of young Vikings join their elders by the harbour. It is indeed a special day for those young men who represent our school. They too have their own galley to set on fire and walk in footsteps of elders. 

Fire fever animates hearts throughout the day. It kicks early and will demand another day to recover from party time! It culminates with the now famous procession. In the meantime, boys and men have to endure a much accepted marathon by visiting schools, hospital, care homes and whoever wants to see them before sunset. 

The procession well after dusk shines as highlight. Folk from the world come to marvel at boys & men ready to march and  turn their boat into ashes. Impressive prints left in your eyes. As night progresses, the guizing men will engulf halls where women wait to serve and feed with tattie soup (or reestit mutton) and other liquid concoctions until next dawn... For those of you familiar with the opening scene from the movie Beowulf - mind you, minus Grendel and treasures! - the allegory won't feel too strong. In our depth of winter, Up-Helly Aa feels so welcome as light begins to override night in a much more assertive way. 


February born off ashes 

This year, Imbolc follows so close to Lerwick's Up-Helly-Aa.
Imbolc, the Earth's true beginning of Spring, and with it, the very first and timid steps to renewal. 


Our dawns have become precocious - our afternoons linger longer... Sometimes sunsets turn pink and blue in pastel style and this precious nordic light carve smiles in eyes and hearts. It gives us time to wander ("stravaig") around our shore.

 Long-tailed ducks mingle with Eiders & Goldeneyes, common Scoters, kittiwakes and selkies... Little auks have been seen. Ravens re-started their acrobatics, as courtship begins on roadsides at breakfast time. Ravens, once captured by Vikings around the island to be used as scouts & seekers of land beyond seafarers' horizon... Starlings and sparrows filled this morning's sky with calls and chirps, so quarrelsome can they become. Even if the land feels desolate, precocious signals are noticed. Our path to the Vernal Equinox looks now lit. And until then, we shall keep our beacons alight, watch out for ice at every dawn and salute Draco in our sky.


The hearth is keeping us warm. Candles bring smiles when all feels dark. And when our sky feels generous, the entire universe fills our eyes. In moonless night, we can enjoy our Northern Lights. Without a doubt, 60N is a magic place! 

Today, prolific day at the wordbench. So here, a string of fresh haiku :-)

Nuit de feu - 

dry wax & ashes for Imbolc, 

we have been burning wood all night. 

Haiku fae 60N 

Stravaig - 

in-between ditches & potholes, 

follow rock doves & hooded crows. 

Haiku fae 60N 

Parrafin - 

elixir to sun worshippers 

that lingers through depth of winter. 

Haiku fae 60N 

catapult

from rocket sky 2 rocket cat

That sunset on the second day of the first month...

felt like a dream.

Rocket-red, winter blue or B&W. 

I loved the cloud movement that gradually clads our Nordic sky on a crisp day. It was awesome. For a moment, I thought this sole image would encapsulate a glorious end of holiday... 

Until the unexpected strikes!

He's not a cat, but a pirate. I won't forget my last two days of holiday. Peewit The Cat gave us a fright on the third day of January, as he retched, hid, and vocalised in a strange way. He even refused his favourite, cuddles & food. We did not wait  long to jump on the handset and called the Feline A&E. The Vet on call had a somewhat familiar accent, which I first thought South African. Errare humanum Est! We put our feline in his box and rocketed to the Westside in a bleak end of afternoon - Peewit mimicking a diva in every kerb, as tarmac took us close through gales and rain. I suspected he eventually developed a secret love for the veterinary surgery! Little did we know we took him on time. He was awaited by a young Veterinary Officer, who quickly diagnosed feline bladder as the main culprit. Not South African, but Flemish, with beautiful French! This time, Peewit would taste emergency surgery with full board till he would be fit to go home. The hut felt strange without him, even though our two other feline pirates, Babooshka and Tystie, amused us till his return. Peewit came home yesterday with a shaved butt and many more loving miaows. I was ever so grateful & thankful to the devoted staff at the surgery, especially to Cathy (the Vet) and Kaye (the Nurse), who took so much good care of our muggy. Our hearts felt so lighter. Oh, yes, that first week of January will not be forgotten! I never saw classroom re-start, as days vanished like stones projected by a catapult.

Now, with the weekend came thrills and smiles! If yesterday, Saturday, was devoted to retrieve our loving feline, Sunday would take a twist none would suspect. As Peewit re-gained his gargantuan appetite, tuna chunks concealed his daily antibiotic mini-nugget. I first found Babooshka on the kitchen worktop foraging for any crumbs, just like a food hoover - or now nicknamed as "Googlegrub" - as she still thinks her grand age would let get away with anything... Tystie remains the only reasonable one. All three were tended with love and care.

 By late morning, a series of Tweets alerted us of island fun in our inshore waters. Orcas, Killer whales, were spotted and, although I had to be in Lerwick for drama rehearsal in early afternoon, the chase began. Grutness, Levenwick, Hoswick, Broonies' Taing, Sanick, Noness. Magic placenames that rhyme with breathtaking seascapes and opportunities to enjoy not only seabirds, but cetaceans when the conditions are united. 
A first attempt to Broonies' Taing led us to the bay at Sanick, where dorsal fins were playing so close to the shore. Magic moment! Watching those wonderful beasts in the wild remains a formidable spectacle. Folk flocked to the roadside that leads to the headland of Noness, as the pod of orcas - one bull and two females, from what I could see - swam along. I felt like a child in a toyshop just before Yule! They were magnificent. Again I forgot time and sent a quick tweet to my Serpentine actors, for I knew I would be slightly late for the afternoon. I shan't forget my weekend either. 

Life on the island is never dull! 


With renewed thanks to my other half for photography :-)


AND grateful thanks to Helen Moncrieff & Magnie Shearer for keeping us on the right track! :-))

first sun

2012 awakening


I love to wake to Nordic sun. A cold wind blows across the island. Last night's Réveillon at our friends began with a bang, as Andy lit that single rocket in black sky at the back of Midnight. We hung our last hour of 2011 on Monica's coat rack and gathered by a warm hearth for Hogmanay. We wished Cameron "Happy Birthday", smiled, kissed and toasted to a brand new year. Merriment de rigueur as we swung towards brand new dawn...


I love this isle from this point of elevation. Brand new year, the wanderer walks through heather and looks for now bathed in pale blue and brand new sun. Kate Bush once wrote & sang, "stepping out of the page, into the sensual world..." This simple phrase sticks through my mind, as I stood still and felt this crisp first day against my skin. At around noon, my northern realm was so dazzling. 


from blue to grey


But then light feels like trapped inside Pandora's Box as clouds gathered as if to signal end of gold... Birds hasted wingbeats and prepared for roosting time. But first, feast wherever it is offered to them.  Inside willows and on feeders, before they switch to sleepy sky... 


The wind still bites after sunset. And from the comfort of my hut, I celebrate this brand new year graced by a generous first sun. 


inspiring world

first sun -

pioneer's fire through new year,

January begins with pale blue.

#haiku fae 60N

happy new year fae 60N :-)