As a married couple we've moved home to somewhere completely new and, in two cases, to somewhere on a different continent, a total of ten times; and each time it has taken a while to get the beginnings of a 'feel' for the new place. I write 'beginnings' yet I don't believe one ever fully understands what makes a place tick, even if one is born into it and lived in it all one's life.
Lay aside the complexities of the human interactions, even beginning to appreciate the physical characteristics of a new environment takes time. Our experience of Golspie's climate until today has been of a seaside town facing out onto a relatively benign if rather grey North Sea. Today that impression began to change when, on a morning which offered us the first sun since we arrived last Thursday, we took a stroll along the seafront.
A steady but wide-spaced swell was marching in from the east, lifting as it approached the shore to smash against the sea wall and spill across the promenade. Along this, the northeastern section, we had already noticed the more extensive sea defences and that the gates into the walled gardens behind all had flood barriers. We had already become aware of the flood risk after we ran into trouble with our house insurance when our provider, having given us a quote, subsequently discovered that our house, even though it is on the other side of the main road, is classed as in a flood zone.
The waves at the southwestern end of the seafront, along the short section beyond the harbour arm, were even fiercer, although, according to two men who were standing watching them, we had missed the heaviest seas which had occurred an hour earlier, at high tide.
In the recent past a storm, far out in the North Sea, had created these waves which had then marched perhaps hundreds of miles to this shore. They were nothing spectacular - we've seen far more impressive storm seas on Scotland's west coast - but they've given us a feel for what may be to come.
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