An Old Friend

The Scottish Government's fisheries patrol vessel Minna was anchored off Golspie this afternoon, probably sheltering from the gale force winds we've enjoyed earlier today. She's certainly not there to inspect fishing boats - there are none in this part of the North Sea.

Minna is an old friend from our Kilchoan days when we would see her frequently, for there was much more fishing activity in the Sound of Mull.

A Blanket of Silence

From our front door it's a few steps to this track which climbs into the forestry - mostly coniferous - below Bheinn Bhraggie. Follow it for a mile and one comes to a special spot where....

....there's a gate which leads out onto what used to be glorious, open moorland with wide, unobstructed views. Along the next section of track we've seen herds of red deer as well as a fox; it's a wild, lonely place where the wind blew free.

The deer are now gone and what used largely to be coarse grass and heather has....

....been planted with serried ranks of trees - again, mostly coniferous. Very soon the views, of The Mound and....

....more distantly of Loch Fleet, the Dornoch Firth and Easter Ross, will be obscured by a wall of trees and a blanket of silence will descend on the area for....

....most of the birds seem to prefer more open habitats which include deciduous trees and shrubs.

This new forestry is there for good reason: we need the wood, these are fast-growing trees, and the trees that have been planted are native to Scotland. What is wrong is the density of the planting, and the lack of open spaces and a generous ad-mixtures of deciduous trees. However, whatever trees are planted the new landscape will never have the grandeur of what is there now.

A New View

We've been busy settling into our new house, 'new' both in the sense that it's not the house we used to live in, and in the sense that it's newly built. It had never been our intention when we came to Golspie to build another house - we'd had enough agony building the one in Kilchoan - but with no bungalows coming onto the market and time overtaking us, we took the plunge. It's been an exhausting battle, one we won mostly because we were fortunate in choosing a good local builder.

We might not have subjected ourselves to the stresses of the last two years had we not found a site with a view. It's not the best view I've lived with - the views from the last house in Mombasa and Matenderere in Kilchoan were better - but it's something to watch. It's mostly sky above an empty sea but it has land between, a distant land which very much reminds me of the first sight of land after a long sea passage.

So it's a view which evolves, which changes slowly, which lacks excitement - though it may yet surprise us - a view which seems appropriate for our ages. We can relax into it, time can slow.

At the Swimming Club, 1953

This photograph was taken at the Mombasa Swimming Club in 1953. It shows, from left to right, my friend John Solly; me partly obscured behind the yacht; Mark Solly, John's older brother; and my brother Richard. Behind us, across the waters of the Old Port, in the Old Town, which is on the island of Mombasa, while the Club was on the mainland to the north of the town.

The reason I'm behind the yacht is that I'm holding it; it's my yacht and I'm intensely proud of it, for it was made for me by an engineer on one of my father's Harrison Line ships. It had a dark blue hull and a small metal plaque on its deck with it's name - Defender - engraved on it, so called because that was the name of my grandfather, Ernest Haylett's last command.

What is so remarkable about the photo is that, over seventy years later, I'm still in touch with John, Mark and my brother. John I last saw at a Mombasa European Primary School reunion in, I think, 2013, Mark and I still 'see' each other in occasional FaceTime sessions, and my brother and I exchange emails.

Sadly, the Swimming Club didn't last as long: its site was developed as a housing complex.

A Warning

The southeastern sky just before nine this morning gave a clear warning of what is in store for us, not only Storm Isha which is due here in the early hours of tomorrow morning but also a series of depressions which are scheduled to follow through the week, all these hard on the heels of....

....last week's snow which, while still blanketing the higher bens, hasn't fully melted at sea level, leaving some nasty patches of black ice.

With the snow making walking difficult and a huge amount to do in the way of unpacking and sorting our possessions into our new house we've hardly been out for a walk in the last ten days so took the opportunity of this morning's sunshine to wander along the coast path towards Dunrobin Castle seeing....

....precious little in the way of wildlife along this shattered shore other than a grey heron, a couple of cormorants, a flock of a dozen or so redshanks, some gulls and a few rock pigeons, and....

....a handful of oystercatchers. Our feeling that the wildlife population has declined drastically in the last couple of years was echoed by the village's librarian, whom we met along the path and who is also a keen bird watcher.

That we have more windy weather to come in the next few days isn't good news for the beasts that are already struggling to survive.

....And now it's Spring!

The snow melts to reveal the first snowdrops of this year, in the same bank as we saw the redwings last Monday.

These are probably cultivated snowdrops planted by one of the residents of the houses on the other side of the road but, even so, this strikes me as remarkably early for snowdrops, particularly in the north of Scotland.

Whatever the facts it's wonderful to see them.

A Caribbean Memory

Sometimes my mind suddenly picks me up and dumps me into a moment in the past, today's effort, in a chill world of melting slush and grey skies, being particularly cruel, for the grey porridge that is my brain chose a place on Jamaica's southeast coast, a small holiday resort called Blue Mahoe to which we escaped, as often was we could afford it, from the daily hassle that was life in the capital, Kingston. There were only three cottages, our fellow escapees were almost all European expatriates, our two girls had other children to play with, and we felt disgustingly privileged.

Life centred around a big pool, though one of the cottages had its own small pool as well. The water in the pool seemed always at a perfect temperature, the other guests interesting, time seems to flow by very gently, and there was a fridge where one could keep the dumpies of Red Stripe beer. The outlook from the far end of the pool was....

....south across an enclosed bay protected by a coral reef, there was a small beach where the children could play on the sand, and where there were shells like conches and helmets to be picked up. If we could find the energy there was a tennis court, and if one was very fortunate either the owner of the resort or Horace the caretaker might take one out in the boat to enjoy some fishing.

We spent one Christmas at Blue Mahoe and it seemed totally strange not to be in a place which was cold and snowy, opening presents around a roaring log fire but, given the choice today, I know where I would rather be.

Tracks

Had it not been for occasional thaws which have come with the sunny intervals we'd have accumulated a good foot or so of snow in the last few days, and the wind, which has come and gone, has further complicated things by reorganising the snow into drifts - but this is the deepest snow we've seen in our years in Scotland, and the last time we saw as deep was when we lived in Essex in the 1990s.

Time was, on such a day of snow showers and sunshine, when we'd have set off into the hills to enjoy the excitement of this rare phenomenon. These days we take care, walking a mile or so along a gentle track. That our horizons are so limited doesn't spoil our enjoyment, for snow like this produces tracks, the records of animals which have passed this way since the snow stopped. In the field above our house it was....

....a flock of sheep which made the tracks for, despite the food provided by the farmer, they still like to dig for fresh grass. In other places the tracks were more fun, like....

....these ones which walked up to a fence and carried on the other side. From their size it seems likely that these were left by two roe deer.

More Snow

We've had further snow over last night and today giving us a total of somewhere around 4" - though the wind has redistributed much of it into drifts - and there's more to come over the next couple of days. Fortunately, the temperatures so far have held up, so this afternoon we took our first walk from our new home in a not unpleasant 2C.

We followed a track up into the Beinn Bhraggie forestry meeting no-one but pleased to be greeted by a....

....red kite which, having flown over us, settled in the top of a tree to inspect us. It then took off and....

....circled us several times, coming very low overhead before flying away southwards. We hardly ever saw  a red kite where we lived at the other end of Golspie yet we've seen this one twice, so there's a good chance that it's resident here.

Snow

Over the last forty-eight hours we've had snow showers brought in on a westerly and northwesterly wind, and the temperature has dropped at night to -3C. In the clear intervals the scenery is breathtaking, and it's good to see that, with the schools closed, some youngsters are tobogganing on the steep slope near the astroturf pitch.

However, for those trying to get to work on such a morning....

....the roads are in a mess - this is the A9 northbound where it enters Golspie, which had just been gritted but where the traffic was further hampered by road works.

I had cause to walk along Back Road this morning which, as its name suggest, runs along the back of Golspie between the houses and the railway line. For some reason the woodland on the right of the picture is a favourite haunt at this time of year of....

....a small flock of redwings visiting us from Scandinavia.

New House

We've moved house, to a bungalow we've built on a hillside overlooking the Dornoch and Moray Firths - picture shows sun rising by Tarbat Ness lighthouse.

The important thing is that, within minutes of the first feeder going out....

....the blue and coal tits moved in and....

....the blackbirds were lining up expectantly in the back garden.

An Avian Miscellany

I have standards when it comes to photo quality so I apologise that this picture does not match up to them but it's here because it's good news - the first buzzard we've seen in the skies above Golspie in weeks and months. 'Good news', yes, but in a very limited way, for a year or so ago, not far from the spot where the picture was taken, I saw four buzzards calling and wheeling in the sky above me. That they are now so rare is a worry.

As must be evident to anyone following this blog, the local cormorants have taken a beating from the gales which have come marching in over the last few weeks. Some, like this one, have taken refuge in the rough grass of the links but....

....this one was making itself at home in the Golspie Burn. A little downstream from where this picture was taken, the burn is crowded with semi-tame mallard which gather at that spot because it's where the local children come to feed them. I wonder how the ducks would react to this bird vying for their crusts. 

This is a female chaffinch, a bird which, like the common house sparrow and the dunnock, goes into my catalogue as one of the lowly. Yet she's beautiful, and very accommodating, allowing me to approach unusually close to take her portrait.

A pair of great black-backed gulls is quite frequently to be seen from the coast path that runs towards Dunrobin Castle, and I do wonder whether it's the same one each time, for these gulls are much less common along the east coast of Scotland than they are along the northern and western coasts. They can be quite nasty bullies, stealing food off other birds, but I like the way they stick together. 

Sunset

We've had a fine day today, an unusual event in the recent pattern of weather, crowned with a spectacular early sunset over the Dornoch Firth - picture taken at 3pm. Yet the waves keep marching in from the east, a legacy of recent bad weather, their spray....

....rolling in across the land at the back of the beach.

A Walk in the Woods

While walking in Dunrobin Woods on Wednesday morning, mostly to avoid battling with the southeasterly wind which remained as fierce as it was the previous day, we noticed how the mosses in the bright green of the ground cover seem, like the lianas of the tropical rainforest, to be fighting to....

....reach the light, using the rotten stumps of fallen trees as ladders upwards. There are plenty of these living mounds of moss, not least because there are plenty of fallen trees, whose rotting trunks and branches also give encouragement to....

....the few fungi that are 'flowering' at this time of year. This might be conifer mazegill, growing on silver birch, while....

....this may be hairy curtain crust. I like the way it folds itself across the rotten branch, as if it's very tired.

Then there was this beauty, caught in the light, growing exactly where it did this time last year but, just like then, I've not been able to identify it.

The only other excitement was provided by this mould, perhaps wolf's milk slime, though with each mass only a centimetre in diameter, we were lucky to spot it.

Storm Henk

It's becoming a bit difficult to keep up with all the storms that keep marching in to the British Isles but the latest one, Storm Henk, mostly battered more southern parts of the UK. Here, late yesterday afternoon, it was giving us an easterly, coming straight in off the North Sea and piling waves into the bay area in front of Golspie. This picture, of the mouth of the Golspie Burn at the north end of the village, shows spume, not snow.

The bay was a cauldron of angry water, the waves breaking right across the coast path and promenade, while at the southern end of the promenade....

....the pier was taking a battering as was the....

....sea wall just below Golspie Boat Club's buildings.

If this is the assault we're getting off a 3.5m tide and a following wind only just gusting to gale force, I shudder to think what it'll be like in a full gale or above.

My Father's Working Day, 1961

A typical working day in my father's life in Mombasa started on the upstairs veranda, where Saidi would serve the family tea just before the sun came up. While Richard and I joined our parents wearing our kikois, a rectangle of cotton cloth worn like a sarong, and my mother wore a light dressing gown, my father was already dressed because he would then set off for a short but very brisk walk, usually along the roads towards the lighthouse.

After a grapefruit and a fried breakfast with Kenya coffee and toast and marmalade, he would set off in the company's Rover 90 for the office....

....which was at the end of Kilindini Road close to the Kilindini deep-water wharves where his ships were loaded and unloaded.

For work he usually dressed in a white cotton shirt and tie, light-coloured cotton trousers, a lightweight jacket, and leather shoes; he worked Saturday mornings when he would replace the long trousers with a pair of shorts.

If one of 'his' ships was in - this is the Southbank, a Bank Line ship which, amongst other things, was loading live game animals for a British zoo - my father might arrange to pick up the captain, take him to the Sports Club for a couple of drinks and then bring him home for lunch. Sometimes more than one came, in which case lunch might be a lengthy affair. He would then take the captain back to his ship.

If we weren't entertaining, my father would take a short nap in an armchair in the hall. I could never work out why he favoured this chair rather than one of the apparently more comfortable chairs in the sitting room.

He spent the rest of the afternoon at the office. The next stop was, again, the club, for a couple of drinks before coming home for another drink on the downstairs veranda with the family. By this time the sun had set, so we would go through to the dining room for supper. After this, my father would sit in his armchair in the sitting room and read the weekly airmail edition of the Daily Telegraph, usually accompanied by a very 'long' whisky.

The evening ended with the BBC news on the wireless, the presenter's voice waxing and waning against the background static. After the news he went to bed ready for an early start the next day.