COUNTRY DIARY – 15th Jan
KIRKWALL, Orkney, Scotland, UK
The temperature has risen, although hat, gloves and ‘heavy’ coat are still needed for my morning walk. Stones and mortar are scattered on the pavement, chipped away by ice and wind, and crows are squabbling around a high nest in the sycamore trees of the Earls Palace. The noise is not beautiful, but it is determined – the cycle of build, nurture and fledge starts afresh early in the year.
The curve of the road wraps like an arm around the red cathedral, over nine hundred years young, the lights are already on inside. The custodian has put out the ‘Danger uneven surface’ sign and I feel an invitation to enter. But this morning a small upswing of mood calls me to look over the water.
On the way, I pass the drain unblocking team working along Albert Street. There is much repair and maintenance to be done as soon as there is even the most marginal indication that darkness is lifting.
At the marina, snags of seaweed decorate ladder tops where they breech the pier. Fragments of a buoy, like petrified orange peel, scatter across the concrete. I stand among creels, breathe in the tang of salt and iron, and watch a black-faced gull that sits quietly on the mother of pearl surface.
I look back to the harbour and the heather dressed backdrop of Ward Hill. Although it is past nine, dawn is still breaking. In the east, layers of cloud show the flow of invisible winds, some scattering upwards into the pale blue, others below are weirdly solid and lenticular. My legs are too cold to linger long.
I retrace my steps past the well-considered plantings for the low rising cliff, detonations of New Zealand flax and cabbage trees. They remind me of the Otago Peninsula. How odd that it will be mid-summer there now. A small, unidentifiable, brown bird trills, and I feel the familiar frustration of poor vision, yet I am still gladdened. I tell myself I would know what it was if I could see clearly.
I return home doubly contented, revived by the air and scoring a full house in morning greeting bingo. Perhaps the vitamin D tablets are also to blame.
Still January, still here – Gabrielle Barnby
