There’s big excitement at Einar as Mr Pig arrives with news of the piglets. Little Kim has produced in the night. There are twelve piglets and sow and piglets are doing well. We’re on our bikes and down the road before you can say pig swill. The piglets are unbelievably cute, with curly tails and [...]
Coastal erosion at the Links of Noltland leaves scattered stones over a neolithic settlement quicky disappearing with the wind.
The dunes at the Links of Noltland show their erosion by the wind – the grass tufts left are six feet above the current sand surface and a complete neolithic settlement and bronze age village lie just inches below the surface of the shifting sands.
I’m standing next to a 5000 year old house looking at a bead from a 5000 year old necklace. It was made from a cow’s tooth by someone who lived on this spot in the neolithic age. Someone who wore animal skins, who farmed barley and kept cattle. Someone who worked bone and antler and [...]
Pierowall is the name of the only village on the Orkney island of Westray. The problem I had was how to pronounce it. The Westray accent is beautiful and soft and difficult to understand without extreme concentration. Pierowall must be pronounced ‘Pierrot-wall’ I thought at first. But then I heard a few people speak its [...]
There’s just time to pop into a shop on Westray before it closes for lunch. “It’s not a very fine day today is it?” is the greeting awaiting me as I enter through one of the two doors on the storm porch (one for each wind direction – if the wind was strong I wouldn’t [...]
Wind blows the sands into ripples and threatens to engulf the vegetation.
Today is an important day in the social calendar of Westray. It’s the day of the 75th Annual Westray Industrial Show. Entries have already been delivered to the designated drop-off points, clearly labelled with their section number and class, with the competitor’s name inside. Judging has already taken place. It’s time to see who has [...]
I have a life driven by time. The time on my watch, the time on my phone and the time on my computer. Time to meet, time to arrive, time to leave, time to eat. Time, time, time. It’s therefore been a curious experience to live for a month on a remote Scottish Island called [...]
A quick trip out this afternoon to visit Mr and Mrs Pig the neighbours, their boar Alfie and their heavily pregnant sow Little Kim. Here’s a typical extract from Mr Pig’s blog: The Edge of Nowhere: About a boar the-edge-of-nowhere.blogspot.com How old will he have to be before he begins “work”? I was sixteen myself. [...]
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