Another instalment....

So there I was in the Winter of 2001 at the eastern end of the island of Hoy, just outside the village of Longhope.  I remember a lot of snow which made travelling anywhere "interesting". I did get cut off for a few days but I'd already learned to stock up on supplies of food and heating oil. So I was quite cosy. It was my first winter in Orkney. I was learning about the constant wind...and the long dark nights. With the light fading by 3pm, and not rising till 9am there was a lot of dark about! I'd lie in bed counting lighthouses - I think I could count six, with several being on Mainland Scotland. I had a stunning view of the Pentland Firth, but I prefer my view from Sandside - there is always something happening with a variety of boats passing Graemsay.  On the Pentland Firth I mostly watched the Scrabster to Stromness boat (then the St Ola) sailing past in the distance.

I felt quite "low" that winter. I was getting used to an Orkney winter, not working and trying not to spend money from savings, as any £1 spent was £1 less for the house. I was job hunting locally to supplement my income, without much success.  It is a delicate balance in a community such as Orkney, indeed in any rural community.  "Incomers" can affect the availability of work and housing. I was sensitive to this as my father's family are from Wales and in the 1960's and 70s the Welsh Nationalists were very anti those buying up property dirt cheap for holiday cottages. But I felt that we were also putting something into the local economy, what with the house purchase, using local builders and largely local supplies for the house, and of course buying locally for food and other services.  I had been self-employed for many years doing a variety of things from consultancy work, to training, and business research and felt I had a variety of "tranferable skills" and was really looking for a local job for a while.

Job hunting was the fairly depressing process it often is and so I remained out of work for a few months.  It did give me time to get on with the battles with Historic Scotland (a department of the Scottish government charged with looking after "historic buildings") over the plans for the house. J. was working overseas at the time so it was down to me to attend meetings and deal with officials. Our local surveyor and agent, Stevie Omand, was brilliant at helping me navigate the mysteries of the system.  The challenge was that the house was "listed" as being of architectural "merit" - it was originally built around 1860 as two "flats" with an external staircase.

Sadly the staircase was demolished around 1912 when the house was then converted from two "homes" into one. This is a photo of the house just after it was converted. (Not sure why the Shetland Museum had a copy but they did!).

There is a whole other story about Sandside itself which I plan to tell later. The Sutherland family were tenant farmers here for many years and their lives and Sandside's are intertwined for generations.  This is a photo of Henry Sutherland and his family, and somehow they all fitted into Sandside which actually isn't THAT big!

Now the house, walled garden and the small building used as a post office were "listed" by Historic Scotland, which meant we were restricted on what we could do with them. No money to HELP but just restricted.  Historic Scotland (well the architect from Edinburgh) didn't like our plans for the extension which was crucial if we were to run some sort of business from the house. OUR plans were to build the extension, adding onto what were the old dairy and cowsheds and have it all in keeping with the remainder of the house. Now, such are the ways of conservation architecture - we could knock down the outbuildings and put up a modern structure in glass and metal if we wanted, do anything it seemed EXCEPT have something "in keeping"! We LIKED these outbuildings and wanted to keep them......

The local planning committee at the Council had passed our plans. They were delighted that an old uninhabited house on one of the isles was going to be a home again. They saw NO problem with our plans!!  Historic Scotland (I renamed them Hysterical Scotland) on the other hand were being difficult.  After several meetings between Stevie Omand, myself and the Historic Scotland architect we did eventually reach agreement. It came out of the blue which was lovely but I'd been pretty stressed out with it all and couldn't really believe we'd been given the go-ahead!! So finally we could get the builders back in!!

About this time I finally got a job in Kirkwall at the local authority (local "council"). It was meant to be a temporary job but went on for over four years!  (I left in 2005 to work full time from home as a health researcher for the Medical Research Council in Glasgow. So then I could feel happier because I wasn't taking a job from someone local. And my income would be from outside Orkney but spent in Orkney so I really was contributing to the local economy again.) Though I have to say even now folk often still think I work at "the Council"!

During the difficult winter of 2001 I was buoyed up by support from the folk on Graemsay who would invite me into their homes whenever I was on the island and meet up in Kirkwall etc.  And the folk on Hoy who befriended me and showed me around. And in my mind I held onto my first image of Graemsay - the one at the top of this post taken on our first visit to the island as we were leaving. That was the dream and it WOULD come true, but it would just take time, perseverance and patience. Um.... did I tell you I'm not very good at being patient?? "Why wait?" is my motto!

In the next post I'll tell you a little about the renovation of the interior of the house.

The next stage of the story....

So there we were, in 1999, at the dawn of the new millennium with a house we couldn't live in, in a land I knew nothing about!  I wasn't able to visit the island again until the December. J. and I decided to spend Christmas and New Year (the Millennium New Year) on the island in rented accommodation down at the lighthouse.  It was lovely to walk around Sandside and imagine living in it and what we would do with the spaces etc. Folk on the island were very welcoming and we were getting to know all our neighbours at the many Christmas parties on the island. But it was also a VERY cold Christmas and New Year with snow thick on the ground (unusual for Orkney). We were undaunted and set about getting plans drawn up for the renovations.......

The first phase was to make the house wind and watertight, which meant taking the entire roof off, taking back part of the chimney on one side, and replacing all the "couples" (the wooden beams that hold up the roof slates), then getting the Caithness stone slates back on as well as replacing the external doors and windows.  At the end of this phase the house looked like this.

But first it went through this...... and yes that was scary! I was convinced the two chimneys would fall in and the entire house collapse. (Did I mention I was a drama queen? Hee Hee).

Meanwhile I was living in a caravan in the old walled garden next to the house. I'd moved up to the island in the June of 2000, having rented out my flat in Kent. I was keeping my options open - if things didn't work out I still had my flat to go back to.

That summer was magical. The weather was warm - I even wore SHORTS! The days were long. I can remember the joy of lying in bed at night and hearing the curlews, lapwings and oyster-catchers calling and the waves on the shore just yards from my bed.  The haunting sound of the seals was new to me - I got up one night, dressed and followed the noise as at first I thought it was a dog stuck somewhere!  Then I realised it was the seals along the shore calling. I can understand how sailors would have mistaken them for mermaids, and the legend of the Selkie grew up. Their call is ethereal and beautiful. For the first time in years I felt an inner calm.

I had the first of my friends visiting and got to know much of the Orkney Mainland. All the tourist sights and some of the quieter places too. Like Rackwick on Hoy, a beautiful wild place.

Cathy Ritch, from Fillets, also tethered her "hand-milker" cow in the garden as "Tiger Lily", as I called her ( she had black stripes on her hide), was needing some lush grass prior to calving.  Tiger Lily was very docile and I would stand in the evening sun scratching her head and neck.

One day I looked out the window and realised that in a heavy rainshower Tiger Lily was starting to calve. Now, years ago I used to work in a farming community, working for an auctioneers at a livestock market in Kent. So I knew a tiny bit about farm animals. I wasn't a complete "townie".  So I phoned the farm, Cathy was away so I told Arthur.  In the meantime the cow calved quite happily.  Arthur arrived with a trailer too late to take her "home" to calve.  I asked him what had taken him so long - I'd stood there in the rain fretting the calf was getting cold!!  He said I hadn't *quite* explained that the calf was calving NOW. Personally I think he didn't believe a townie could tell when a cow was calving ;-)

This all sounds quite idyllic, and it was. But in the background there was my concern about keeping working (I'd brought some work with me, but it wouldn't sustain me for long) and also quite how long I could live in the caravan into the winter.  The answer to the latter came in the mid-winter when there were warnings of storm force winds.... Arthur put silage bales around the caravan to protect it (the garden walls gave some protection), and neighbours said I could go and stay with them if necessary.  I thought I could brazen it out, but as crockery fell off the shelves and the walls of the caravan flexed, my then cat, Fitzi and I huddled under the duvet.  I decided I couldn't deal with that for the entire night so with the cat under one arm, his litter tray in a bag, and torch clutched firmly we set off to Fillets for the respite of the spare room.  I think they were a little startled to see me arrive with the cat!!  Well I couldn't leave poor town-bred Fitzi-cat in the caravan on his own!  We were both very glad of solid walls that night!

Fortunately a friend from South had a holiday cottage on the island of Hoy that was empty for the winter. So Fitzi-cat and I decamped there for a few months. The only proviso was I had to foster another cat. I think her proper name was Vodka (don't ask), but I called her Mischief or Baggins, because she was. Poor Fitzi had a horrible 6 months, with Baggins hiding behind doors, or ambushing him from the sofa. They did not get on.

The view from this cottage was wonderful, but we had yet another deep snowy winter. That's when I first met John & Leslye Budge (the musicians who come and play at our harvest home party). John came with his tractor to dig me out as there were large drifts in the driveway.

The snow was well up over the cat....

At the weekend I'd come back to Graemsay with Fitzi who was doing his best to be as adventurous as a former house-cat could be.  You can imagine my alarm when I saw him on the roof of the outbuildings!!  And yes of course he slid off....sigh... fortunately onto very soft mossy grass.  He wasn't the brightest of cats but was a gentle giant and I loved him dearly.

There was a brief hiatus in the work on the interior of the building as the builder firm was busy and couldn't start for a few months.  Meanwhile I knew I had to sell my flat south in order for me to finance the next phase. That winter was a scary one for me. I was finally cutting all ties with my life south. Yes I was really excited about my new life on Graemsay, but currently had no house to live in and no permanent work.  I couldn't imagine going back to live "south" - everything pulled me to Graemsay. I just had to find a way to make it all work....... (there, I'll leave a cliff-hanger like any good novel!! Hee hee!! More soon).

May 1999....

May 1999.....oooh somehow it seems ages ago and sometimes it's just like yesterday. But that was when I first came to Orkney and saw Graemsay and Sandside!  A friend and I were looking for a home away from the rat race of the South East of England, where we could perhaps build a business to pay living expenses.

That's why one day in May 1999 we headed for one of the London airports on our journey North.  A work colleague had bought a property on the neighbouring island of Hoy. We'd seen the house details for Sandside among a pile he'd discarded.  We were in Orkney just for the weekend, staying in Stromness and visiting a number of properties on the Orkney Mainland.  I was struggling with the idea of living on an island and frankly Orkney Mainland was just about as small as I thought I could manage.

We visited smart modern new houses, some with a small business attached. We visited complete ruins with land but no services (water, electricity).  Nothing really grabbed us.  Our criteria were fairly broad - it had to be a property with "potential" to extend, develop, run a business from. I wanted to be able to walk easily to the sea-shore (well no point in living so close to the sea if I couldn't do THAT!). And away from any busy roads (yes there are some even in Orkney).

The weather was glorious that weekend. The sun shone, the sea was turquoise. Not a breath of wind. Orkney looked stunning, wearing her best Spring clothes.  Still I was uncertain. I fancied an "adventure" but did I really want an ISLAND adventure?

On our final day we had booked an appointment to visit Graemsay and see Sandside. The wee Graemsay ferry took us first to Hoy and then to Graemsay.  Blimey - it's a wee island!!  I'd said to myself, in a slightly fey way, if I see a seal I'll now this is "meant to be".  Not a single one did we see.... in fact I hadn't seen one all weekend.....

Our first view of Sandside made my heart sink.... it hadn't been lived in for 15 years and the windows had holes in where the pigeons had flown through, and there was a board along to roof to stop the slates falling down and harming anyone. (The post office was still run out of a small building to the side of the house - see the red door?).

We wandered around inside and I just couldn't visualise it as a home. J. was much better at that, coming up with ideas and plans.  I was still a bit unenthusiastic - if you ripped out the inside of a house, did it still retain it's heart?  We stood outside in the sunshine with Arthur Ritch (who was selling the property) and talked about practicalities - how often did the ferry run, what was it like in winter.... (Um.... did I mention this was my FIRST visit to Orkney?).  I remember cutting through the conversation, like a bored child, and asking him "Are there any seals round here?"  He smiled and nodded to the beach "Ah you mean those things?" and there along the shore were seals, just a few dozen yards from the house on the sandy beach. I don't think I stopped smiling for the rest of the visit.

We went up to Arthur's farm, Fillets, and met his wife Cathy. Over tea and homebakes we chatted about animals, gardening, Graemsay and all sorts. All too soon it was time to head to the ferry, so Arthur gave us a quick tour of the island - well no tour of the island takes long! By the time we were getting on the ferry we had "bought" the house with a handshake.  Obviously legally there was a bit more to it than that, but we'd bought the house and the field behind it. A field which leads down to a BEACH!

On the flight home I knew I'd made a good decision.... it would be an adventure but also the right thing to do.  Sadly for J. he decided his heart was not in Orkney and has remained in London. So now Sandside is all mine and each morning I wake up with this view (um....Button has to get in every photo!).

And the house now looks a little more respectable!! I'll tell you more about the story of Sandside in another post shortly!

Seals and sheep and sunsets....

Last night was a lovely sunset after very misty day. I love the big skies here and being able to watch the clouds and sun track across the sky.

The lambs in the field in front of the house are still busy racing around in their little gangs.  Then they all snuggle down for a snooze... I love the little white mop of hair on the black lamb!

Meanwhile the seals continue to haul out onto the sandy beach below the house.

These are the same seals I posted pictures of earlier in April.  They are here most days at the moment. These more recent photos seem to show the profile of their faces more clearly and I think these are grey seals, rather than the harbour seals.

Some of them were playing in the shallows......

While one of these looks like he wants to make a sand-castle.

They were just like any family on a beach holiday ;-)  Maybe these two are arguing over who splashed whom, or who got sand in the sandwiches!!

I love watching them together.  It seems to be May that they haul out on the sand, the rest of the year they are on the skerries and rocks around the island. Maybe this is their Spring beach holiday!

Island transport links.....

The "Hamnavoe Ferry" appearing as a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow 

and our wee MV Graemsay in front of it.

For any community, transport links are key.  In Orkney, surrounded by sea, we are reliant on ferry services between each island and onto Mainland Scotland. Although we also have inter-island air links and main air services to Scotland, most folk travel by ferry.  And these last few weeks have seen some controversy surrounding these!

The MV Graemsay

Firstly, our wee island ferry, the MV Graemsay, went away for it's annual "service" and we had our usual replacement of the "Golden Marianna" which usually sails between Westray and Papa Westray in the summer months (and sometimes in the winter).  We usually only have the Golden Marianna for a couple of weeks in April, but this year unfortunately there was a breakdown in communication between the Ferry office and the community. This meant our ferry went away unexpectedly leaving farmers with a bit of a challenge to get desperately needed food for farm animals. Also many of us find the "Marianna" a challenge to get on and off as you have to step up onto the side of the boat and over onto the pier, and also go out through a narrow door.  The crew have been very helpful, but many of us prefer to get our shopping and heavy supplies in before our Graemsay ferry goes away to make life easier.

Fortunately the ferry company realised the error of their ways and did put on a special cargo boat for farmers last week. As I say the crew have also been very helpful, helping folk on and off and handing shopping out to us.  We have been promised proper notice for next year and yesterday our own wee "Graemsay" sailed back to us, so normality has returned!

However of wider concern for Orkney has been the absence of a ferry from Stromness to Scrabster (on the Scottish Mainland). The "Hamnavoe" usually sails this route but it had "catastrophic engine failure" a couple of weeks ago and was taken out of service.  This route is heavily subsidised by the Scottish Government along with the Kirkwall-Aberdeen route (which also goes onto Shetland).  The current contractor is Serco, an international service company.  But there has been much controversy as it seems that Serco are unable to provide a replacement vessel.  Apparently there is no "spare" passenger vessel available in the whole of Europe. In years past the other contractors could always call in a ferry from their fleet. But Serco, being a service company doesn't have a "fleet" and has to hire something in.

There is much debate among island residents and in the media over the clauses in the contract and the inability of Serco to provide a service on one of it's "lifeline" routes. Meanwhile we are without our "Stromness to Scrabster" ferry while it is down in Glasgow having major engineering work carried out.

The "Pentalina" running from St Margaret's Hope (photo courtesy of Derek Mayes

Serco's response is that there is adequate capacity on the alternative route from St Margaret's Hope (on South Ronaldsay, one of the linked south isles) which runs to Gills Bay on the Scottish Mainland. But this service is unsubsidised and run by a local private company with one ferry which only takes 35 cars.  Also transport links for "foot passengers" are not so good on this route - meaning you have to get three buses and possibly a taxi from Inverness!  The private operator (Pentalina) is doing a grand job, but the truth is that Orkney needs BOTH these routes!! Serco are also saying folk could use the Aberdeen-Kirkwall run - but not everyone wants an eight hour sail from Aberdeen!

Then there is the issue of cargo - local businesses and supermarkets are supplied from "south" via Scrabster AND Gills Bay, but again there is a capacity issue. Eventually this week Serco did put on a cargo ship which is operating between Scrabster and Stromness but is not able to take passengers.

Lots of local businesses are suffering. Not everyone outside Orkney understands there are alternatives, plus there is a lack of capacity. It's the tourist season which is short enough in Orkney (May to September) anyway and in this economic climate many businesses are struggling anyway.  Hotels and guest houses are reporting cancellations in the West Mainland of Orkney as folk either can't get a ferry booking or are choosing to stay over on the East side of Mainland given that's where they are getting the ferry to and from.

The "Hamnavoe" is expected back (according to Serco) on 24th May so "normal service" should resume then. Meanwhile there are many questions to be answered about the lack of service from a government subsidised company.  Not least that they are getting £100,000 per day less apparently £15,000 for each day it doesn't run. Hmmm if someone pays me £85,000 per day I can not run a ferry service too.....!

And for those of you wishing to travel to Orkney by car or as a foot passenger - Orkney IS open for business!

Pentland Ferries can be contacted here
Serco Northlink can be contacted here
John O'Groats passenger ferry can be contacted here

And for those of you who prefer to fly - then Flybe.com is the local airline, and this is the 30-seater plane you'll fly on which delivers you from one of the Scottish airports. (If you are flying from further afield your airline may do a deal with Flybe so you don't need to book direct.).  And - um - no, no jet engines just prop planes which aren't really that noisy and the flight is about an hour so not too long!

The tradition of peat cutting - Part Two....

Here is more from Derek Mayes on the fascinating topic of peat cutting....:

"I think I should walk you through a few things before writing more about cutting.

Peat is compressed vegetation. Years and years of annual growth, living and dying, usually in wet ground. So not heather but mosses and the like. Peat usually accumulates slowly, at the rate of about a half to one millimetre per year –  well over a thousand years a metre – very slowly then! Some of  the moorlands here have over three metres of peat.

The deeper it is in the bed, the more compressed it is. Prehistoric peat eventually becomes coal, which is usually hundreds of feet, sometimes thousands of feet under rock layers – but then everyone knows what a coal mine is.

Peat is not, generally, being formed today, largely because the climate is not suitable. But in some places, mosses are dying, being overlaid and sinking into wet beds.

Today, moorland peat is overlain by shrubby heather. Removing the heather, extracting the peat and exposing the rocky ground almost always leads to environmental or habitat problems. But it also leaves a legacy of unsightly, crumbling and overhanging banks, often at the foot of which are stagnant pools of moss-rich water – in themselves good habitat for small invertebrates which, in turn, may support a higher level of life, like birds and small mammals.

Inside an old Orkney House. The people were sooty and well cured.

 Peat cutting used to be a community affair. The landowners would often pay (not much) for the labour and allow some peat to be kept by the householders and tenants. It was common for whole families to cut peat, with ponies, traps and laughter at the peat-heads. But the good peat was usually sold at market, the rough stuff kept for home use. Peat was exported from Orkney and from island to island – some Islands had nowhere near enough, others more than sufficient.

Peat is nowadays often extracted mechanically. Huge special machines can now lift peat from the ground without apparently disturbing the surface but in some cases, like on the distillery-owned headland near here, JCB style diggers are used. Almost everywhere it is now accepted that peat extraction should be done in such a way as to not damage the environment. That of course, is impossible.

Peat cut mechanically (big JCB) is usually removed down to the base rock or glacial drift. This is whole landscape destruction. Orkney 2010.

There are few people still extracting peat by hand – it is quite hard work, walking in, cutting, stacking, turning, drying, carting and managing. But some people do. Hand cutting is fair for the environment (only fair).

One might expect that those who do cut, to understand the ways of the moor or headland – I do. I know the birds, the insects, the plants and can name most of them; and I understand the balance of the habitat. I still worry that I am taking, and burning something that belongs to us all. I take peat only from old beds, taking pride in repairing the damage done by years of careless or greedy extraction.  And I take care to repair as I go, to remove only that which is required and I will always do it by hand.  It is the best I can do – we like the peat, Dot and I, we like the moorland more.

Most peat is stacked and dried outdoors. We store ours indoors – in a byre. It is not easy to carry into there, through the door, round the corner, having wheel-barrowed it from the headland. But it is all therapeutic, a joy to cut, helps fitness and makes us hungry.

The very nicest thing about peat is the glow of warmth expelled into the room on those dark, wintry nights and oh yes, the aroma outside on the breezes, an evocative perfume.

My next entry will explain how I cut and stook; and how we, Dot and I, turn the slabs through the weeks of summer, barrow it home and stack it neatly in the byre.

Derek"

Feel free to ask questions or add comments - Derek will respond to them (he's answered some of the questions asked about his previous post).

Spring is struggling on.....

It's May but still "April showers", and chilly temperatures and windy days.... Above are the ewes and their lambs in the field opposite the house.  A grey, chilly day.  I want to rush out and wrap the little lambs in wooly jumpers! Their mums have lovely thick oily fleeces to keep them dry, but the young lambs have only a thin covering of wool at this early stage.  I love watching them all "playing" together, racing around the field, playing "I'm King of the Castle", and racing off again.

In the garden the tulips are out - these are NOT dwarf tulips but they have learned to grow low or they just don't survive!

And the cultivated variety of primrose are starting to flower too....

While the wild variety are very late this year....but beautiful and worth waiting for. These cover the stone near the pier.

A hen enjoys rootling around underneath the willow trees

And the clouds continue to scud across the sky.....

While Button prefers to snooze in the warm.... I love the way cats are so tidy when they sit - look at her tail neatly curled up! (And no she doesn't have a problem with her ear - it's just the angle of the photo!)

But there ARE days when the sun shines and the sky is blue :-)