I had not been to Orkney before although I had wanted to for some time. This was a good time to go as we were blessed with blue skies and glorious sunshine for most of our stay and we were outside in clean air for most of the time.
My impressions of Orkney had come principally from the writing of George Mackay Brown, from his novels and short stories and short pieces for the local paper. The islands which I found did still carry much of the curious power that his writings conveyed; his sense that “the essence of Orkney’s magic is silence, loneliness and the deep marvelous rhythms of sea and land, darkness and light”.
I didn’t find any sense of the immanent lurking in the old stones of Brodgar or absorb insights from the Norse twilight, but rather found something in the whole sense of island life – the green fertility of the land, the glint of sun on the sea, the cleanliness of the air, the sense of continuity of existence which the historical sites engender.
One of the occasional discussions which Kirstin and I have is around the possibility of living in remote places. Kirstin is very clear that she couldn’t do it and I understand that. But part of me always yearns for a place to go which is isolated as a place of retreat. It ties to that odd feeling that I had the other week at the airport (entry for 14th July). At the time I characterised it as “boredom” but that was somewhat dishonest. It was more of that same yearning for something which might have been, reminiscent of the longing for new worlds lost which infuses George Mackay Brown’s “Vineland”.
Perhaps it may yet be
Shetland is very different – further north (and closer to Norway). The landscape and the weather were much more rugged and so too, I fancy, are the people.
If the focus of our stay on Orkney was primarily historical, Shetland was more about exploring its wilderness quality with a boat trip around Bressay and Unst and a trip up to Hermaness at the top of Unst which is about as far north as you can easily get within the UK. This is a world of towering sea-cliffs where gannets swirl and Orca hunt and single track roads through ancient peat moors where Skuas nest. It is where small communities cling on to the memory of a way of life which survived centuries but likely will not survive the next couple of decades.
There are many things which can make a holiday special – it could be a sense of time and place or the people you meet or the exotic roads travelled. This was a special holiday for me because for a few days I was reminded of things which are important to me and which I lose in the day to day normal.
The challenge, as ever, is to bring the day to day normal closer to the ideal: closer to what is important to me. That does not involve going to the office everyday.
A full set of holiday snaps can be found on Facebook (but open to any to see whether you have an account there or not I think). You’ll find them here –
Orkney
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