Orkney

Salt in wir bluid Beann an Orcadian means yir born wae salt in yir bluid. Yir face is washed by both the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, and somedays ye can taste thim on yir lips. Wir surrounded by th sea and hid impacts on wir life in many wais. Maistly the impact is […]

Cycle Snipe  Entwined with the wind is the sound of the snipe. I have heard it louder, but today it is on the edge of the soundscape, caught up in the wind like a piece of sound flotsam. I am out cycling and have stopped just to let the sounds sink in. Sometimes when I

A Stromness Winter Oh sky how you tease us, forever changing our view,Hoy slipping in and out of sight, don’t hide its beauty from us. Oh dark how you envelop us, allowing us only moments of light,Rendering the day over unreasonably early, we crave your farewell. Oh sea how you tempt us, occasionally calm, so

Eternal Eternal Long gliding wings the sea-world will girdle: Strong beat along, upbeat on a thermal; They dip and they dive as waves crest in time, Then flash from the spume and free from the rime, Shrieking off to the south they gather speed – Migration enforces their raging need Don’t visit! – Then comes

1.Ravie Hill As well as being real rock, sea and soil,– well, what place isn’t, unless landlocked,and we’d laugh at our father, so loyalto the mighty cliffs and modest crofts,the wind-worn hills and tireless toilof ancestors (just to keep warm, we scoffed)and pleaded to fly home: even the localscall you incomer, Dad, get with the

This Land What is this land to me, what is Westray, Papa Westray, what is Fara, Cava, what is Flotta with its flame? What is Hoy – home of selkies and whitemaas, and music scored on Rackwick’s cliffs? What is this land to me, what is the Ring of Brodgar where peedie hands fingered time?

Whitemaas wingan, lavros singan Long curvan beaches o’ bonny white sand Seas in shinan sun, waves roll in one by one Twinklan lochs amang green fields they stand. So this is wurs, what better place tae be Than in this bonny land in a new century. Far fae crowds, aye here wur happy This is

Wide open vistas as far as the eye can roam. Breathtaking beauty at every turn, whatever the weather. A legacy of ancient archaeology and history, mapping these islands with a picture of how people lived through the centuries