So that was summer. Lord, it’s been hot: last week Wick experienced its highest temperature in 68 years. Granted, that was only 25.2c (or 77.4 degrees in old money), but even so it was hot for us. Things were getting serious: I even considered taking off my pullover at one point, but then remembered women and children might be present and refrained.
Dunbeath Harbour from the south
For a marvel it stayed warm into the weekend, so on Saturday we went back to Dunbeath, another former fishing village about half an hour’s drive south of Wick. We’ve usually stayed on the north side of the harbour, but this time we crossed the river and walked south along the shingle beach towards the castle. It really was a glorious day, the blue of the sky merging with the blue of the ocean somewhere around the shimmering horizon. The beach was deserted, save for a British family paddling in the rock pools; we knew they were British, because although we were the only people for several miles, we all looked the other way and pretended we hadn’t seen each other.
Dunbeath Castle
Dunbeath castle had a moment in the spotlight of history during the Civil Wars, when the royalist James Graham, Marquess of Montrose (“wrong but romantic” in the immortal words of 1066 And All That) landed at John o’ Groats from Orkney in March 1650 and, after wasting a few at days at Thurso trying to recruit—the local clans having none of it—marched south to Dunbeath. After a brief resistance the castle was surrendered, on condition that “persons and property should be respected”. Montrose left a garrison there and moved into Sutherland, where he was quickly defeated at the battle of Carbisdale on 27th April. The rising having failed, Dunbeath Castle was retaken by government forces soon after, and it more or less sensibly kept its head down ever since.
But the day was so hot, even the sea breeze seemed to have wilted. The air was humid and sticky and deathly still. Bees and butterflies tried their best, but after a couple of flowers you could see them lying on their backs, panting, waving their little legs resignedly in the air. So we called it a day, and retreated to the car and modern miracle that is air conditioning. Summer’s all very well for a visit now and then, I thought; but you really wouldn’t want to live there…
“Summer breeze, makes me feel fine/ Blowing through the jasmine of my mind,” as the Isley Brothers optimistically sang during the long, hot summer of 1974. And I thought of those words, not without some bitterness, as I watched the gale-lashed rain spatter the window and shake the doors last weekend. I’d taken a couple of days off work to make the most of the good weather before the frosts of autumn came, only to run head-first into a deep low barrelling in off the Atlantic. It was wild, and not only blew through the jasmine of my mind, it also trashed the joint and left us looking like shipwrecked sailors who’d unwisely gone hunting the white whale in the Moray Firth.
In between deluges we decided to go neolithic-relic spotting, down to the unusual stone circle-that’s-a-horseshoe at Achavanich and the reconstructed cairns at Camster. It still amazes me that Caithness has Stone Age ruins just lying by the side of the road. Anywhere else there’d be fences, kiosks, entry fees and a gift shop (correction, a “gifte shoppe”). Here the stones just sit in the landscape, much as they’ve done for four or five thousand years; and what you make of them is entirely up to you.
I sometimes wonder what it was like to live at the point when the Middle Stone Age became New. I imagine it must have been like when I was at school in 1976 and punk rock was happening: back then there was no internet, and all you had was tantalising rumours in the playground of a new type of music, new attitudes, new hairstyles. Did Mesolithic man suddenly find his hairstyle and music being derided in the popular press of the day? Or was it like when the New Romantics came along in the 1980s, after we’d had to endure thousands of years of Mesoromantics?
Of course, neolithic is the term archaeologists use for the period when humans began to create permanent settlements, domesticate animals, and start farming, marking the transition away from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles. This was before the age of metals, when society started to evolve into recognisable units like states and countries, and stone was still (literally) cutting-edge technology. Historians have wondered for centuries why they clung on to stone for so long, with their thick stone dwellings half-buried in the earth, but I’ve got a simple explanation: come out with me next Bank Holiday Monday for a walk in the driving wind and rain, and I think you’ll begin to see the attraction…
Let’s start with the good news, and really it’s as good as good can be: the hospital consultant confirmed that I don’t have oesophageal cancer after all (or cancer of the lymph nodes, or thyroid, or any other place known to medical science they’d thought I might have it) and she doesn’t want to see me again. Of course, the world is full of people who never want to see me again so on its own this isn’t as impressive as it could be, but given that the growth on my vocal cords has gotten smaller now I’m not coughing all the time, I seem to be – cautiously, hopefully – out of the medical woods.
Path in the Forest
To establish this I had to get up close and personal one more time with the dreaded endoscope, the cold steel tube that slides up the nose and down the throat. It’s rather like being attacked by an amorous robot octopus. (I can usually keep it together right up to the moment when they ask you to say “Eeeee” with the tube in place, which is a bit like trying to whistle while gargling.) By way of a bonus, the consultant said my various infections had gone as well, and described the inside of my nose as “pristine”, which means I’ll never be short of a chat-up line again.
Scarfskerry Harbour
Alas, nature abhors a vacuum, or as Job puts it, the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. And so I’ve got a new medical condition to stop me getting bored: the top knuckle of my left little finger has swollen up and the tip is starting to grow crooked, like a branch sprouting out of a polled tree. Hurts like the dickens, too. It’s probably arthritis. So it’s as they say, what we lose on the swings we gain on the roundabouts (though I’ve never been sure exactly what I’m likely to lose on the swings, unless it’s my lunch). We all have to dree our weird, or submit to our fate, so I’m really not complaining; all the same, I can’t help wondering if it had to be quite this weird…?
Sitting on the Fence
In parish notices we’ve received pictures of a rather splendid gansey knit by Belinda for her son. It’s knit using Frangipani dark navy yarn, and is a combination of cables, diamonds and chevrons, and other things too. Many congratulations to Belinda, not just for completing the gansey, no mean feat in itself, but also for what looks like a perfect fit, and thanks for sharing it with us.
TECHNICAL STUFF
Mrs Laidlaw’s Pattern
My own current gansey project is of course Mrs Laidlaw’s belter of a pattern from Seahouses, taken from Gladys Thompson’s book. It’s knit in Frangipani Breton yarn, a lovely autumnal russet shade, and is a combination of moss stitch panels at the edges, and trees and flags interspersed with crinkly bits. (What do you call those wriggling line patterns in between the trees? They remind me of the French “epi” bread, cut to resemble ears of wheat.) It’s a classic pattern and I’m looking forward to recreating it over the coming weeks and months.
The scene: Middle Earth. Saruman and his servant Wormtongue stand high aloft the tower of Isengard, looking out at vast army of orcs that reaches as far as the eye can see. Saruman sighs happily and turns to Wormtongue.
S: Ah, Wormtongue, is not my army of fighting uruk-hai truly magnificent?”
W: Absolutely, my lord. It’s just—
S: And are they poised to be unleashed upon our unsuspecting enemies cowering in Helm’s Deep?
W: Oh, no question of that, your evilness. Poised, certainly. Unleashed, oh yes, definitely. Though I should perhaps mention—
S: And are the towers and ladders made ready for the siege?
W: Well, you see, about that—
S: I’m sorry, is there a problem?
Dunbeath Harbour
W: Well, your dirty beardedness, you know you made me your health and safety adviser when I lost my job in Rohan?
S: This isn’t another of your misguided attempts at humour, is it? As in, ‘It’s elf and safety gone mad’?
W (hastily hiding behind his back a copy of 100 Merry Jests for Tickling the Fancy of Evil Tyrants): Ahaha, good lord, no, perish the thought. It’s just that the Deeping Wall at Helm’s Deep is twenty feet high.
S: And?
W: Well, you see, everyone’s got to finish their Working at Height training, and we’ve only got a dozen iPads to go round. And then there’s the question of risk assessments.
S: Risk assessments?
W: Oh yes, well, every orc going up those ladders has got to do one for slips, trips and falls.
S (sarcastically): What about having your head cut off when you’re at the top?
W: Technically a workplace injury, your despicableness.
S: You mean they could sue me for being decapitated?
W: Well, we’re already facing a lawsuit for bullying and harassment. Apparently calling your employees terms like “filth”, “scum” and “maggot” is no longer acceptable.
S: Bloody ingrates. What about the staff incentive scheme we introduced?
Lenticular clouds at Achavanich
W: Quite a few are opting out now they’ve discovered it means we whip them to make them run faster.
S: (gloomily): I miss the old days. Seems like the only thing you can take an axe to now is a tree.
W: (coughs anxiously): Ah now, MEEPA have raised an objection.
S: MEEPA?
W: Middle Earth Environment Protection Agency, your moral turpitudishness. I mean, we’re probably not going to meet our carbon emissions targets at this rate.
S (bitterly): Anything else?
W: Um, let’s see… The king’s counsellors you suborned with gold have been arrested under the Bribery Act (3010, Third Age). The people of the Westfold that you enslaved are bringing an action under anti-slavery legislation. Other than that, I think we’re good. Oh, and there is one bit of good news.
Water flowing to the sea, Dunnet Beach
S: Well?
W: All your orcs are wearing armour, so technically we’re compliant for personal protective equipment. Though speaking of workplace harassment, I, er, was wondering if you could stop calling me Wormtongue. My name is Desmond, after all.
S: Hmm, tell me, Desmond, have you done a risk assessment for standing up here on this tower with me?
W: Funnily enough, no—aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh….
S (now alone, musingly): You know, I think he was right the first time: it really is elf and safety gone mad…
Now, I’m not usually one to complain (Editor, quoting Bender the robot from Futurama: “Ahahaha. Oh wait, you’re serious. Let me laugh even harder”) but I’m starting to think that tourism up here is getting a bit out of hand. A lot of this is down to the North Coast 500, a clever marketing exercise that’s seen the broad loop of road that runs 120 miles north from Inverness to John o’ Groats, then west to Durness, and south down the west coast, taking in Skye, before heading east back to Inverness, rebranded as a tourist trail. And yes, it’s a lovely drive, even travelling at 30mph in a winding queue of traffic. But it’s turned the north Highlands from somewhere to go into something to do.
Muckle Skerry from John o’Groats
In the west country tourists are known as “grockles”, nobody knows why, but it’s a great name. In Cornwall I’ve heard them referred to as emmets, derived from an Old English word for ants (aemete), and you can see the metaphor. The other day we went up to Duncansby, to go for a walk along the cliffs and look and the sea stacks. But when we got there the car park was full, cars and vans were double- and triple-parked, and a solid line of people like emmets at a picnic trudged across the headland to see the view, take a few photos, and trudge back. (Reader, we chickened out, and went to John o’ Groats for an ice cream in the sun instead.)
In gansey news, it’s always exciting to start a new project. This time it’s another stone-cold classic, Mrs Laidlaw of Seahouses’ pattern, from Gladys Thompson. It’s a pattern I’ve loved ever since I first opened the book nearly 40 years ago, but have scarcely ever knit—well, it’s overdue a revisit. The yarn is Frangipani Breton, a lovely soft russet shade that should capture the pattern definition well. So it begins.
Stack at Sarclet
And do I begrudge other people the chance to experience the beauties of the Scottish landscape? Of course not: I’m a tourist myself every time I get in my car. So I guess I can see it from both sides. After all, what’s the point of scenery if no one looks at it? Here in Caithness there are plenty of quiet places that haven’t (yet) made the guidebooks, which you can visit with nary a camper van in sight. Though I do rather hanker back to wartime, when the north Highlands was a protected area, and you needed a special pass to go north past Inverness. You could limit the number of vehicles coming in, to avoid overcrowding: hmm, about five a day seems about right…
So that was summer. Lord, it’s been hot: last week Wick experienced its highest temperature in 68 years. Granted, that was only 25.2c (or 77.4 degrees in old money), but even so it was hot for us. Things were getting serious: I even considered taking off my pullover at one point, but then remembered women and children might be present and refrained.
But the day was so hot, even the sea breeze seemed to have wilted. The air was humid and sticky and deathly still. Bees and butterflies tried their best, but after a couple of flowers you could see them lying on their backs, panting, waving their little legs resignedly in the air. So we called it a day, and retreated to the car and modern miracle that is air conditioning. Summer’s all very well for a visit now and then, I thought; but you really wouldn’t want to live there…
