Thursday, January 01, 2009

Hillswick Ness, first day of 2009



Left the assembled revellers revelling at around 2.00am and hit the hay, which appears to have been a wise move. Up at 10.00 am to find a truly glorious Shetland day - flat calm, very mild, sunny - and so it was a hurried clear-up, high-octane, high-caffeine, high-cholestorol breakfast (guests Lizzie and Dave up early too, to go off and feed kye) and then oot and aboot to savour some of that wonderful and all-too-brief light.

I'd had a note from an unfortunate Geocacher to say that the cache I'm responsible for on the Ness had vanished, so I thought I'd better check. It's a good 40-minute, very rough walk out to the location (it's called Another Fine Ness if you're into this stuff) but with the conditions, it was absolutely brilliant being out there. On one side the Drongs (that's the cathedral-like stack you can see behind me in the picture) and on the other the lighthouse and a view clear to Nibon.

Sure enough, nothing remained of the cache (a Tupperware box). I blame bonxies, black-backs or possibly sheep. It will be replaced within the next few days.

I took the short route back, down the spine of the Ness, meeting neighbours Nick and Fiona and getting some of their 'Happy Hens' eggs, which are available for sale at all times and which I thoroughly recommend.

So, as I write, I'm preparing the Ne'erday dinner, which will be traditional steak pie and tatties. Just baked some soda bread which marks the first resolution of the year: no shop-bought bread. Back to work tomorrow - today's show, which I thought was really good, was a pre-record.

4 comments:

Tonykaku said...

i too just returned from a "first walk" but not quite as treacherous and colds as yours. and i think you had more sunlight greeting you. it is just past noon and finally there is some sun and blue sky. it was a gray "first morning" all the way to and at the beach. good for black and white photos.
happy new year.
kevin from the south bay
ps. The Wire is over. any good BBC mystery dramas you can recommend?

Anonymous said...

Your use of the word revellers does of course betray your journalistic training!

Happy New Year Tom and lang may yer lum reek!

(Oh! and thanks for the mention on the show re. the Frank O'Hagan gig)

hoolet said...

ah notice you don't translate the kye back intae a word other non scottish folk will understaun , well done tam , and the soda bread is it a loaf or the more recognisable triangular sody scone? you cannae beat a fresh wan , an auld neighbour used tae pass wan ower the wa' when she was bakin
tata the noo
awra best in2009

Hope said...

Hurrah for home-made bread! I have been making 99% of our bread for the last year and a half, ever since we moved away from a place with great bakeries to places where gummy white "bread" is considered high cuisine. It was a lot easier when I was out of work and home all day, but I find that I can't go back to store bought now, even though I have to work again. Ah well, slow food is better, eh? Happy New Year Tom!