Calendar - June

This is the photograph on my calendar for June.  It was taken at the top of Ronas Hill in Shetland last summer. 

Ronas Hill is the highest point on Shetland at 450 metres. The day we walked up was a bright sunny day but even so it was cool and windy at the top. There is no clear path, we parked near the masts in the photo below and walked up towards the summit passing a cairn which marked the route.

The rocks are granite, large boulders and smaller pieces broken off by repeated freezing and thawing of the water in the rocks. The repeated freeze/thaw cycle can cause patches of earth to creep down hill, these are known as sliding terraces.

The plants at the front edge of the terrace are gradually smothered while those towards the back can then colonise the bare ground.

Amongst the plants that are able to survive on the hill are alpine species. This is Alpine Lady's Mantle

and two more that I haven't been able to identify.

Its amazing that the plants can grow in such a hostile environment with so little soil.

The views from the top were stunning. 

Most of the countryside around us has been changed by man's activity and this is no exception, crofters have lived here and their sheep have grazed these hills, peat has been cut for fuel and there are ancient tracks across the moors but the views from the summit still show an unspoilt wildness despite the sight of the huge Sulham Voe oil terminal in the next photo!

Two manmade structures do exist right on the top of the hill, a bronze age burial cairn and a trigonometrical point. The trig point is protected by a wall and in a box beside it is a visitors book and pen! We read through the entries and wrote our names, the most unusual and unexpected place I have ever signed a visitors book.

It has been so very hot here today, I wish I was back in Shetland right now but at least I can look at these photos and feel a bit cooler.

Calendar - May

Of the twelve photographs of Shetland that I used for my calendar this year, this is the only one that doesn't feature the coast although the sea is just a few hundred yards away.

This is Clickimin Broch in Lerwick. Some of these structures date from the Bronze Age and it is thought that the site was continuously inhabited for over a thousand years between 700 BC and 500 AD. It is on a small holm on Clickimin Loch which was tidal during the Bronze Age but became cut off from the sea around 200BC and is now a freshwater loch.

The Broch is the central structure and it is surrounded by a defensive wall or dyke with a single entrance facing the causeway. 

The circular broch is double walled with a staircase within the walls. There would have been a wooden structure within the stone walls and it would have housed many people.

Broch interior

Originally it was 10m tall but later was reduced in height and became an ordinary farmhouse housing just one family. The morning I took these photos the view of the loch from the building was beautiful.

As I wandered around the site early in the morning it was very calm and peaceful but the existence of such a thick defensive wall suggests that it wasn't always so. There is evidence that cattle and sheep were kept on the farm site and that barley was cultivated. It must have been a cold and uncomfortable life at times, crowded into the stone buildings during the short days of the northern winters but generations and generations called this little area home.

When I think of how little they possessed compared to all the things we seem to "need" to live our lives in the 21st century, I wonder what a bronze age man or woman would make of our way of life today. In the Western world, we talk about simplifying and minimalism as a choice available to us, back then it was the only option.

Calendar - April

This is the photo on my calendar for this month. I took this last summer in Shetland on a beautiful sunny day. We spent the morning on a deserted beach and then as we walked onto a nearby headland I took this picture of an isolated croft.

When I am on holiday I like to imagine what it would be like to live in some of the places I visit. Imagine living here. 

Our house is close to other houses, shaded by large trees and has a smallish garden. This would be so different, on its own, plenty of space and not a tree in sight.

I cropped the top photo for my calendar but in the original below you can see just how isolated it is. It was reached by a track about a mile long off a single track road in a quiet part of Shetland.

Sometimes when I can here my neighbours DIY or the noise of traffic from the nearby road seems louder than usual, I think that living somewhere like this would be perfect - only the sounds of nature all day. I wonder whether I would really like it though? On days spent at home you wouldn't see a soul and even going for a walk it is unlikely that you'd meet anyone. I wonder if I would like it in the winter when the days are short (Shetland is as far north as Alaska , level with Bergen in Norway), would it all seem just too quiet?

What do you think, perfect seclusion or unbearable isolation? I'm still not sure, I think I'd like it but perhaps you can't really tell until you've actually lived somewhere for a while.

Calendar - March

This is my photograph for the month of March from my Shetland calendar. It was taken in Lerwick, the capital in Shetland.

The building is a Lodberrie. The name comes from Old Norse meaning 'loading rock'. Lodberries consisted of a house, store, small yard and private pier. Goods could be unloaded from boats directly on to the property. This arrangement made it easy for smuggling to take place and underground passages leading away from the lodberries allowed some of the goods to be taken away before the delivery was declared to the customs officers.

This month I shall remember wandering around the narrow streets in this part of Lerwick

and seeing these lovely old buildings jutting out into the bay.

Calendar - February

 

February's photograph from my Shetland calendar was taken at Walls. Also known by its Shetland name Waas, it is on the west side of the island and is a lovely peaceful place.

The boat is resting in a boat noost which is a hollow sometimes surrounded by stones. The boat is tethered on to boulders and the hollow provides some shelter from the Shetland storms. Boat noosts are common around the Shetland coastline. I like the patterns of the peeling paint on the boat.

The day we visited the sea was very calm but in the winter the seas around Shetland can be very stormy.
The ferry which travels between Walls and the island of Foula, 14 miles west of mainland Shetland out in the Atlantic is often cancelled due to rough seas and high winds. The island can now be reached by air but when boats provided the only means of access, there were times during the winter when the island was isolated for periods of six to eight weeks at a time. Up until the 1930s there was no wireless communication either, difficult in our age of instant communication to imagine how that must have felt.

For any other fans of Shetland and Scottish islands, Simon King's Shetland Diaries, a series of three one hour long programmes about Shetland and its wildlife is to be broadcast on Thursday evenings starting tomorrow(4th February). I will definitely be watching

My Calendar

I often buy a calendar when I am on holiday so that the following year I have twelve changing photographs on my kitchen wall reminding me of the place we visited. This year I decided to make my own. I took hundreds of photographs when we went to Shetland last summer and it was hard to pick just thirteen (12 months and the cover) to use in the calendar.

I put my favourite on the cover. If I'd thought about this a bit more I would have realised that this was a bit silly because I spend a month looking at each of the others and don't see the cover all year!

The cover photo is of Banna Minn beach on Mainland Shetland. We spent several hours here, reading, exploring and just soaking up the scenery and the peace and quiet.

The next photograph is my picture for January. Looking through the calendar, I noticed that 12 of the 13 photographs include the sea which is not difficult on Shetland because at no time are you more than three miles from the coast. I chose this picture because I enjoyed watching the patterns of waves and foam as the sea crashed into the rocks.

During these dull grey winter days (almost all the snow has melted now) I am enjoying looking at the photographs and remembering my summer holiday. I'll post more photographs during the year as I turn the pages of my calendar.