Stones.

( A slight delay of 24 hours due to no signal )

However good morning from a brighter and lighter Orkney this campervan morning. Camped out over looking the Bay of Skaill in the west of the mainland ; almost picture book image of a bay. I have the ancient settlement of Skara Brae away to my left and an old church to my right. The ‘Hole O’Row’ arch just visible on the headland in the distance. An onshore breeze, which is pretty chilly, the cloud broken white with blue flowing through. The sea a mixture of greys, silvers and greens laps against the shore. The sound is just that, waves on a shoreline. No campervan morning yesterday, a very early start to beat the crowds, and take in some of the ancient stones in relative silence and tranquility, if in mist and yesterdays light rain, it felt more respectful that way. The Stone Circle at Brodger and the Standing Stones of Stenness had been on my ‘Life’ bucket list and neither disappointed. Though maybe the stand out feature was the ‘Watch Stone’ which sits between the two sites. The grey, misty morning mixed with occasional bouts of dreich actually made the experience more powerful and the early rise mean’t lucky enough to have the site to ourselves. Not another soul around, allowed you time to sit and be with the site and take your time with the monuments. The almost usual oystercatcher cries, crows and some …. were my solitary companions. There is always something mysterious and awe inspiring when in the presence of a stone circle. From a physical sense and an emotional one. Stories spun around the how, the what and the why, fairy tales to scientific guess work. There is an air around these stones, a magic, an ethereal feeling, maybe just based on the unknown. Andy Goldsworthy the sculptor and environmentalist writes :

“ There is life in a stone. Any stone that sits in a field or lies on a beach takes on the memory of that place. You can feel that stones have witnessed so many things.”

They sit between two lochs a bridge connecting them and the sentinel Watch Stone, stands between them both. I have been to Stonehenge, but there is something more, earthy, more tribal and more connected with these stones. I am taken back to a quote I used a week or so back :

“ Your ideas of what is beautiful, what matters and what constitutes pleasure, shape your journey “

And these stones definitely shaped this part of the journey and a lot of what has gone before. They gave me immense pleasure to tick something off the bucket list and also to be sat amongst them. Lovely days people.

“ Stones are mute teachers; they silence the observer, and the most valuable lesson we learn from them we cannot communicate.” Johan Wolfgang Van Goethe.