Solstice!

Happy Winter Solstice! Today is the shortest day of the year as well as the first day of winter. I prefer to think on the former – that, after today, we'll get more and more hours of beautiful sunlight EVERY day (until June 21st anyway).

In Stromness on the Orkney Mainland, (off the Northern coast of Scotland) one of my fave places on the planet, the sun rose this morning  at 9:04 GMT and sets this afternoon at 3:15. Just six hours and 11 minutes of daylight. WAY different than the 20 hours of daylight had at the summer solstice.

An aside: I remember watching my friend Betty gardening at 10 PM one summer night. Thinking that she was quite eccentric, I cracked, "a bit late for this isn't it?"  She allowed that Orkadians had to take advantage of the light while they had it. DOH! OF COURSE!

Today, in Stromness the sun IS showing its face so at least there’s that. This is the day when the sun streams straight through the wild neolithic tomb, Maeshowe, just six miles up the road from Stromness. The whole, otherwise very dark, cairn's lit up like it's part time!

Landscape in Glencoe

I would love to go back to Orkney – it is blindingly peaceful. The land’s not as dramatic as in the Highlands but it’s mega calming.  Every time I've visited (thrice now) I absolutely hated to leave.

Why not go back? It takes forever to get there. If I fly the whole way, there are at least two LONG layovers (in Dublin and Glasgow) with the whole shebang (not including getting the bus from the airport in Kirkwall to the cozy hotel in Stromness) takes about 16 hours. No thanks. When I’ve gone before, I’ve flown into Glasgow, taken the train to Edinburgh, stayed there for a few days of museuming and then caught the train north to Scrabster and then the ferry over to Stromness. Also a long journey BUT the museums and galleries of Edinburgh are tremendous and the train ride through the highlands is beautiful.

By the by, just ten miles north of Stromness is the town of Twatt.  Get’cher mind outta the gutter (where mine is normally found) The name of the place comes from Old Norse – þveit and means 'small parcel of land’

                      Oh.

It’s home to a World War II control tower, a Post Office which closed shop in 2002 and I can’t find a population listing anywhere BUT there is a nice sized empty church. God, it appears, has also gone out of biz in Twatt.

The kirk is for sale and, (BEWARE: now entering Fantasyville!),  I’d love to buy it up (IF I had the dosh). I'd empty out most of the pews – not all of course. Throw around a few cushions and they'd make lovely couches. Right?  I'd set up my studio space (both paint and clay), create a comfy corner for reading and install a big ass canopy bed for me and Coco. Though the Orkney’s are wickedly far north, the Gulf Stream keeps temps warm in winter. (~42º,  and cool in summer – mid 60s) Sounds abso-fucking-perfect, no? Yes and no, it’s wonderfully isolated, all that neolithic shit REALLY turns me on and the place is generally charming as fuck BUT the wind is atrocious.

Though there are no mountains, rambling or triking over the rolling hills in, up to, 90 mph winds is totes not my idea of fun. Also too, the place needs WAY more trees. Back in Imagination Land – Coco and I could move there, plant trees and adopt bunnies as well as stray cats. We’ll create what will become known as The Great Rabbit Forests of Twatt!

I am SO diggin' this idea!