Inspiration

I'm quite often asked, 'but how do you cope with all the travel'. True, Orkney is a long way from the south of England, but one of the ways I manage is to try to spend ten days at a time up here. I've found over the last 18 months that no one bats an eyelid if I'm joining the teams meeting from Orkney.  So I head home for a weekend, work here for a week, have another long weekend, then head back down to London after that.

To be completely honest, it's amazing to spend so much time at home in one go. When we were in Dorset it was a more constant up and down, as you can imagine. The strange thing is the train to Dorset took its time too - it's almost as long to take the train from London to Dorchester as to get on the little Loganair flight from Heathrow to Kirkwall via Dundee.  I reckon I probably spent more time in any given month getting up and down to the Parsonage than I do now to Rousay.  When we are here, we're really... here.  Of course, I do still have to spend a lot of time in the design studio; I can't pretend otherwise. The other question we get asked a lot is 'well isn't Charlie lonely when you're not there'.  With all the endless activities and social nights and seeing Island friends, I'd possibly say I have a quieter time in London. But it's also nice spending time apart, it makes the time together more special. And it means that Charlie can be like a crazy man in the garden when he's here on his own, just with the dogs hurtling around, and seriously get stuff done, not having to bother with me being around!

Anyway, this has been one of those very nice 'up' weeks. So not a lot has happened.

We have been for a lot of walks.

Spring in Orkney is weeks later than down south this year. It's been cold compared to the balmy spring of last year. We were warned at the time that was the best summer in forty years!  But it's been absolutely beautiful here, too.  The bluebells are really coming out now, and day by day the trees have been coming into leaf.

Sunsets are very late now - the sun is setting completely in the north and sunset, at 9.30pm, is a whole hour later than in London.

We've got Charlie's dad Gordon, and Sally, up from New Zealand, which has been fantastic. Gordy has been hard at work helping Charlie in the garden but we had a lovely day exploring on mainland too, this week.

Here are the amazing Neolithic era Stones of Stenness, always on our tour, reputedly the earliest stone henge in the British Isles. I can never get my head around this particular stone, so thin now, worn by thousands of years of weather. It's like a piece of contemporary land art.

We went to Stromness, of course, too, always on our visit list - we were happy to encounter Keith Colsell and his beautiful baskets (sadly his exhibition ended yesterday), reviving the ancient Orcadian basket weaving traditions and shapes.

Keith used to live on Rousay. Here's an old craft book with him weaving baskets as a younger man.

You can find a bit more about him on his website, here.

A wander around Stromness in the sunshine, followed by a delicious lunch at Loki seafood shack.

In the afternoon we'd decided to go to the Kirbuster Farm Museum which Charlie and I have often driven past on our way to our friend Sue's - and it always looked amazing and intriguing.  It did not disappoint.  The farm is a collection of amazing survivals - originally dating back to at least the late 16th century, and then with 18th, 19th and early 20th century additions.  In the mid-20th century it was rescued and restored by the Argo family and donated to Orkney council as a museum in the late 80s.

It's perfect.

Here's the oldest part. All these old walls had been boarded over but Mr Argo decided to strip the boarding to find what was behind - and discovered all the old shelves and fittings.

There is a peat fire but no chimney - just a hole in the roof.

Next door...

And leading through in to the more modern part of the cottage, built in the early 18th century.

Brilliant trompe-l'oeil Victorian wallpaper.

The Duke and Duchess of York pasted in a bedroom.

Box bed inspiration for Westness House!

The garden would have originally been a veg patch, but was converted into an ornamental garden by the late Victorians.

The nineteenth century stable.

An early 20th century barn is now filled with amazing historical farming implements.

A beautiful wooden gutter on an outbuilding.

A magical little spot, perfectly presented.  If you get to Orkney, I recommend a visit!

Then we were home.

Happy Mavis!

More days of bright sunshine. The air has been cold but the sun hot.

Another sparkling day on Saturday.

I took the drone up for a little look around!

Charlie's veg garden looking neat as a pin - and in need of rain. 

The little bit garden to the right here is going be transformed in the next few months to a new flower garden. We're going to relocate the pond at the front of the house to here.  That's why I'm keen to record all this work!   And the veg garden area is going to gradually get a lot bigger as Charlie restores the old Victorian walled garden over the next few years. It's going to be amazing.  Charlie's seeds keep on being eaten by a pesky pair of blackbirds.  He's found a pair of old scarecrows in the garden shed and they are working a treat so far.

Together with his old Victorian cat... a traditional bird scarer!

Tulips in Orkney are still on great form when they are long-gone down south.

Yesterday we had a great lunch in the newly re-opened Rousay pub (thank goodness) and then I had an excellent sleep, nothing better on earth, then Charlie and I went for a walk that afternoon.  The skies were amazing.

We missed most but not all of the showers.

It's Sunday today. We have rain forecast this afternoon which will be a huge blessing to the garden, it's been so dry for weeks.  We're seeing friends for tea and then someone's over for supper, and I must prepare for the week to come.

This has been a good week, though. Charlie and I finally put to bed (just in time) all the tiny last details of the Parsonage book.  What a good feeling!  The final edits happen this week, on Friday I'm sitting with our fantastic editor Kate to go through all the final proofs, and then it's off to the slow process of printing and binding.  Such a GOOD moment!

Here, as a little reminder, is the cover. The one here is called the 'dummy' - it's exactly what the book will look and feel like, but it's completely blank inside!

It was so good to be able to revisit Littlebredy for the church window service, just as we were putting the finishing touches to bed - a real circle of start to finish, somehow!

I'm so excited to share some of the interior pages and writing in due course.  it's really come together now and is looking so beautiful.

In the meantime, the book is available for pre-order at all good booksellers, including Amazon in the UK, Amazon in the US, Waterstones, and Blackwells, to name a few. I blush to push the book online in this way, but the number of online pre-orders now really does, actually, make a difference to how well it will publish in the autumn. Don't ask me, it's something to do with Algorithms. You can also go to any local UK bookshop now and pre-order, which is a good thing to do.

And of course, Pentreath & Hall will also be selling lots of the book too, complete with signed bookplates from Charlie and me!  We'll be opening up pre-orders for those in a few weeks' time.

You're already here reading the blog, that goes without saying - but Bridie and I also have a request - we'd love to hear your thoughts and anything we can do to improve the website and how you get around it.  We'll be making a few improvements over the next few months.  Please do have a good browse and either leave comments here or you can email shop@shirayuki-nara.mom marked for my and Bridie's attention!

It's a turbulent time in politics, at home and abroad, at the moment. The blog is glad to be your reminder than the best things in life have little to do with that. Love your family, love your friends and neighbours, be mindful of nature and the world around you; go in peace, and find your own sense of calm.  Actually, after all, that's the real answer to the question 'how do you cope'.