I think I may have mentioned that I am spending a lot of my time looking out from the (semi-)panopticon which is the Stevenson Room at the Visitor Centre. Being able to touch-type is a great advantage, so blogging does not interfere too much with looking. I am watching the light change over Fitful Head to the north west, and envying the owners of a very smart house just above the shoreline. (Typed “hose”, but spotted it in time.) (Tend to miss the numerals too, if I’m not looking at the keyboard. I learned touch-typing on an old Royal typewriter during the Winter of Discontent, bu candlelight. by candlelight.)
Strangely enough, faced with such a huge vista, ideas for exploration have contracted rather than expanded. I had great plans for walking up Fitful Head, as it’s one of the Relative Hills of Britain, but I think I may not make it. I could take a bus part of the way there, but getting back again? Miss the bus and it’s a very late return on foot.
Little details catch my eye when I’m walking. Things in corners: a distressing amount of plastic, but also the Brownie’s Geocache; round things, square things; apertures open and closed.
A bird has spent the night in a hollow in a doorway at the lighthouse.
On a fine day, the retreating waves leave a pattern of lace on the sand.
A stud on the pier at Grutness sports aWW2 Ward Department arrow, and is still shiny while younger metals have rusted almost to nothing.
Other odd objects lie in the grass: a bizarre, decaying machine of wood and iron; a Steampunk mangle? There’s no-one to ask.
