Stronsay life

Spring has sprung a glorious shade of yellow. Our entire front garden is a-bloom with yellow trumpets swaying in the lighter than usual winds.
Yes, our daughters hard work paid off with a thousand daffodils, and how glorious they look and smell.

The weather has been varied, to say the least. Our son, one day swimming in St. Catherine’s bay, two days later playing in the falling snow! Then back to sunny days that leave us thinking summer must have come early, no doubt it will all change again. But one things for sure, the days are getting longer. It was well past 8pm before it got dark and when i wake at 6am, i am sure the sun has been shining for some time.

The last few months have been happy times. With the visit from granny Andy being a comforting experience knowing that, even though we have moved 850 miles from our families, they are only a short plane ride away.
Our baby boy turned one (not that he was very aware of it) and is now walking everywhere and clapping at any of his own triumphs.
Work is as always going well with my loyal customers and new ones. I am finding myself very busy, but still have time to enjoy morning walks to school and evening walks on the beach.
Today was a prime example. I awoke early and knowing I had to work decided to get straight up rather than drift back to sleep, being the school holidays I was promptly joined by a few of my children, I was able to spend an hour happily with them watching the sun rise higher in the sky through our conservatory roof, it was a peaceful time of day as the sugar hadn’t kicked in yet and I was really able to enjoy my children’s company.
Our chickens have not arrived yet, but have had the good fortune of being supplied with eggs from our local post lady, so I was able to enjoy a lovely egg breakfast, which set me up rather nicely for the day. I then proceeded to do some work. I am nearing the end of a website build, today was spent primarily in the rewriting php scripts to use PDO, of which I thoroughly enjoy. I had a brief break for lunch after which I helped my wife (apparently I have stronger hands for kneading) with the preparation of hot-cross-buns for our afternoon tea. By this time 3 of our 5 children had vanished to friends houses and our older son’s friend was dropped off to play. A few more hours of work, then out we went. The sun was still shining strong and warm and I was able to enjoy some sights of the island before home for tea.
A quick check over our seedlings, growing well in our conservatory/green house, which are all looking wonderful and that’s about it, other than the wonderful evening spent with my family.

So that’s a normal day for me. Life really can be perfect.

Now we are looking forward, before long it will be summer and with it comes 6 weeks of school holidays and about 20 hours a day of sunlight. We are hoping to have a well stocked veg patch to provide us well this coming winter and not forgetting the chickens. Which arrive around the 23rd of this month as a birthday present for our eldest boy, who will be turning 4, and has his heart set on chickens, not a bike like most normal children his age.

I wait with anticipation to experience the rest of my story, my life, with it’s “happy ever after”.

Tags: birthday., bread, daffodil, Flower, fog, hot cross buns, php, snow

More weather warnings by the MET Office, and yes, we had snow.
During December we had, maybe, two days when the kids were able to use their sled. But all in all, the frost and snow have been scarce for this time of year.
Others on the island have told us that this is one of the worst winters for storms in years.
A “Trial by fire” as a local said to us just the other day.

Despite the weather, Christmas was absolutely wonderful. The turkey arrived in good time, and all the baking had been done the month leading up to Christmas day (Yay for the technology of freezers!). We took great pleasure in doing the “Christmas Rounds” the week leading up to Christmas, with cards and mince pies for close friends. We attended all the usual christmas events; School plays(Malachi’s first ever performance), singing carols at the Kirk and children’s parties with Father Christmas. Father Christmas made it to the island without a hitch (confirmed by NORAD), to the delight of our five children and Christmas day was a triumph.

Once all the mince pies were eaten, leftovers devoured and friends entertained our cupboards had run bare. Thus, we ventured out on the Wednesday only to be caught in what I can only describe as the worlds biggest snowflake storm. The flakes themself were the size of the palm of my hand. And looking up at them falling was a spectacular sight.

Our New Year / Hogmanay was fairly uneventful. Neither of us have ever really celebrated, but look forward to our first full year in Stronsay.

After the holiday break, life has seemed to return to some normality, if that can be said, giving that it is our first January on Stronsay. As the days grow longer again we have found our weekend routine of pleasant walks on St. Catherine’s bay, Sunday baking with the children and stories of a Cornish Piskie by the fire, delightful and relaxing.

Spring bulbs have been found in our front garden by our daughter, who has taken to gardening whilst listening to some ridiculous band on her iPod. She waits in anticipation for the day they begin to flower and her hard work, saving these bulbs from strangulation by weeds, pays off.

We are finding our feet firmly on the ground.
Whilst snuggled down this Sunday evening watching a fairly poor rendition of “Jane Eyre” we were startled by a fairly late call from the local bird enthusiast. It was to inform us of a sighting of the Aurora Borealis, The Northern Lights. ( This I might add was previously arranged that no matter the time, he phone us for this event ). We hastily put on our wellies and headed out the door and to the top of the track to face north. There, in the sky, was our first ever sighting of this phenomenon, and what a sight it was. Staring at the light in the sky, generated by seemingly nothing, is an amazing sight and can only be detracted by the vast number of shooting stars overhead. It truly was a night for staring skyward.

All that is left now is to await the arrival of our first family member, to visit, in three weeks time. Everyone is very excited that granny Andy is coming to stay. Hopefully, she will find our new home and surroundings as captivating as we do.

Tags: aurora, northern, storm, winter

It’s been a little over one month since my family and I arrived as residents on Stronsay.

Myself, Neil, my wife, Katy, and our 5 children have come 852 miles from Cornwall.
We had both dreamed of moving to somewhere far more rural than our Cornish surroundings provided and return to a more basic way of living. We are both rather old fashioned at heart, despite me being an I.T. consultant.
So, one day I suggested moving to Stronsay. Katy had always imagined moving back to the hills in Ireland, where she grew up, but had always been intrigued by Scotland as her family originates from Perthshire (as Stewarts), so was very interested in finding out more.
After spending a few days researching Stronsay, Katy fell in love with the idea.
I had lived here about 8 years ago so already knew something of the Stronsay lifestyle.
I called an old friend (a current Stronsay resident) who set out to see if there were any properties for us to rent on the island. After a few more calls and two weeks, we were offered the tenancy of our current property. After one month of some fairly frantic packing and ebaying of half of our belongings, we managed to fit our entire Cornish life (3 bed semi-detached) into a single Luton van. We boarded the night train as the beginning of our 3 day journey to a new life.

On the 14th October the ferry pulled into Stronsay harbour and this marked the end of our journey. My exhausted family (with the help of our friend and brother in laws) unloaded the Luton van into our new home before the van had to return on the morning ferry (thanks Nick and Sam for the 1704 miles round trip).

Now we have had time, the children have settled into the local school and have lots of friends. Everyone is lovely and it is an absolute pleasure being part of the Stronsay community.

Now, winter is setting in. We have ordered our turkey and our Christmas tree and there is even talk of snow next Wednesday, that will be a new post if it occurs.

Katy wasn’t expecting the wind to be quite as constant as it has been.

As for myself, having lived here about 8 years ago, for a few months, I am well aware how amazing Stronsay can be. It’s sunrises and sunsets, it’s weather and, particularly, it’s wind.

One such night last night caused us a little bit of a sleepless night.
With winds upto 82mph (met office records), we were kept up by the sheer noise of the wind.
Fortunately it seemed as though there was very little damage, but then that’s possibly because our neighbours shed blew away the night before.

The power was out from 4 A.M. ish and remained out ’till 11 A.M. and then went out again from 12 ’till 1. In the time that the power was out my wife and I constructed a makeshift oven out of storage heater bricks, from the garage, in front of the open fire and attempted to bake bread. It worked, mostly.

It’s now 8:30 P.M. all the older children are tucked up in bed and our baby is sleeping in Katy’s arms in front of our roaring fire. The wind has died down outside and I can’t quite believe how wonderful my life really is.

Thank you to all our friends and family who have made this move possible.
And although we don’t miss Cornwall, we do miss our loved ones there and they are in our thoughts.

Tags: first, gale, storm, Weather, welcome, wind