Two years in Orkney
How it's going
Today, Monday 19th August 2024, marks the the 2 year anniversary of our move to Orkney.
Two years since we first set foot on this archipelago of over 70 islands.
Two years since we saw the house for the first time.
Two years since we realised we’d made the best decision ever.
Wow, do I love this place.
Side note, on a trip to Stockholm 13 years ago I became obsessed with the word archipelago and have since pronounced it ar - ki - pe - lar - go. Yes just like a 5 year old. I can’t help myself!
Yesterday I got super excited because I thought it was our actual anniversary & I spent the day feeling all warm and gooey and pretty smug to be honest. Not everyone is lucky enough to have their madcap ideas work out. Anyway, I was wrong, it’s today!
It’s fair to say I bloody love it here. What I love is hard to explain but it starts with space.
Space
It’s so open. I thought I’d miss trees and in some way I do but being in the Highlands made me realise I’m better in a flatter, more open and fairly tree-free place. I’ve often felt claustrophobic in my life. Not in an acute way. I’ll happily bundle into a crammed tube train or keep pace with people tramping through a busy city, but ask me to sit still for 5 minutes it becomes uncomfortable. As if becoming more comfortable makes me itch and want to move on.
Hold on … is that a real time revelation? As I feel more comfortable here and part of the community am I going to start wishing I was somewhere else? Somewhere I feel uncomfortable? I hope not.
That’s not to say I feel uncomfortable here.
I don’t.
Out of place, yes, like an imposter, yes, an incomer, definitely. I am an incomer after all, but uncomfortable no. If anything I’ve never felt so comfortable and settled. So free and unshackled by what I think other people think I should be doing or how I should be behaving.
What I do feel is safe, spacious, content and grounded. It’s hard not to feel grounded when nature whips through your house on a daily basis. Whether that’s living with woodlice, a leaky roof, depending on the direction of the rain, the wind or more recently the rodents living in the walls.
That’s not to say I’m oozing with self assuredness and am completely comfortable in my own skin, that is still very much a work in progress. And that’s just it isn’t it? Life is a work in progress, just like the garden or the house, we will never be ‘done’. We’re constantly learning, shifting, evolving and it would be a sorry state if we weren’t.
Which neatly brings me onto the subject of progress, or lack thereof.
I’m often asked how the renovation is going, or the garden is developing and to be honest, it always makes me feel a bit heavy in my heart, a bit embarrassed and maybe even a teeny bit ashamed.
Why? Because the questions feel so loaded. What have you done? What have you achieved? And usually the answer is not a lot, sometimes nothing. We’ve been here 2 years and when you look at the house you’d barely notice.
Erik was on Shapinsay recently with his parents and they looked up a house that we almost put an offer on. We decided not to in the end because it was a full renovation project and we needed somewhere we could live and work immediately. Guess what? It’s completely renovated & from the outside at least looks very much finished. How the hell do people make such good progress? I know. It’s because they’re more driven and ambitious than us. Sometimes, I think it’s simply that we must be lazy.
In view of this, I’ve decided to do the thing that makes me perk up when I feel like an under achiever (most days), write a Ta-Da list. A ‘ta-da list’ is the opposite of a to do list - it’s all the things you have achieved. Also useful for the end of the working week when your Friday list is 5 times longer than your Monday list.
Orkney Ta-Da list:
Insulated the roof. When we arrived there was ZERO insulation. In a 200 odd year old stone cottage in Orkney, yes, brrr! The first thing E did was insulate the roof. No easy task when half the roof has a teeny tiny crawl space & you’re a 6 foot bloke.
Replaced the flooring in the entrance hall, bathroom & kitchen. Before we left Yorkshire, we bought some off-cut lino and it’s done the job.
Made a kitchen, from scratch, ripped out a kitchen, installed a kitchen, including plumbing in the washing machine & dishwasher.
Moved the loft hatch.
Opened up the fireplace, to what we think could be it’s original size. Installed a stove.
Plaster-boarded and skimmed the wall where said fireplace is.
Installed/built a 4m x 8m Polycrub, including levelling out the area first by hand. One man, one spade, one wheelbarrow. Conducted a super fancy naming ceremony, for Doug the Crub - we have a sign, thank you Charlotte.
Built amazing raised beds in Doug.
Grew and continue to grow lots of veg. Year 1 in old tubs, year 2 in beds & tubs.
Rotovated a few patches of the garden - potatoes in one, pumpkins in another and 20 hawthorne saplings in another. Weeds are winning out at the moment…
Built a chicken coop & run from scratch. Still waiting for the British Hen Welfare Trust to bring some chooks to Orkney though.
Let the grass grow. We’re not fans of pristine gardens, or anything to be honest. I’m way to ramshackle for pristine. The meadow is getting more diverse, we’ve probably got around 40 species growing across the season.
Two years of successful starling nests in our porch roof. And we’ve had blackbirds and wagtails. We also have hedgehogs living nearby who trek through the garden on a nightly basis, which I love but is hellish with the dog who is desperate to catch & eat them.
Joined a local group - the Carbon Neutral Islands Steering Group which is funded by Scottish Gov.
Set up an island book club.
Bought a static caravan, finally anchored it down. Caravan is called Colin although E insist on calling him Clive.
When I started the list I used regular bullets, but decided to switch to numbers when I realised it was longer than expected. Sixteen things, not too shabby, although E argues that no. 12 is hardly an achievement. I whole heartedly disagree.
The ongoing plan is to move into Colin and do the full renovation of the house. We want to take out walls and reconfigure the lot, so it’s a BIG project. We’d also like to do as much of it ourselves as possible which all takes time.
Finally I just wanted to say a big HELLO and thank you to all my new subscribers.
Yep. All of you. If you’re new here you won’t know that I have a section on each post called the week in Sub-Stats where I share my slow growth on the platform.
However, this week has blown my mind, a combination of being much more active on notes and a viral post on Threads, means I have 14 new subscribers - holy moly. That blows my tiny mind.
Please note, as a nonfluencer, viral is anything that gets more than a couple of likes and a handful of views. This one thread has over 600 likes and I’ve gained about 200 followers. Again, tiny mind blown.
It’s worth saying that while I try not to get caught up in the numbers, I still find myself seeking external validation. Oddly, I seem to need it more from strangers than the people who have loved me, listened to me, lectured me and laughed with me over the years. I don’t think this is unusual. Is it the digital age that we live in, or is it human nature? Let me know what you think.
As always, thanks for reading and for coming along on this ride with me.
Take care of yourselves and cherish the good days.
Han 🌱
PS. If you are new here and it turns out I’m not for you, please do feel free to unsubscribe. This goes for all of you!
PPS. If you want to see more real time photos & videos, Instagram would be the best place: Orkney Outpost
The week in sub-stats
Subscribers: 80 (↑12)
Followers: 158 (↑25)
Pledges: 2 (↑1)
Last post: 53%↓ open rate; 102↑ views; 11↑ likes; 13↑ comments; 0 new subs.
Han, I was thrilled to find someone from Orkney on Substack, and loved this post. I’ll read more of them and wanted to tell you how glad I am I found you. I only spent a handful of days in Stromness on the mainland of Orkney back in 1980. What a magical time those few days were - I still share the stories of hiking to Black Craig and seeing a Scottish wildcat appear out of the mist. We just looked at each other for a long moment until I realized I was intruding and packed up the lunch I’d been eating. Incredible. People kept asking why Orkney? I shrugged my shoulders and said, King Arthur’s cousins, Gawaine, Gaheris, Agravaine, and Gareth lived there. They all became knights of the Round Table, so I figured I should see the place that bred such men. And I recently rewatched Oliver’s Travels for the umpteenth time, which ends in Orkney and introduced me to the song The Water is Wide. I look forward to reading more…
I love this, Han. What an amazing place to live and such an amount achieved! I particularly like the Ta Da list - I may borrow that for my clients and myself if that’s ok?! Looking forward to reading more from you and thank you for your kindness this evening.