THE TEMPEST

A happy new year!  If I made a resolution (which I haven't for at least a decade - they're a waste of time for weak-willed people like me!) it should have been to post more regularly to this blog.  I'll do my best, but my good intentions are too often thwarted by events happening around me.

While most of Britain was mopping up and compiling statistics for insurance claims after the new year storms, Shetland was basking in a relatively quiet spell of weather, with winds not reaching much more than gale force.  We, in the Northern Isles, took our pounding on Christmas Day, and we had it more or less all to ourselves.  From the Met office figures for the day, I gathered that there had been a mean wind speed of over 60mph from 2pm until 7pm, with gusts in excess of 90mph in Lerwick, and over 100mph in other locations in the islands.

We had our usual gathering at my mother's house, where her son, daughter, grand-daughter, grandson-in-law and two great-grandchildren (excellent entertainment, as always!) had assembled to attempt a demolition job, in true traditional style, on a turkey and trimmings, followed by sticky toffee pudding.  Fortunately, the cooking had been done, and we were in the process of washing up, before problems with the mains electricity supply began to manifest themselves.  Most of the west side of the island was plunged into darkness at around 5 o'clock.

By this time, we'd had the foresight to get the gas heater going in the kitchen, as the oil-fired central heating system (which is becoming rather elderly) had lost its pilot ignition due to the high winds.  Most of the other family members had left to get home around 4pm, leaving me with mother.  I found candles and an oil lamp, which provided enough light to guide us from room to room.  Just as I was about to see if I could get the gas ring in the scullery going to make us a cuppa, the mains power came back on long enough for me to get a pot of tea "trackit" on the electric cooker.  Then off went the power again!  It came on again at about 8pm, and this time it stayed on.  By then the wind had moderated to a mere storm force, and it abated quite rapidly from then on.  Around 9pm, I was able to coax the central heating back on to stay. 

My sister Mary, whose power was still off at Strand, Tingwall, came back to give me a lift back to Lerwick, as she had friends she wanted to visit there.  Coming over the top of Wormadale, it was rather eerie to see the areas, which still had mains power, glowing brightly, while other places were intensely blacked out.  We came upon a "Hydro" landrover, orange lights flashing, moving slowly down the hill, very close to the verge, obviously using detection equipment to locate mains ruptures.

It was a different kind of Christmas Day from the previous two (both white!), and I was glad I'd been there to help out at mother's.  I had a look around the place in quieter weather last Friday and, as far as I can make out, there was no structural damage, which surprised me a little, as a lesser storm, a few weeks ago, had caused quite a bit of minor mayhem.  All in all, I think I prefer the fierce winds to the snow of the 2009 and 2010 yuletides - the white stuff causes more problems in getting around.  The heroic "hydro" workers, who were spending their holiday out in the tempest, repairing faults, might not agree!

NOT BOXING DAY!

I learnt this startling news from my diary today, namely that the 26th December is not Boxing Day when it falls on a Sunday. Even more startling is the fact that I've gone through 63 Christmastides without being aware of this.

Well, I've just had my first warm-up of my share in the turkey "carry-out" from the family meal at Whiteness yesterday. There's still enough left for me to make a rice concoction with for tomorrow's lunch too. Even better was my sister Mary's sticky toffee pudding, the second (and sadly the last!) helping of which I warmed under the grill today. Megayum!

In anticipation of the jollification ahead, I got my artwork as up-to-date as I could, before setting off to Brugarth on Friday morning to spend Christmas Eve and Day with mother. The two commissions which I have scheduled for completion before the end of January are now well under way, with skies completed and the other features outlined. I hope to get more work done on one of these tomorrow. My advertising bills have now been paid, and the bank accounts are still in the black (just), despite the disaster of the Thursday Toll Clock stalls, which yielded only half of what I'd hoped for, mostly due to adverse weather conditions. Better luck next year, I hope! With things as nearly under control as they ever get chez the Tait Gallery, I set off to take up my duties as general assistant and kitchen porter at Brugarth, which, like the rest of Shetland, is under a foot of snow.

Mother had a late night on Christmas Eve. We had heard that my niece Elanor was playing in a recording by the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, which was being shown on BBC1 Scotland around midnight, so the home help was excused duty at Mum's that evening, and Mary was on hand to perform the bedtime routine instead. Mary's daughter Caroline was taping the programme in case Mum DIDN'T fancy staying up, so the gaps were covered. In the end she did stay up, and the three of us watched an excellent concert of classical-based Christmas music, just the kind which we have enjoyed singing together in choirs over the years, only this time accompanied by an orchestra!

The BBC have provided us with a feast of good Christmas choral music over the past week or so. I've enjoyed all of it, whether presented as a historical documentary, a service or a recital. Simon Russell Beale and Howard Goodall have both done excellent programmes and, together with the traditional Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings on Christmas Eve, and another wonderful programme from Winchester yesterday, I know that my mother has really felt a seasonal atmosphere these last few days, something she has felt was lacking in previous years. Beeb, take a bow! I know that there are probably pressures from the secular, anti-religious and other lobbies (God help us!) to cut down on the Christian output, but there are at least three people who are very happy with what they have seen and heard this festive season.

Christmas was about the coldest morning I have ever experienced. I was up at 7.30am, before the central heating had started to thaw the kitchen out, and I despaired of it being warm enough to allow mother to occupy it. I felt like starting a fire in the place - sadly it's supposed to be centrally heated! It did warm up a bit before mother got up, fortunately, and Mary and I set about preparing a feast for the same company which sat around the same table at the same time last year. And we had another jolly good time too!

By the time we had finished clearing up afterwards, darkness had fallen over the snow, and I took the opportunity of a lift back to Lerwick with Mary's son-in-law David Thomson. He was at the wheel of his father's Range Rover, which he had borrowed for its Arctic terrain capabilities. On the way in to town, the snow was sparkling in the headlight beams, as if some mighty hand had scattered multi-coloured glitter over it, a phenomenon which I can't recall seeing before - perhaps my eyes have never previously been tuned to the spectacle! Thus ended a kind of magical Christmas Day. Even though my back was sore, and I felt knackered at the end of it, I could still appreciate that it had been a special occasion, and I hope the others felt it too - I know mother did!

Now the thaw has set in - the wind has picked up to a fresh south-easterly, and it has clouded over. No doubt it will rain tonight, and, by tomorrow morning, a lot of the snow will have gone - for now! My brother arrives in Shetland for a very short break on Tuesday morning's boat. There are rumours of another feast, this time of reestit mutton soup, on Wednesday evening, and no doubt I'll be on sink duty for that too. I wouldn't have it otherwise!

For those of you who are having them, I hope your Hogmanay celebrations go well next Friday night into Saturday! A guid new year tae ane and a' - when it comes!

STILL WHITE!

As I intimated as a possibility in my last post (sound the bugles!), my final pre-Christmas stall of 2010 at the Toll Clock Centre was snowed off on Thursday, which was also, with predictably immaculate timing, the day the blizzards struck. I spent a slightly more productive day in the comparative warmth of my studio, working on commissioned works mostly. I now have three of these to occupy me, with another possibly in the offing, and, while none of these will make my fortune, they are interesting jobs to do.

Two of the new commissions are of historic Shetland fishing boats, one of the paintings featuring two of these, the other only one. Both pictures have been ordered by descendants of the owners of the vessels to be depicted. One of these boats was lost at sea as a result of an engine-room fire, another going to her watery grave, some years after being sold by her Shetland owners, while on admiralty duties during the Dunkirk evacuation of 1940. I'm not sure what happened to the third boat. She probably ended her days aground, as many of her contemporaries did, in one of the many Shetland inlets or "voes", being left to rot, having become obsolete with the advancement of fishing boat design and propulsion. I will do my best, as always, to bring them to colourful life again on canvas - they still make nice subjects for seascape paintings!

The third commission, which I may have mentioned in a previous post, is of a slightly later fishing vessel which was completed at Macduff in 1940, and which spent the 1950s fishing out of Eyemouth. I'll be painting her coming into her home port from the fishing grounds.

While the commissions pay the bills, I'm very conscious of the passage of time, as it careers towards my next scheduled exhibition at Catterline in November/December of 2011. Many things will have to be organised before then, such as Northlink ferry journeys, accommodation for myself and my driver, publicity material and grants to cover part of the cost of the above. I just hope I can muster at least one willing (and fit!) helper to assist with the hanging when that time comes. Oh, and somewhere along the line I'll need to do some paintings for it too!

I plan to go out to my mother's on the morning of Christmas Eve, as I usually do, and should be there until sometime late on Christmas day. I'll be trying to make myself useful, helping to deal with the turkey, and acting as kitchen porter on the day. Mother has admitted that, at 94, she doesn't feel up to making her usual butter-scotch trifle for sweet, which is disappointing, but Mary has volunteered her sticky toffee pudding, which will be a worthy substitute. I'll probably attempt some snow clearance, although the brae was under about a foot of the white stuff for most of its length on Friday, more has fallen since, and more is forecast during the coming week. Ertie's 4x4 fanbuster only made it to the top at the third attempt on Friday, the snow lying on a base of black ice.

It's all a bit grim, but beautiful in its own way. While I hate this wintry weather, it does provide some spectacular skies to admire and artistically appreciate. Since childhood, I have always noticed the intensity of the purple and orange of cumulus snow-cloud, particularly in the afternoons around sunset. Have a happy, peaceful and colourful Christmas!