Introduction
As Peter in "A Year in Provence" says: I sat down to write the novel, but the diary is what came out.
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A couple of miles from the most northerly point of mainland Britain sits, nestled between cliffs and moorland, a place that touches hearts. A place that calls out to the soul, and pulls you into an enchantment. At least, that was my impression of it.
You’re told by most people that magic doesn’t exist, but I found evidence of a magical world, in the simple village of Brough. I was young enough to be receptive to the magic.
The world is full of coincidences - small world stories that start you thinking if there is something else at work. We met Robert at the Caithness Music Festival, but he had grown up in the same North Lincolnshire village as Mum. At the same time as Mum. This coincidence - 500+ miles down the road - was enough to start a friendship of mutual interest, and mutual benefit.
I can’t say what first made me want my own smallholding. From being very young, I’ve been interested in being outdoors, with animals, in the country. I first started to consider smallholding as a viable option, though, after going to the Festival of the Plough in Epworth. Something there kickstarted a need that was hiding within me, and I began pining for something that I didn’t yet have.
Most of my interests come and go. One week I want to learn about dressmaking, the next I want to do jewelery making. The one thing that kept constant - that I would come back to time and time again - was my desire to have a smallholding. Brough was special to me because, although I had no claim on the place, it felt like my first smallholding. Like a dream come true.
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A couple of miles from the most northerly point of mainland Britain sits, nestled between cliffs and moorland, a place that touches hearts. A place that calls out to the soul, and pulls you into an enchantment. At least, that was my impression of it.
You’re told by most people that magic doesn’t exist, but I found evidence of a magical world, in the simple village of Brough. I was young enough to be receptive to the magic.
The world is full of coincidences - small world stories that start you thinking if there is something else at work. We met Robert at the Caithness Music Festival, but he had grown up in the same North Lincolnshire village as Mum. At the same time as Mum. This coincidence - 500+ miles down the road - was enough to start a friendship of mutual interest, and mutual benefit.
I can’t say what first made me want my own smallholding. From being very young, I’ve been interested in being outdoors, with animals, in the country. I first started to consider smallholding as a viable option, though, after going to the Festival of the Plough in Epworth. Something there kickstarted a need that was hiding within me, and I began pining for something that I didn’t yet have.
Most of my interests come and go. One week I want to learn about dressmaking, the next I want to do jewelery making. The one thing that kept constant - that I would come back to time and time again - was my desire to have a smallholding. Brough was special to me because, although I had no claim on the place, it felt like my first smallholding. Like a dream come true.
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| Photo from TripAdvisor: Available here. |
Brough is one of those Scottish places that covers a large
area but has very few houses. Most of the houses there come with some land that
stretch right down to the cliffs. I suppose it was an old way of dividing up
the land so arguments wouldn’t occur. The sea makes an undisputable boundary.
I didn’t realise until a long time after going that the view
from the bottom of the field was so spectacular. Ok, it’s cliffs, I thought.
I’ve seen a few cliffs and they are amazing but very similar to each other. Or
so I initially thought.
The first time that I walked all the way down to the cliffs
at Brough, and the first time I saw the spectacular view, was a special moment.
It’s like when you read your favourite book for the first time – you can never
get that moment back. It’s special and it sticks with you and I’ve sometimes
replayed moments like it back in my mind if I’ve been having a bad day. It
always raises a smile and makes the day bearable.
The field looked over the bay and sea stacks rose out of the
harbour. The stacks were not visible from the house or first field, so I had no
idea that they were there. There’s something rather amazing about a sea stack.
Those years of carving it, fine tuning done by the relentless waves, have left something that I would challenge the most accomplished of sculptors to come up with.
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I'd like to make Fridays my day for this blog, meaning I'll post something new about my experiences at Brough every Friday. It's going to be tough, as I've not been for years (more on that later!) and I spent months trying to forget the entire place, but fortunately I wrote a book for family and friends about it years ago, so I'll be using that to jog my memory as I go along.
Because of work and other commitments, I might occasionally miss a week, but I hope to write up most of my experiences during 2020.
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