Pink moon in a steekit stumba…

Hairst: my favourite time of the year in Shetland, when the migrant birds flock and flutter and the twitchers arrive, lens-loaded and scuffling for rarities. Season of mists and mirk, and frankly I like it that way. I love the way sound changes when the haar flows in, like being in a deadened recording studio. Even the wren’s piercing sweetness is curtailed.

Here’s a piece I wrote for Promote Shetland a few years ago:

Mist. Haar. Stumba, in Shetland dialect. A steekit stumba is a mist so thick you can hardly see through it. And I write in the season for it; an autumn Thursday, as darkness begins to fall and the cooling atmosphere condenses droplets of water into opaque greyness. Hairst, as this time of year is called.

I love the misty mornings, the gathering billows of fog of an evening, the way light in its varied forms, from breaking dawn through blazing sun to the pink and orange of sunset, all produce a range of complex effects that leave you stunned by their loveliness.

Of course mist can and does have its drawbacks. Those of a superstitious or easily frightened nature will find it difficult to erase memories of John Carpenter’s film The Fog, and the zombie pirates massing to take a terrible revenge on the village that brought about their doom. But this happens all the time in Shetland and we’ve grown used to it. Besides, our vikings sorted out those pesky pirates a while ago.

And then there are the flight delays. Yes, I know. Horribly inconvenient, but if it provides you with an extra day or, ah, three in these gorgeous northern isles, can you really complain? Tonight we drove up to Eshaness, hoping to catch, as we have in the past, the dappling of the entire sky in flaming orange that happens when the sun dips below the horizon and catches the forming fog above. The sun shimmered, perfectly round and blood red, then vanished into a thick bank of haar. We went for a walk anyway, from the lighthouse west, in the nightfall breeze. And then, coming back in the car, saw the full moon catching the stumba-filtered pinkness of the sunset. Hairst moon.

And so back home, the lyrics to Nick Drake’s wondrous song running through our heads:

Saw it written and I saw it say

Pink Moon is on its way

And none of you stand so tall

Pink Moon gonna get you all…

Still ill

Not that anyone’s quoting the increasingly flaky Morrissey these days.

Anyway, back after a marvellous trip to Northern Ireland and Scotland, and for the second time in six weeks, bringing respiratory infection with me. It was Covid last time, and as a result my weakened system was unable to withstand the onslaught of last week’s Glasgow and Linlithgow grandbairns’ coughs and splutters.

So my built-in asthma was glued up with the kind of muck that stops you breathing, were it not for the speedy application of inhalers, steroid pills and in the end, big, dirty old antibiotics. Finally, after a week, I’m beginning to feel better.

There are certain Shetland islands where you would be expected to isolate yourself from decent company, should you return with a ‘sooth host’ (cough). My wife remembers in the 70s been hailed from the shore by Foula islanders and asked if anyone on the ferry was suffering from anything infectious. A complete lack of immunity in isolated communities meant even a bad cold could be devastating. As was proved during Covid. How quickly and easily that’s been shoved into the recesses of memory.

What next?

Some of you will have noticed that I’ve stopped doing the weekly Beatcrofting radio show for 60 North and Mixcloud. I’m currently reviewing my various activities, including whether or not to continue as on Shetland Islands Council. A major piece of commissioned writing will be taking up a lot of time over the next few months, there are two other book projects looming, and I want to develop speech podcasting and Substacking. Also, regular trips south are now an essential part of our lives since Susan stopped providing 24-hour on-call services and a new associate doctor has been appointed. Decisions necessary soon.