A day for staying put, reading a book from cover to cover, and getting to know this tiny island.
Endless cups of tea.
Walking out at low tide. Looking for shells and finding colourful shards of pottery instead.
Letting the wind fill your lungs with sea air.
Out of the door, turn right towards the lighthouse, its top peaking timidly from behind a knoll.
Timidly, but not weekly. Lighthouses are reassuring and solid. They carry a hint of danger, echoes of shipwrecks and days gone by. They feel a bit remote, like they’re too important and busy to trifle with us fragile mortals.
And they’re beautiful.
This one is the Ornsay lighthouse (no A3944), it was built in 1857 by Thomas and David Stevenson, and it became automated in 1962. It is a masonry tower with gallery, and lantern.
Circumnavigating this small tidal island on foot takes about ten minutes and every side offers different views.
There’s an abandoned wall garden full of nettles and wild flowers.
And plants cling on scraps of soil and fight algae for space.
So many colours.
Even the transparency of the water becomes a colour.
I picked a small bunch of flowers for the cottage and found an old enamel jug for vase. Home.
… Spent most of the day on this chair reading and watching the clouds coming and going.
the-wanderings.com 