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COVERT CLEARANCE For 29 years I have lived on an Aberdeenshire croft, our land being part of a Local Nature Conservation Site. Situated peacefully down a farm track, we daily observe roe deer, pheasants, and a variety of of other birds and wild creatures. Lucky us, you may say, but everything has its downside. We must cook and heat by oil, which is extremely expensive.
Creel designs are available in silver with enamel and gold. Enamelled sections represent the trapped water inside the creel as it is pulled from the sea.
ORKNEY DESIGNER JEWELLER Y
We run a multifuel stove in tandem to keep costs down, but solid fuel is not cheap. Escalating electricity costs suffered by town and country alike add insult to injury. Recently, our telephone and broadband were out for a week, the BT engineers saying the cable serving us and our neighbours needs renewing, but it would cost too much. This reminds me of ‘snail mail’. We are currently appealing a decision by the local Post Offi ce to stop delivering mail as we apparently live too far off a tarred road, and we have potholes in our road. Have they seen Scotland’s motorways recently? While we fi ght this, we are collecting mail in a round trip of 14 miles. Being thrawn Scots, we dig our heels in for the right to live
in the country, and still have basic services, but as we get older, can we cope? It no doubt would suit the ‘powers that be’ for us all to decamp to an urban setting. Is anyone infl uential fi ghting the corner of the ordinary country dweller? Mrs Beryl McKenzie, Slains, Ellon
RAIN OR SHINE In the late 1980s, as part of my training for the Church of Scotland ministry, I spent one glorious summer staying with a crofter in Durness. I took services in the church there and at Kinlochbervie, and I seem to remember wall-to-wall sunshine. But there is an apocryphal story of a funeral which took place in the
graveyard hard by Balnakiel beach, a mile and a bit from Durness. The offi ciating Minister was determined to deliver an expository sermon to an assembly of black clad mourners at the graveside. As he worked his way through his chosen scripture passage, a black cloud no bigger than a man’s hand appeared in the north-west and emptied an unbroken deluge of heavy rain. Undeterred, the Minister ploughed on. Rivulets of rain ran down the brae through the graveyard and towards the beach. Everyone was soaked. The climactic moment was the sight of the coffi n rising to the
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surface of the waterlogged plot. The sermon ended and the dear departed was taken away and reburied the following day. But the sun shone serenely on me and on Zoe, my beautiful, gentle, golden retriever as we monopolised and enjoyed Balnakiel’s beach and this staggeringly beautiful part of Scotland. Rev Clifford Hughes, Rumbling Bridge, Kinross
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