Apologies for the large gap of time since our blog post after our arrival here in Caithness. One of the things we’ve had to get accustomed to is the lack of connectivity here. I think we were surprised, at first, that it is possible to be somewhere in this hi-tech world and not be able to use high speed internet at any moment. But as we’ve spent some more days here we’re realizing that it’s part of what makes the tempo different on the north coast. It’s great – the mood is normally low-pressure and people are generally relaxed and take care to take time in most things. The only element of Caithness that seems chaotic and high-intensity is the dramatic weather changes and fierce winds. Just last night Mara and I experienced some of the strongest winds we can both remember, so of course we had to try and capture the moment. The camera wouldn’t stop shaking no matter how we tried to grip and brace the tripod, and I pretty much accepted the fact that any audio recording I attempted would be completely destroyed by blasting wind shaking the microphone membranes. But, we doubled-up the fur and managed to find some ‘dead-zones’ where the wind seemed to miss and I think the results are not so bad.  Have a watch/listen to the video, which was actually shot around 11pm last night (the darkest it gets here at this time of year is twilight – very strange!

…..more coming later, time to leave the Bettyhill Telecentre. To be honest, there was a lot more to this blog but spotty connection lost most of the text I had just written. Maybe next time    arrghh