Ebbie your wonderful description of the ducks made me think of sound.

Orkney sounds

We think of our island home as a quiet place especially when you get out of the town. Today however a chance remark set my mind a wandering through the sometimes forgotten paths of memory appreciating once more the great beauty of my island as seen through the eyes of a blind man.

The old dry-stone walled cottage we called home for the first nineteen years of married life sat solid and low in the landscape as though afraid to stick its head to far above the garden walls for fear the wind would try and pluck it from its place.

We lay side by side in the small bedroom not yet asleep, for sleep was not easily won on nights of thick fog. The booming bass notes of the lighthouse carrying across the Flow till it vibrated in your chest. The pauses punctuated by the shrill building warble of the Whaup (that being the Orkney name for the Curlew) it always felt as though it was having to practice peep, then a break then peep peep till it finally spiralled upwards in a lonesome eerie warble. it was a strangely unnerving sound on such a night like the cry of a lost soul of a sailor rising in desperation to be plucked from the sea. For many years we seemed to attract a lone Whaup who kept up a war of attrition with Dauvit who seemed to find its mournful matting call a personal affront. Curlew song on you tube

The wind had its own song as it whistled through the slack old slates sometimes though it would stop singing and scream at us as it tried to batter down the chimney that had stood for well over 200 years. On those nights it was not hard to imagine our old house hunkering down even lower to the ground to escape its onslaught.

Happier sounds there were too, the wild geese calling their invitation to join them as they migrated south for a warmer winter ah so tempting was their call. The blackbird having a whistle argument with Dauvit over who really owned the land, like a wonderfully scored duet. Or the starling who caused great confusion in the breast of Cookie our small black cat with white socks and moustache that looked like she had been caught stealing the cream. You see I had never had a cat before and used to whistle her home like we had the dogs when I was young. The only problem was this wily Starling had learned to imitate my whistle so one day I found myself in the courtyard with Cookie sitting on the ridge of the low roof.   I whistled and she began to turn to come down the roof to me when I apparently whistled her from the back garden. Her head twisted and turned in growing confusion at my ability to be two places at one time I had never thought to see a cat poots(pout petulantly) but she certainly did as I burst out laughing. Indeed she was so unamused she refused to come near me for the rest of the day.

The other sound that sits strong in my memory of that time was of standing at the corner of the house on a warm summer evening and hearing a baby cry. I called Dauvit out for I knew none of the houses in the area had young children and the crying sounded quite distressed. He smiled taking my hand as he led me down the road till we reached the auld brig, there he guided me down the path to the beach. He turned me to look into the curve of the bay standing behind me with his strong arms enfolding me in his warmth as we watched the common seals and their pups sprinkled like living rocks across the bay.