Today the UK woke up to a day of excitement. A day of street parties, a national holiday, and celebrations for a new king. It was also day three of gale-force winds on Fair Isle, and it was the day my mother died.
A brief phone call from her care home, then the aloneness. The phone call came as I stood outside the south lighthouse. I watched the tower-tall waves, Payne’s grey , reflecting the colour of the sky.
Waves built by wide, powerful seas and a wild wind that rocked me back and forth on my heels. The news was expected; it was the logical conclusion for a fragile 92-year-old. But illogically your own mother’s death is never expected.
We were not close, but at that moment that seemed irrelevant. My father had died four years ago so a door had now closed on a past that was gone for ever. It seemed very fitting to stand by this wild sea to take in the news, the wind bending back the curling waves, an aqua-turquoise light topping each wave.
Each wave was held suspended by the wind before cascading into white foam and crashing noise. Oystercatchers, turnstones, whimbrels and curlew scattered in the wake of the waves. I returned to the croft and started a new linocut.
The north lighthouse is a squat version of the southern lighthouse, its gleaming white tower only half the size. This wild end of the island is a hunting ground for seals and orcas. The clifftops are fringed with puffins; their bright bills and orange feet are mesmerising to watch.
Their flight is comical an.