Day 301: Stones

In the storms last month, conditions - including hurricane force northerly winds and water-logged earth - were such that sections of dry stone dyke made of huge grey slabs, which had stood through the gales for 150 years, collapsed all over the farm. I'm back here after yet another trip to London for yet another job interview so am going to make myself useful - stay in the caravan at night and build walls in the lengthening daylight.
After 54 days when it rained each day, with only eight hours of sunshine in the whole of December, the last two days on the islands have been magic: beautiful sunsets reflected on calm water. I walked up to the farm from the beach. Each time I return it gets me. Although the people that live in the farmhouse are no longer my family, I'm increasingly aware of what a special place I come from.

I have a hunch that the parts of the brain used when dry stone dyking are the same parts connected with creativity. It's no breeze block mindlessness, oh no (although repairing a broken down section is easier than building from nothing): you have to constantly visualise and discriminate. Selecting and estimating the odd shaped stones for shape and size, forming a unique jigsaw to last.

And I try to ignore the cheesy part of me that want to devise a practical wall-based philosophy. How you have to break it down before you can build it up; how you have to work with the stones you've got; how you can't spend too long worrying if you're making the perfect wall, you just have to get on with placing words. I mean stones.