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Caithness

Crowditch

A Many Year Project

by Lydia

Two of my sisters – Ginny and Diff – came down from Caithness this weekend, to help with various things. They made a serious start on stripping the textured wallpaper from the guest room, something that is going to be an ongoing project for some time, I suspect. There are some patches in the house – the stairs being the worst one – where it has clearly previously been deemed that to remove the paper was too hard a job, so it has just been plastered over. Naturally, the plaster is now falling off in chunks, aided by little fingers that can’t help themselves. As much as the work ahead of us is really only just beginning (I describe our very-much-loved family home as being a “many year project”), it felt good to be making a start on some of the comparatively frivolous improvements we’ve identified.

The next morning, we set up some solar-powered lights in the pagoda in the garden, an endeavour which caused much hilarity. Meanwhile, Euan finally finished setting up the regulation size basketball ball net that he got for Christmas, while the girls ran round getting colder and colder in the bitter wind, but having a hilarious time switching between garden toys and sticks and shells.

March is currently being lion-like rather than lamb-like, but it is exciting to be heading towards spring. There is much to do outside, and I can’t wait to carry on chipping away at it all.

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A house, warmly lit up from light within, stands against a dark but starry sky.
Crowditch

And So To 2025

by Lydia

Christmas has now passed and January has come rushing at us thick and fast, but it was a marvellous first Christmas in our new home. There were day visits northward to visit family in Caithness, and there was a long-weekend visit from family from England and Spain. But Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day we spent at home (or in the local area), just us. All in all, it was pretty much perfect.

The family visit, hosting a houseful, was utter chaos, but exactly what we wanted when we bought the house. There were three families under one roof (totalling four cousins), with grandparents staying in a nearby hotel. The layout downstairs worked really well, with the large kitchen and the sitting room and our snug leading off it (one day, there will also be a dining room leading from the kitchen – but at the moment, that is full of boxes). I’ve always been a firm believer that the kitchen is the heart of the home, and it felt like it, even as it is right now with make-shift worktops and a mish-mash of furniture. Euan finished off the bar for the sitting room (a slim strip of oak on tall black legs), and we used it in the kitchen for extra worktop-height space. We moved the smaller table (what was once, many moons and two or three houses ago, my desk) into the sitting room for the kids, and it has been so handy there that we haven’t bothered rearranging everything back again yet.

There were some things we couldn’t predict until we tried out having so many people in the house. Having an airbed in the guest room (in addition to the double bed) for our niece didn’t work too well, so after the first night we pushed the two settees together in the sitting room and she and Auri had a lot of fun sleeping there (there was absolutely nothing wrong with Auri’s bed, but sharing the settee with her cousin was understandably deemed much more fun).

The day after the family left, there was a significant snowfall, followed in the early-ish hours by a deluge of rain, resulting in a leak in the sitting room. We’d only fixed the previous one in early autumn, but I think the recent storms must have loosened another tile. Apart from that, though, the house survived the season unscathed, a host to happy memories being made.

On New Year’s Day, there was a display of the Merry Dancers and the sky was alive with stars. We took some photos outside from the back garden, some a tad blurry because of the night setting, our home a warm beacon of light.

Our home. The first day of a new year, the sky alive with stars.

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Crowditch

A First Christmas Eve

by Lydia

We and our house are still finding out about each other, getting used to our new relationship. But one thing I have been certain about for some time is that this house wants to be a family home. It has been a while since she has been that, and I am certain she appreciates it. Whatever has happened inside these walls, at some point children have been happy here. I have heard their footsteps, running in the hallway in the old part of the house, on more than one occasion. There have been one or two other things, too. Most of all, though, there is the feeling that this house wants to be loved for who she is, to be a part of a family. When I recently picked up a rocking horse for the girls from an auction, it immediately looked so right in their bedroom, as if it had always been there. I can’t explain it, just that it felt appreciated.

I was speaking about this yesterday to my family who live at Stempster, in Caithness. Their house also has history, and a back catalogue of characters (they have managed to do some research into the house and its previous inhabitants – something I am hoping to do for our own house when time allows). We were discussing how houses desperately want to be homes – they want to be lived in, properly.

Euan had just returned to the sitting room from being in the hallway, and reported that the door handle to my Mum and Dad’s bedroom had been turning on its own (we were all accounted for). “It’s the time of year,” said my sister, cheerfully, “these things happen at Christmas.”

At Christmas, a couple of years ago, when our young niece Ailsa was staying there, everyone at Stempster heard as clear as day a baby crying. My brother and his wife went to check on Ailsa, only to find her fast asleep. There have been other happenings.

It isn’t a surprise that many cultures have a tradition of winter tales, of telling stories together round the fire, often with a eerie theme. Perhaps there is a thinning at this time of year, making the past feel closer. I’m not even sure it is as clear as the past being relived, I think it is more that a house amplifies what you expect to find, and what you share with it.

When I was younger, I used to love the tales of animals being able to speak on the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve. I am sure that those tales contributed to my lifelong love of and fascination with folklore. I wonder if the same could be true of buildings. On the stroke of midnight, what might our new home share with us? What histories, what thoughts, what hopes? I hope that she knows that we’re doing our best to put her right, and that we look forward to sharing many happy years with her.

A toddler with her back to the camera, stares at a Christmas Tree in the window in front of her, pointing at it in wonder.
Elfi gazing at the smaller Christmas Tree, in the snug window.

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A woman and her daughter smile for the camera in front of a lawn, some trees, and a large white house. It is bright, but looks a little breezy.
A Murder of CrowsCrowditch

Catching Up

by Lydia

We are just catching our breath from a busy last fortnight, just in time to rush into another busy month.

Last week, we were all up at Stempster. Euan spent a happy two or three days (mostly) in the Wild Wood, taking down fifty-two and a half trees (the half being some serious surgery to a victim of lightning). Auri spent many a delighted hour on the swing and generally wreaking havoc outside, Elfi was her usual cheerful self, and Scapa got in some much-loved beach walks.

There are several photographs to share, which I suspect will crop up at odd times over the coming few days. But enough of us. How are you all?!

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A rose in full bloom in the foreground, with trees and a house behind.
A Murder of Crows

Hysterically Good

by Lydia

The girls and I had an hysterically good weekend up at Stempster, while Euan was away representing the family at a wedding in Dumfries and Galloway. At one point I was actually crying with laughter during an afternoon of games, which included the world’s most hilarious game of Cluedo (there’s a reason that it’s not recommended for three-year olds). Auri, meanwhile, also had an amazing time making crafts, riding on a train, and generally running rings round everyone; while Scapa thoroughly enjoyed exploring some new (to her) aspects of the Stempster vicinity. All in all, the perfect way to see in the new season.

A rose in full bloom in the foreground, with trees and a house behind.
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