Orkney Days

Hearth and home are at the heart of these marvellous accounts of the passing seasons. Beautiful descriptions of a fragile landscape are mingled with memories of a young family growing up and the rhythms of daily life. There is much too about the challenges of running a croft, the traditions and lore of the island, and more recent developments that have changed North Ronaldsay forever.

This is the charming and poignant account of twenty-five years spent in Orkney. After her marriage to an islander, Christine Muir went to live on the tiny island of North Ronaldsay, where she and her husband brought up their four children and ran a small croft. Following the seasons though the year, Orkney Days is full of observations of the natural world at their doorstep.

Beautiful descriptions of the island and its flora and fauna – from wildflowers and medicinal herbs to seals and seabirds – are mingled with memories of a young family growing up and the rhythms of daily life far from the bustle of the modern world. There is much too about the work involved in running their croft and the cattle and sheep that are its mainstay, about the traditions and lore of the island which stretch back over countless generations, and about the modern developments which changed it forever.