The Stormcock Community

Midsummer Day, 2012, Inverness, ten to ten in the evening. Still light enough to read not only a newspaper but a small-print paperback outside - but you wouldn't want to try because it's pissing down. For thelast 14 years, since I've had the opportunity of working in Thurso, I've tried to organise it so that I do an overnight trip up there around this time, just for the chance of seeing the shortest night on the British mainland - and it's always been a disappointment, because it's always been overcast and wet so you get no sense of what, in the Northern Isles, they call "the Simmer Dim" (i.e. it never really gets dark). Hwever, June 21st 2012 will be memorable - apart from most likely being my last Summer Solstice in the Highlands - because my first grandchild, a boy named Elijah, was born today. My wife and I will be flying down to Bristol tomorrow for the official viewing.