Tuesday's Gone

The rock cognoscenti amongst you may recognise the above name of a track from Lynyrd Skynyrd's 'Pronounced...' album, but this post has more to do with High North than the Deep South.

When we moved to Orkney from Milton Keynes, we knew there would be some things we would miss, like big bunches of trees and near constant birdsong, and also some things we would not miss, like the drone of motorway traffic and the lack of far horizons. What was harder to quantify was figuring out which things would surprise us for better or worse, in a not too dissimilar way to Mr Rumsfeld's unknown unknowns.

Of late, I had come to realise there was a small gap in my weekly routine, a tiny unfilled moment, that was only noticeable through the lack of some... undefined... thing. What the heck was it? It nagged at me for a while, until my thoughts and a particular day of the week and a realisation achieved a perfect syzygy.

Bell practice at St Andrew's Church in Great Linford. See under Regular Activities on the linked document.

I hasten to add that I didn't participate in this cacophony of campanological capers, I was merely an interested bystander, soaking up the atmosphere of listening to the gentle peal of the bells as the tolling sounds wafted across paddocks, canal and open spaces between St Andrew's churchyard and the garden of Tense Towers.

Every Tuesday evening.

It was a permanent fixture of our life in Milton Keynes. One that was so subliminal, yet so defining of place, an English village church bringing sonic succour to this pagan's ears.

And I miss it.

Fortunately, another Tuesday night ritual has presented itself. In Orkney. In Summer. Holm Sailing Club's snipe racing in St. Mary's Bay, just the other side of Churchill Barrier 1 and viewable from OTT.

Some sort of cosmic harmony has been restored.

Tuesday's Back... with the wind.