Early Morning in Sanday

The sun is up, but only just. It's half past five in the morning and too beautiful a day to waste lying in bed.
I have the world to myself as I walk along the road, with only the sheep and birds for company.
It is a still world with only a light breeze to sway the tall grasses at the fence hung with sheep's wool and ruffle the surface of the sea.
There are no waves crashing on shore.
The sky is blue but shot through with high streamers of white cloud.
My shadow cast to the side as I walk, is long and thin, just how I would like to be in the flesh.

I pass a tumbledown cottage with a baby sparrow perched on the ochre lichened roof. There are more sparrows in Orkney than I have seen for years.
Higher up on the chimney pot two starling fledglings are calling for food.
A family of Oyster catchers rise in front of me and fly off across the field of cut hay, crying their distinctive dweep cry.

Beside the road the ewes and lambs are busy munching, the lambs distinguishable from their shorn mothers by their fatness. They stop eating as I pass and look surprised but don't move.

I take photos of the boat on the rocky shore and the views out to sea. I take many photos. I dawdle and drink in the peace of the place. I spend an hour of solitude while the rest of the world lies abed unknowing and unheeding of what they are missing.

The campsite is still sleeping when I return, and will be for the next 2 hours.
I sit in the sun outside the pod with the sun on my back and the breeze ruffling my hair.
His Lordship, still in bed, asks sleepily if I have a photo. Too many I reply, and I can only post one. I will have to choose.