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WHEN IT’S BLOWIN’ A HOOLIE

11th August 2022

Sometimes I feel as if my weather app is having a wee chuckle. Saturday’s forecast was for a ‘light breeze’, and given how warm and humid it’s been of late, the idea of a breezy coastal walk sounded pretty blissful when we arrived at Gullane. But the BBC weather app’s idea of breezy and mine are two different things: it was blowing a hoolie (translation: very, very windy) as we walked along the dunes, noting the kitesurfers flying across the water ahead of us as a sign of the wind conditions to come.

By the time we reached the beach, we were being skelped by the wind, and I was regretting not having brought a fleece jumper for Harris. That’s how cool it was. Over the winter months you expect this weather; you dress for it and you adapt to it. Over summer, these stormy days can feel like a jolt to the system.

But I was loving the subtle tones of this light and the sound of the sea crashing on the rocks alongside us, the tide churning the waves towards the shore. These wilder coastal walks always feel cleansing, and as I write this today, on a too-hot Thursday with the thermometer sitting at 30C inside, I wish I could be transported back here.

We’d intended to walk all the way along to Eyebroughy beach, but the wind and the fading light changed that plan. That was the other thing about this weekend’s walks: every night, we got back to the car in darkness, whereas just a few weeks ago it would still have been light. You can feel these long summer evenings slipping now.

Gullane towards Eyebroughy, East Lothian, August 2022. 

  • Olive Green 12th August 2022 at 6:53 pm

    Just like our lives, weather is also unpredictable now a days. I don’t know but I am very depressed now a days and I try to keep myself busy with reading blogs. I like your work!

  • Trisha Ann 12th August 2022 at 3:40 am

    Truly enjoying the stunning photos. The light is divine.

    • Fiona Reid 12th August 2022 at 12:00 pm

      Ah, that’s so lovely to hear! More lovely (make that incredible!) light heading this way in another post….