Cromarty from the South Sutor

During my life I have never lived far from the sea. I was born near St Andrews and spent my childhood, after a brief spell in Cupar, Fife, in Montrose. Memories of beach walks along the Angus coastline remain strong, whatever the season. In my teenage years my family moved north to Saltburn near Invergordon, and the sound of the sea filled my ears and my moods changed with the tides. I used to look across the Firth at Cromarty and watch the evening light fade on Cromarty’s white houses. The jewel in the crown of Scottish vernacular architecture lured me to visit with family and friends, and in 1995 I bought 14 Forsyth Place.

In the last eleven years I have been away from my familiar coastline: in 1997-98 I swapped it for the flatness and cornfields of Indiana. I spent a year teaching in an American high school, living amongst soya beans, corn and hogs – quite a contrast to tatties, oilseed rape and sheep! Then in 2002-3 my partner and I spent ten months travelling the globe. At times we lived by the sea: on the coast of Queensland, in New Zealand (where we saw the most southerly bottlenose dolphin) and in Chile.

Yet I was always glad to return home – to walk the shoreline, to embrace the salty winds, to imagine Cromarty’s past – hearing the industry of the fishertown, the merchants and even the huzzahs from the emigrants.

There is a magical quality to living by the sea – its rhythm and movement can bring peace and harmony as well as fear. I love early summer mornings when the sea fills my nostrils and laps ashore; I dread stormy nights when the sea rages at me and mankind.

Gazing down from the South Sutor, our town makes herself known – stretching out to welcome her neighbour, the Firth – and I realise how fortunate I am to live on this peninsula.

Home thoughts - Karen Meikle, 11 years in Cromarty.