Finding Inner Peace and Feeling Deep Gratitude

Notes from a Shetland summer, between tours

It’s been a whirlwind of a month since I returned from the Czech Republic — tour number five, and the second to last one of the season. And somewhere in the middle of catching my breath, summer in Shetland truly started.

It hasn’t been brilliantly sunny. But there have been moments of utter bliss: cool temperatures, the lightest breeze, next to nothing moving, and the sun making its quiet appearance just when you needed it most. And sea swims that I have returned to and have found my love for again.

The garden has been absolutely beautiful. And for once, I found a few days — a few uninterrupted hours, really — where I could fully focus on working in it. Trust me, that’s something I haven’t done in a very long time. I’d almost forgotten how much I love it.

I felt truly present. Not trying to do anything else. Not thinking about work. Just being there — weeding areas that haven’t been touched in years, finally starting to make things look pretty again. Clearing the garlic beds. Tending to the rhubarb. Harvesting the first strawberries of the season. And baking a summer tray bake with them, enjoyed still warm from the oven with a nice cup of coffee.

It’s funny how something as simple as pulling weeds can bring you back to yourself. No deadlines, no itinerary, no next stop. Just soil, sun, and the quiet satisfaction of a bed that finally looks the way you imagined it.

That’s where the gratitude comes from, I think. Not from anything extraordinary — just from being allowed to slow down, and watching the garden grow lush and wild under those big steely Shetland skies, while the first roses and hydrangeas open on the front step, somehow soft and bright against all that green and grey — and remembering what it feels like to have both hands in the soil and nowhere else to be. And everywhere, that first heady scent of honeysuckle…

Here are a few snaps from the past week.

Steely skies and stillness at Bain's Beach. Not a single day passes without me taking a little walk here, or a dip in the sea.

Komorebi moment, courtesy of Perfect Days — the film that got me noticing sunlight through leaves again. Thoroughly recommend it.

The front step turns into a complete sun trap on a sunny morning — the perfect spot for my coffee and a page or two of journalling.

Currently fully absorbed in Fire Weather by John Vaillant — a gripping, unsettling read about wildfire that I've genuinely struggled to put down.

A little posy of my first roses, combined with beautifully scented honeysuckle — such a treat for the kitchen table.

Headed to the oven — summer tray bake with rhubarb and the first raspberries of the season. My granny used to bake this for us during the summer holidays, when she looked after my sister and me, always picking up seasonal fruit on her way at a local market in my hometown.

Freshly weeded garlic bed, next to a field freshly cut for silage — that unmistakable smell of a Shetland summer.

Cold — but never not tempting.

A complete stillness.