ST MARGARET'S HOPE, SOUTH RONALDSAY

I woke up early this morning, partly because there is no blind on the bedroom skylight window, but I did not complain as it meant I could swoop out with my camera before the rest of the world emerged. I had a very pleasant tramp around the little lanes of St Margaret's Hope, snapping away at doors and windows and bricks, and thoroughly content.

On our way out for the day we stopped at the Churchill Barriers to look at the Blockships and I found I was on a tiny beach of minute but intact seashells. Later we strolled along a white sandy beach which could easily have been in the Seychelles, were it not for a nippy wind, and I blipped rocks and sea and shells and seaweed, and a riot of wildflowers. I love this place.

We looked for a Turtle Dove, but didn't see one, in fact it eluded us for the whole week, but we had another glorious sunset to gaze at in the evening.

My blip is of the village and the holiday cottage is the one with the long row of upstairs windows looking over the sea.The wonderful restaurant we merely had to stagger back from is the yellow house behind.