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Utsira

Unless you are geographically illiterate, you will know that Great Britain is a maritime nation situated on the eastern side of  the North Atlantic Ocean. We are surrounded by seawater  which can be as calm as a millpond or as rough as The Drake Passage.

For centuries, our ships have ventured out into the surrounding seas - transporting goods or people, catching fish or fighting wars. Many ships and many lives have been lost. That is why, in the middle of the nineteenth century, efforts were made to find ways of informing mariners about sea conditions, including storms.

Woman cyclist near the ferry port

Linked to this ambition, surrounding waters were divided up into thirty one specific sea areas - ranging from Trafalgar in the south - off the coast of north west Spain to  Southeast Iceland in the north.

Every day of the year, the London Met office broadcasts a shipping forecast via BBC Radio that covers all thirty one of those sea areas. People of my generation grew up with those forecasts - like a continuous poem that was and perhaps remains the comfortable and reassuring bedrock of our lives...."Humber, Thames. Southeast veering southwest 4 or 5, occasionally 6 later. Thundery showers. Moderate or good, occasionally poor."

A birdwatcher on  the island

I think that I am right in saying that the forecast always begins off the southwest coast of Norway where there are three sea areas - Viking, South Utsire and North Utsire. Only recently did I learn that Utsire or Utsira is an island off the coast of Norway. It has a land area of some 2.5 square miles and a permanent population of some two hundred people. However, it receives a good number of visitors - partly because it is the best birding site in Norway but also because of commercial fishing and the oil industry which made Norway rich.

"Joker" - the only shop on Utsira

Given its size and remoteness it is rather surprising that a Google Streetview vehicle has covered the island's roads quite comprehensively and the pictures that accompany this blogpost have all been snipped from Google imagery to give us a clearer sense of what it's like on the island of Utsira. It's not just a strange name in our daily shipping forecast. It exists.

The only church on Utsira

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Something Beautiful

Auntie Gladys was famous for her homespun quotes about doing the right things

Many were bible-esque type quotes

Economical and not too flowery 

Having said that I remember her walking around the last  Flower Show, the one that she herself opened as guest of honour , 

She was looking at the baking section with bright , critical blue eyes, 

Her gaze running across, loaves of bread,and tarts and plates of biscuits and mounds of her own scones

And she smiled and waved her arms like a school girl

“ Always look for the beautiful every day “ 

She said excitedly 

 

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