On New Years Day I went for a walk to Eathie on the East Coast of Scotland. For New Years Day it was astoundingly warm and it was a nice sunlit afternoon.

These photos were taken near mid-day. I don’t know why the North Sea is so black at this time, yet for me it’s a beautiful effect. When I grew up in the East of Scotland I had a children’s edition of The Odyssey (which thankfully kept the Telemachus stuff brief) and I’ve always felt that the relatively arid coast of the Black Isle was somehow Homeric with its ragged cliffs and stunted shrubs.

When I went to Greece, I found it much drier, with much less vegetation, but I wasn’t entirely wrong.