A GP job with a view (and a pub, shop, excellent house for rent)

Right, if you're a GP, or know someone who is, there is a part-time, salaried associate doctor job going in Hillswick, working with my wife and her excellent practice team, in one of the world's most scenic areas. Namely, Northmavine in Shetland. Which, in case you're not sure, is an island group beyond Orkney, on the way to the Faroe islands or, if you turn right, Norway. Technically and governmentally, Shetland is part of Scotland, at least for the moment. Northmavine is the northernmost part of the main Shetland island. Which, for some reason, is called 'Mainland'.

Now, here's Hillswick...the surgery house - available for the associate to rent - is nearest on the right. Immediately beyond it is the Hillswick Health Centre. Short commute. The white wooden building on the left is the St Magnus Bay Hotel, restaurant and bar. The community shop is at the bottom of the road next to the sea.

I have just finished cutting the grass around the four-bedroom house which is available for rental, and is next door to (a) the health centre and (b) the pub - part of an excellent establishment which does phenomenal chips as well as having West Beers on draught. Oh yes. For when you're not on call. Also, there's a great carvery every Sunday. The local shop is over the crossroads and has fresh Voe bannocks every Tuesday. Worth moving for those alone. 

This picture (note cut grass) shows the view from the living room window. You can't see the idyllic golden sand of the West Ayre, the beach at the end of the field. But it's there, a good seven-iron away. That field used to be a golf course.

View towards Eshaness from the surgery house. Quite nice.

So, this job. You have to be a real doctor, obviously, properly trained, qualified and everything. Only 17-26 weeks a year, and between £40K and £60K, depending on the number of weeks. Which means you can spend the rest of the time birdwatching, going for long walks, sailing, fishing (Shetland has possibly the best undeveloped trout loch fishing in Europe, and the best sea anging) taking photographs, lazing about in the endless balmy sunshine, or going on long holidays to the Caribbean. Or you can do those ludicrously lucrative medical locum things.

Full details of the job on the Hillswick Health Centre website here.

And this is a wee video of my wife's daily walk to work. When she isn't driving.


 She lives in a completely different house (from the one in the pictures, not from the one I inhabit). You'll have the one next to the surgery all to yourself. Unless the sheep break through the fence again. By the way, the weather, as portrayed in the photographs and the video, is always like this, winter and summer.

Or maybe it rains occasionally. And gets a bit windy and dark. And cold. But there's central heating and everything.

One good tern deserves another: The Tirricks are back!

On Hillswick Ness this afternoon. The joy of seeing Arctic Terns back in their breeding grounds after the long, long journey from Antarctica. My favourite bird!

Meanwhile, on the Ness of Hillswick: Fulmars and a pool

At 'Magnus Bain's Beach' (Burnside) from 'Shetland' . In Northmavine, Shetland

Wee wander this afternoon 'atween weathers' to get some pictures for the next edition of Shetland Life Magazine. This is the beach (and house) where large chunks of the most recent episode of 'Shetland' were shot. The (derelict) house has been sold and general feeling (rumour) is that it will be demolished and a new one built in its place. It has one of the most stunning positions of any house in Shetland. Or Scotland. Or Europe.

This morning's wander

West Ayre, lichen on wall, the Drongs

Days 'atween wadders' (between weathers). Some Shetland pictures

I've taken, most mornings, to wandering at least part of the way along the coastline of the Hillswick Ness, which is right by our house. The complete circuit, which takes between two and three hours, is one of the great Shetland walks (stunning cliffs, beaches, sea stacks, caves, seabirds, seals, otters (if you're lucky) and more), and access is now easy and complete, with stiles and gates all the way.

To the Ness of Hillswick!

We've had some strange and very calm weather these last few days (sunspot activity? Maybe) and some of these pictures reflect that. The foggy ones and the sunset were taken  on Friday, and the gate (the first one I come to on the Ness) this morning. 'Atween Wadders' is a Shetland way of describing the periods of calm you get between 'proper' weather. Storms on the way? We shall see. Meanwhile, it's a case of enjoying what you can, when you can.

Mist lying at the head of Ronas Voe

Sunset over Ura Firth, looking towards the Ness of Hillswick

Mist on Ronas Hill

Morton Through Midnight...and Where I Live Part Two

Lulu looking pensive. As ever

Well, the first Morton Through Midnight was broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland (live, and from Shetland, oh you disbelievers, with the music played in from Glasgow) last night, and so my new nocturnal weekend life begins. In fact, I was home by 1.45 am (despite snow on the roads, again) and in bed by 2.00 am, so up and about  by 9.00 am.

Feeling a bit discombobulated, I have to admit, spending most of the morning dazedly surfing the net looking at guitars (don't tell) in the wake of one I had sold on eBay being returned as 'damaged'. I suspect  that perennial eBay problem, the time-wasting customer who 'just wants a wee look'. It's going to get worse, as eBay are bringing in a compulsory returns policy for business sellers. Ah well.

Anyway. The first show went well, I think. Lots of great feedback, mostly via Facebook, which seems to suit MTM listeners much more than Twitter. Here are the contact details. The show is back on tonight and Sunday, 10.05 pm to 1.00 am, and you can catch it on iPlayer through the website, or listen online. All the playlists will be on the website on Monday.

email: mortonthroughmidnight@bbc.co.uk
website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rmd2p
Facebook is Morton Through Midnight
Twitter is @mortonmidnight

So, having shaken off the morning's torpor, I headed out with the dogs for a wee dauner, this time to the other side of the Hilswick Ness from yesterday. It was ferociously cold, so I didn't get far. Just to the magnificent West Ayre and a wee bit further. This is where the now-legendary Socks-the-Pony ad for 3 Mobile was shot.

West Ayre, Hillswick. No Socks

The dogs, Lulu and Rug, seemed to enjoy it, though Rug (fat and unfit, like me) tired quickly. So it was back to the manse for some warming up next to the Rayburn. And perhaps another look at those guitars.

Where I live: to the lighthouse!

We live in a very old house, first built 250-odd years ago on the overgrown shingle strand that connects the Ness of Hillswick to the Shetland Mainland. That makes us vulnerable. The front door is only about 30 feet from the normal high tide mark, and at the same level. In the 1970s, given a combination of tide, wind direction and wave action, the kitchen ended up a Rayburn stove's height in water. The sea for breakfast, as Lillian Beckwith once said.

'Bridge of Two-Headbanging-Buffalo'

Since then, heavy duty rock armouring has been installed along the entire length of Hillswick's Aest Ayre (East Beach) and we have built two-stage flood diversion walls as well, not to mention raising the ground floor power points five feet up the interior walls...

The nearest we've come to disaster in the decade we've lived here was a month or so ago, when the same combination of tide, swell and wind as on that infamous 1970s occasion demolished our peat stack and swept water and debris to within 10 feet of the main door. But we stayed dry.

Looks warm...but it wasn't!

Anyway. Today I decided to take a stroll onto the Ness of Hillswick (Hill-dis-vik: Bay of a man called Hilda, allegedly, not hill of a man called Vic) itself, which basically means hopping over the aforementioned armouring and heading south-east. There's public access and a marked footpath with gates and stiles that will take you right round the Ness coastline in about three hours. It's a slightly hazardous walk on occasions, but in my humble opinion, one of the most stunning coastal rambles in the UK. Living right on its doorstep is worth the risk of submergence. I think.

Only the frost-scoured grass indicates that this isn't the Costa Brava...

So this morning I decided to see how far I could get in half an hour (answer: the old lighthouse jetty, built in the 1890s and now demolished by the sea apart from some slivers of concrete and a set of steps). It being a lovely, if chilly day, I then wandered on to the 'Ikea kit' solar-powered lighthouse itself, which replaces the 1895 mini-Stevenson one I recall climbing 20 years ago. That took an hour. Then 45 minutes swift walking back home.

The ugliest lighthouse in the world. Possibly.

The conditions weren't quite as mediterranean as they appear in these pictures. However, it was a glorious walk, and one I intend to do at least a part of each day from now on.

A glorious morning on the White Grunafirth, one of 19 Shetland Marilyns

Slightly worried about coronary thrombosis, having consumed a bit of a fry-up for breakfast, but putting my trust in statins, aspirin and beta blockers, I set off on Shetland Life business this morning, camera in hand. First a wee jaunt to Eshaness, and then the half-hour climb to the summit of the White Grunafirth above Heylor, at 173 metres one of Shetland's 19 'Marilyns', or summits with a minimum ascent on every side of at least 150 metres.

No, I don't really understand the whole Marilyn thing (Munros, yes, Corbetts, sort of) either, but Dave Hewitt of Angry Corrie fame has written a great piece for the next Shetland Life explaining all, and we needed some pictures.

I parked the car at our old house, which nestles into the slope down to Ronas Voe, and began climbing. The first 15 minutes is brutal, but after that you reach a boggy plateau and only have to cope with a gradual rise to the trig point at the top. And it was worth it. The sun came out, illuminating the splendid trout lochs up on the hill that barely anyone ever fishes: The Mill Lochs of Stovabreck ( you can still see the ancient mills) Crookna Water, Gluss Water and others. There's an unexcavated tomb, covered in massive slabs, right next to the trig point, and the views over Ronas Voe to that other Marilyn, and Shetland's highest point, Ronas Hill, were spectacular.

From one Marilyn to another: Ronas Hill from the White Grunafirth

Looking towards Eshaness and the Dore Holm

And I didn't meet another soul.

Back garden, Wednesday morning

The view out over Ura Firth and the Ness of Hillswick towards St Magnus' Bay, 8.30am

An inconceivably glorious day in the kayak

I've already been out on the water more this April than in the whole of last summer - mainly due to the easiness of using the Bic Ouassou kayak. And the astonishing weather. This morning in Hillswick it's like summer - genuinely hot in the sunshine. It's flat calm, too.

Bruce (local blacksmith and all round expert in all things nautical) came round for a look at the Kestrel dinghy, and we managed to raise the mainsail, revealing a need for some sewing action. Still, the wee fibreglass boat is sound and this morning's post brought a restored British Seagull outboard for it. Of which much, I expect, later. Bruce also offered me the makings of a mooring, so with that it was out in the kayak for a wee bit of depth sounding.

It was also a chance to try out my new camera. Taking pictures is one of the great pleasures of being out on the sea, but I was always conscious of how easy it would be to damage a digital camera with seawater. So, off to eBay, there to obtain a Vivicam 5399 camera with 15-metre underwater case. How much? For five megapixels? Nine pounds. Not ninety. Nine. Less than 10. Ebay is a wonderful thing.

And this is the result. A picture of Hillswick I've been trying to take for years, showing the red cliffs of the Eshaness peninsula behind the village. Hillswick is basically built on a shingle spit.

When I finally beached the kayak after an hour or so, I was overcome with an unwillingness to return to dry land. Still, work calls!