No Light from the House on the Corner

Some places in Caithness seem to me to echo with the sounds of the people once there. This building near the harbour at Castletown was part of the flagstone works but it struck me the first time I saw it as a house with a startled expression that no one had come back to it. Perhaps that is the influence of too many Disney cartoons in my impressionable youth. I recalled it again the other night as I rode with a friend to a gathering at the nearby hall.

As we turned a corner, she looked at a house and commented that the shades were drawn. Because I am still new to so many things and the complex networks of people here, she had to explain that was the home of an elderly woman who had just passed away. She had lived long after her daughter, the friend of my friend, had died of cancer. The elderly woman had watched the television in the dark and so turning that corner my friend could see the faint blue glow of the television through the window and know that she was all right.

I hope in time someone else will come to that house and put some lights back into the windows. It will never be the same of course, but a light at the corner is a welcome sight up here and a house needs living in.