“By, yon’s a sooth-east, piner, aa’reet!”

To be honest the weather today hasn’t been the most conducive for the taking of photographs. A raw, bitter wind which does not take the trouble to go around you, but pierces right through to your very bones. No matter my layers of Polartec, gloves and a hat of the finest merino wool.

‘A lazy wund‘, as they say in the North East, one that ‘gans straight through ye‘.

A lot of North East communities have their own particular names for these penetrating, cold south-easterly winds common along the coast: an idle wind, Edinburgh wind, custard wind, snithe wind. ‘Custard‘ is probably a derivation of coastward (or onshore). ‘Snithe‘ comes from the Old English snīþan meaning to cut.

Fisherfolk might refer to a piner. “By, yon’s a sooth-east, piner, aa’reet!”. Probably from an Old English word for pain or torture.

But, nearly forgot, where was I? Top of Limekiln Bank, on Near Moor, looking down on Scugdale and Whorl Hill.