Fri, May 29 It’s our last day in Orkney and I am trying really hard to stay cheerful. Tomorrow morning we will have to be up at 5, eat breakfast, wedge everything into our car–and our baggage has grown larger, we know because we’ve been practicing fitting everything into our luggage–and hit the road at 6 so we don’t miss our ferry. Michael is feeling a bit under the weather and we three leave him at the cottage and head off to the other farm museum at Kirbuster, not far from Birsay. We make a couple wrong turns, one which goes to Kirbister on the west coast, so we get to see some unexplored places and finally find the museum. Kirbuster turns out to be very interesting for a number of reasons. It is the only remaining farm in northern Europe with an open hearth with its fireback in the middle of the main room, the smoke escaping through the lum in the roof. In the photos below you can see the light coming in through the skylin. The smoke is directed out by the moveable wooden lum depending on wind direction. A peat fire has been laid and there is a group of visiting photography students (from Maine, we hear) who have set up their tripods and cameras. Kirbuster was built or refurbished in the early 18th c by a family of means. It was built with windows and from the beginning the animals were housed in separate buildings. 
In fact this house was lived in until 1961 and the newer parts are quite commodious in a very old-fashioned way. (I can remember visiting aged relatives in Orleans Co in upstate New York whose homes looked quite a bit like this.) The guide here, however, is definitely not the hands-on sort like our guide at Corrigall. He stays in his little building and sells Orkney ice cream (one more opportunity to indulge!).
The gardens are truly lovely with several ways in…a whalebone gate, an iron gate and a cut in the stone wall. From every angle the gardens are gorgeously in bloom. Lots of bluebells of Scotland.
On a whim we stop at an art gallery just up the road. Jill is good and practises restraint but Lynn and I, as usual, each buy a dyed silk scarf…mine is actually a shawl but will become a wall hanging at home. It is in brooding grays and although it is in no way representational, it reminds me of the Ring of Brodgar. Lynn’s is more a sunset over heathered hills.
As we will be driving through Dounby a final time we decide to stop in for a late lunch and that wonderful coffee. Back in Stromness I take my camera and Lynn and I videotape the walk down South End, Alfred, Dundas and Victoria Streets a final time and then it’s time to get creative with the bits and pieces left to make a dinner from.
All the quantities and ingredients used were dictated by the remnants of our several grocery shopping sprees. Unfortunately there was no final bottle of wine!
The Rovers’ Farewell Frittata
Saute 1 onion, chopped
1 whole head of garlic, crushed
2 small sweet peppers, chopped
Beat together 3 eggs and
1/2 container of plain yogurt and
pour over well-cooked vegetables.
When eggs have set add
3/4 c shredded Parmesan and
2 Tbl chopped cilantro
Simple and very tasty!
While we watch Pretty Woman with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, Michael who has seen it “dozens of times” takes a walk out Ness Road and back up past the golf links and reports back that it is a glorious walk that we have missed. It will have to wait for another trip! The next morning we bid farewell to our wonderful cottage and the amazing two weeks we have spent here. On the ferry back to mainland Scotland we play a last couple of hands of Spite & Malice,
drive to Aberdeen,
divest ourselves of our trusty Ford Focus
, 
catch our plane to Heathrow and the next to Logan Airport (Boston), find Lynn’s car with no problem and arrive back in Colrain, Shelburne and Leyden in the wee hours of Sunday morning.
