Thur, May 11
There are whitecaps on the harbor and we don’t rush to go out today. There’s plenty of knitting and I finish reading The Outrun by Amy Liptrot on my Kindle.
It had been published in the US (and delivered to my Kindle) just hours before we left for Orkney. She is Orcadian and although she doesn’t quite feel native (her parents were in-comers), she returns to Orkney when her London life is no longer sustainable and certainly not enjoyable. It’s a nature book, and an excellent one, as well as a memoir of a tough personal battle. Part of her story takes place on Papa Westray, the tiny, far northern Orkney island where she counts bird species for a couple of years. Papay, as it is mostly called, is where our good friend Liz Sorensen https://sheepandshawl.com/ and her partner John Nove own a restored croft (which, by the way, they rent out as a self-catering cottage when they’re not in residence.) https://www.papawestray.co.uk/papay/peatwell.html
There are many reviews of the book; here’s a link to the NY Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/books/review/outrun-amy-liptrot.html
In The Outrun the author mentions Yesnaby, noting that it is a place known for suicide. Now, that’s intriguing. We have also learned from Fiona that it is the site of extremely old fossils and she recommends a short walk along the beach.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesnaby
So after lunch we head north toward the coast. We find the cliffs, park and start to get out of the car.The wind is so strong that when Michael opens his door it very nearly blows off. There is an abandoned building, vaguely threatening and unsafe looking, and broken glass scattered among the rocks. Clearly this is a place also to go with buddies to seriously drink. The sky is lowering and the wind nearly rips our jackets off. We beach comb a bit, finding some fossils, but no one seems eager to attempt a walk along the beach. This is too bad, as I now know from reading all the online references, because we also miss the Yesnaby “Castle”, a sea stack, similar to the “old man of Hoy” which, clearly, we are not going to get to this time either. For a detailed description of the geology, go to this link:
