Here at Keldaby we raise the beautiful, gentle and shyly friendly angora goats that provide Moonshine Design with the cloudsoft and highly lustrous mohair used in our fine selection of hand dyed, hand woven goods. Wrap yourself in a throw, toss a scarf or shawl around your shoulders or luxuriate in our fabulous ruanas. Step back to a more romantic era in a Western Isles hood. Discover the magic of mohair socks dyed in every color of the rainbow.
…since I last wrote here! First a nod, no, a curtsey to the late Queen. And God save the King! Seventy years ago when she assumed the throne I received a letter from a friend of my Mom consoling me on the death of my Dad (hers, much older of course, had just died as well) and sending me many souvenir booklets and cards, which I still have, from the coronation. Eight years later my Mom and I were in Bath and the Queen Mother walked by with her retinue no more than eight feet from us. These are some of my bona fides for my anglophilism!
AND, after two years of trying to get back to Orkney and the stone cottage in Stromness, we five–Lynn, Jill, Jen and Orkney-newbie and longtime friend Susan–will be boarding our flight to the UK! I do intend to write a daily blog as I have in the past (never did quite complete the one from 2019) though it won’t get published until we’re back unless I can figure out how to do it on my Kindle. So, stay tuned!
BUT, more importantly, we are getting ready for the 19th Crafts of Colrain Studio Tour (Veterans Day weekend, 12th and 13th November) as well as our 2nd Crafts of Colrain Pop-up Show (8th and 9th October) on State Street, Buckland side of Shelburne Falls. And here’s an advisory for you legions of mohair sock lovers, this is the last year–barring a miracle–these beautiful hand-dyed socks will be available!!
Hats, hats, hats!Nuno scarfThrowsJapanese braid on ruanaRuanaThrow, 56 x 72Back of mobiusAnd finally, and for the last time, socks!
This morning we decide to make a real Scottish breakfast–minus the haggis and black sausage–and we sit around with cups of coffee enjoying our good cooking and scanning the sky for weather signs. It’s a cloudy grey but it looks like it will be just fine for our afternoon cruise up the western coast of Mainland on the Hamnavoe ferry. This is Nature Week and we’re already ticketholders for this trip.
At noon we head to the pier and are soon in line to join all our fellow travelers. We’ve never been on this ferry; it is more elegant than I expected, with lounges and bars and dining facilities. Exhibits have been set up by various nature groups and there are speakers discussing various aspects of island life. I listen to one from a birding society–she talks about the precipitous decline in the seabird populations–kittiwakes, skuas, fulmars, razorbills, guillemots and puffins–all of them have lost between 60 and 80 percent of their number. Climate change, of course, is the principal cause–from the bottom of the food chain (cold water plankton replaced by inappropriate warm water plankton) to the loss of other food sources which either no longer exist or appear too early in the season to be available when needed. We watch the birds dip and then soar above the water. It makes me sad. Everywhere as Neil Young sang “nature is on the run” and that was in the 1970s.
We pass Yesnaby and see the sea stacks, sail past the Bay of Skaill–Scara Brae just out of sight–around Marwick Head and the monument to Kitchener, then recognize the lighthouse on the Brough of Birsay. The boat about-faces at Eynhallow and we can glimpse Rousay not far off. I pay more attention to the shoreline on the way back trying to picture some of our drives along this coast. Without a decent camera I feel stymied but take many shots anyway–they are all terrible, unsurprisingly! As we head back into Hoy Sound however it is a perfect time to photograph Stromness for sketching later. We’ve never had the chance before to see the town from the water.
Near Yesnaby
Approaching Stromness
And to starboard, Graemsay
From the ferry
Back on land we buy Orkney ice creams, then head back to the cottage where we watch Four Weddings and a Funeral–still funny.
It’s a grey rainy day so we’re spending the morning knitting and drawing and then as the weather clears a bit we walk into town checking out a few stores, some of which we had never been in before.
After lunch, Jason Scott, Rosemary’s right hand man, renovation carpenter, fixer-upper and general manager, stops around so we invite him in for tea. We had met him two years ago during the clogged water pipe, drainage, no hot water crisis when he had twice performed miracles to get us back on track. He told us all about his trip last winter to stay with the Andersons at their home in South Africa and we learn a bit more about Rex (Orcadian) and Rosemary (Africaans, I think). He shows us photos and then tells us that Rosemary has bought another Stromness house that he will be re-doing. Although from the outside it looks very substantial and well-preserved he says it will take a lot of work to restore. No one has lived in it for years and before that it had suffered from neglect. Then he pulls out photos of the cottage we’re staying in so we can see what it had been like before the renovation. He’s definitely a talented guy!
Here’s a photo of the new house Jason will be redoing this year
At 3 o’clock we walk down to the little restaurant near the ferry terminal, Julia’s, to meet Jen and Jill’s friends from Vermont, another Anderson couple–no relation–Rosamund and Julius. We had met them at Jen’s for lunch before our first trip in 2014 when they had given us much information about places to go, where to buy supplies, good restaurants. They have owned for a number of years, maybe 20 or so, a house and forty acres on Egilsay where they spend a good portion of the year. Now they have finally acquired an old pick-up which they leave in Tingwall so they have transportation for Mainland shopping. We could actually see (we think!) their house when we took the ferry to Rousay. We discuss the persistence of the Pictish body and facial type in Scotland and even on Orkney while we drink our coffees and enjoy the pastries.
It’s too early when we leave Julia’s to pick up our dinner of fish and chips from the Peedie Chippie van parked right next door on Saturdays (Fridays it’s in Finston where we had bought our dinners on our last trip) so we head back to the cottage for a bit of knitting, then drive back to pick up our dinners later. It’s official, at least to me, that we are now on the downhill slide toward the end of our adventure. I’m trying not to indulge in premature nostalgia! I finish the scaruffle I’ve been knitting, we watch Bucket List with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicolson…and so ends the evening.
Jen has once again found something new for us. (We keep telling her that she would make a terrific tour guide for her own company–thorough, organized, enthusiastic, people-oriented, reliable–in a word or two creatively professional. She isn’t tempted!) Today we will return to the Tomb of the Eagles because there will be a guide there who does story-telling. The site is at the south end of South Ronaldsay, the most southerly of the Orkney archipelago and connected by way of Burray to Mainland via a couple of bridges and the Churchill Barriers. Our storyteller is a young German woman who is okay but not totally scintillating. Perhaps the story she tells isn’t one of the better ones. We skip the milelong walk out to the tomb (we were there just two years ago) and have our lunch on the beach followed by a bit of beach-combing. http://www.tomboftheeagles.co.uk
Then it’s up to St Margaret’s Hope at the north end of the island and a visit to The Workshop and Loft Gallery. www.workshopandloftgallery.co.uk I have sworn off buying any more Orcadian sweaters and so of course immediately find one I want. So does Lynn. We buy them and then head to Robertson’s (where last trip we couldn’t have a dessert while others were eating lunch–“That’s not how it’s done here” she had said.) Fortunately that waitress was not on hand and we happily had our cappuccinos and beers. https://www.orkneyfoodanddrink.com
Next on the agenda is Kirkwall, not easily achieved as there is a stretch of road with construction happening–no sign of this when we had headed out this morning. Slow going and so unusual–generally it’s sheep in the road that tie us up. Lynn had ordered a thumb ring at Aurora and we pick it up now and then Lynn and I find a shop that sells real flags–heavy-duty, double-stitched, not printed Orkney flags for home. We each buy one; our first ones are tattered and faded after two New England winters. There is nothing on the notice board at the Reel to suggest our musician acquaintances we met in Rousay would be performing that weekend.
Here’s one of the new flags behind a very serious Lynn
Back at the cottage I make Jazz Chops, porkchops that have been browned in a salted cast iron skillet then braised in white wine with sliced apples, sliced onion, garlic, honey, and nutmeg until tender. After dinner we stroll down to the Ferry Inn where we think, we hope, there may be live music. The bar is packed with regulars but no music. We have beer or soda, Jill enjoys a mild flirtation and then we head back home feeding all the cats we encounter from our stashes of kitty treats.
Knowing that we will be spending a long time on Hoy, and because it is definitely cooler today, we have oatmeal for breakfast before heading off to catch the ferry at Houton. We’re on our way, and even before we dock in Lyness it is immediately clear that Hoy has a very different geology from the other islands. There are real hills here and the land lies differently. https://www.scottishgeology.com/best-places/hoy-orkney/
Catching the ferry
We start off widdershins around the coast stopping, of course, for coffee and scones at the first little restaurant we see. Disappointing it is, the coffee is weak and scones unremarkable. We continue on over the top of the island to the town of Rackwick, right on the bay at Rora Head, at the end of the divide between the two high hills of Hoy. The Old Man of Hoy, a sea stack, is nearby, but not nearby enough! so we walk south instead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_of_Hoy
We first encounter a building which had been a shepherd’s bothy but is now a hostel where today a half dozen bright orange tents have been pitched. Boy scouts we’re told. We enter, there is a peat fire burning and a very rudimentary communal kitchen; overall it looks much like the farmhouse at Kirbister or Corrigall except for the intrusion of a number of well-worn mid century chairs.
Then we follow a sheep trail right along the beach side and look out on to the still-brown heather covered hillsides. It’s very windy. We are all bundled up and the trail is tight so we don’t walk very far and soon turn back first to see a bit more of the town and then to eat our lunch in the car. (We are repeatedly glad to have our boxy, roomy Tepec as it is far too windy to sit outside today.)
This is the Nature Week in Orkney and so on our drive back toward the east side of the island we stop where there is an eagle watch in progress. White eagles have been reintroduced and this pair, nesting high up on the hillside, have two chicks. We all look through the telescopes set up by the roadside but truthfully I can’t say that I have seen them. This is the same place where we walk up to the Dwarvie Stane. There is a small group with a tour guide so we informally join them to listen. Why it is there, how it got there and what it was used for or meant, even its age is mostly conjecture.
When they call it Dwarf’s Stone you can see why. It’s pretty tight, trying to get in to see the two hand-hewn chambers
The afternoon is passing quickly. We come across a sad little gravestone with its story of a young unmarried woman who killed herself after becoming pregnant and being shunned by the villagers.
On our coastal drive we see a bay filled with fish farming sites.
We stop at another tea room cum gift shop, Emily’s, and indulge in more cappuccino. (Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s wrong to drink cappuccino after breakfast!) and this one was very much better. Then we try to find some of the WWII sites–Lyness was the home base of the Royal Navy–but the museum is closed. We do find the building that was the communications center (Wee Fae). I’m sorry to once again miss seeing some of this history. English TV shows like A Family at War and When the Boat Comes In with their references to Scapa Flow have always fascinated me.
But now it’s time to get back on the ferry and it’s home again. Lynn’s pork stew has been slow-cooking all day–its aroma hits us even before we open the door! It’s delicious and very welcome after a day of bruising winds. Later we watch the rest of RuPaul’s Drag Race to see who won.
Jen has noticed that there will be a guided tour of the standing stones and Barnhouse village this morning so we head out for Stenness because although we’ve been there numerous times we figure there’s more to learn. Good call! Eleanor MacLeod, who hales originally from Lewis (in the Hebrides), is an excellent enthusiastic guide, full of stories and folk traditions. She also clarifies for us what a henge is; many think it is the ring of stones, but no, it is the ditch and earthworks which may or may not include standing stones. For more on the village check out this link: http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/barnhouse/
Jen has also checked the tide times and so we then head to Birsay, It’s low tide, there is hardly any water at all and so no seals appear and we quickly walk across to the Brough and stay for a while though we don’t make the trek up to the lighthouse and cliffs beyond.
In Dounby we find the butcher shop open and are truly relieved. We had worried that perhaps it had closed. She’s the same bubbly person we’ve met before and we buy lambchops, porkchops, a shoulder of lamb and of course home-raised bacon. Back at No. 10 Jill makes lambchops for dinner accompanied by new potatoes and butter, peas and homemade mint sauce. Yum indeed! I make a sort of tomato-garlic melange. The weather has been beautiful for days now but in the afternoon the wind picks up, it’s cooler and the water in the bay is very choppy. Tomorrow we’re off to Hoy.
Jill sleeps in again (that stubborn cold–or perhaps she is secretly watching BTS videos!) so the rest of us head downtown, checking out what interesting clothing is available at the Cat Protection Society and Red Cross consignment shops. And of course, armed with kitty treats, we feed every cat we encounter.
First one, then two, then three kitties show up for snacks
We catch a glimpse of Moxie hanging out on his favorite corner and learn that in fact while he loves to hang out either on his corner or across the street at the CPS shop, he actually has a loving home and is very well cared for!
Near lunchtime we run into Jill. She and Jen can’t face another BLT so they buy sausage pasties–Lynn and I have BLTs of course–and we head back to #10 and a quick lunch before driving south through Burray to a strange (IMHO) place apparently called Eastside which has a seemingly ancient standing stone but with clearly modern carving on it, a ruined church, an enigmatic stone structure and a foul smelling beach which we comb. Everyone except me finds at least one cowrie shell so Jen gives me one of hers. That’s good–we all need the good luck they bring.
We’re on our ongoing quest to find Minehowe burial site which is supposed to be not far but once again we are not successful. It is not open often, or perhaps never in May. Photos in our guidebooks show it having a precarious entrance down very sketchy steps; it’s just as well we can’t tempt fate on this one. Here’s a link with terrific photos and a bit more history. https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/eastmainland/minehowe/index.html.
So turning east toward Tankerness we decide to have a mid afternoon coffee and dessert at jeweller Sheila Fleet’s new Kirk Gallery and Cafe, located of course in a desanctified church. It’s an elaborate place, very trendy, the dishes impressive to look at but a bit underwhelming. The gallery upstairs is lovely.
And finally we head west and north to Dounby for a second trip to the Harray Potter where more new mugs are purchased and Jen and I each acquire perfect little cups for our single malt. In town we stop at the Dounby Butcher but the shop is closed and something about the signage leads us to the disturbing possibility that the shop is closed for good.
Jen makes a shepherd’s pie for dinner and then it’s off to have some Orkney ice cream and a bit more beach combing. We knit for a while, watch an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, root for our favorite contestant and comment that our viewing taste has lost all pretense of intellectual pursuit. Jill is completely immersed in her BTS videos, a beatific smile on her lips.
It’s a miracle–another gorgeous day! We drive up to Tingwall to catch the ferry to Rousay, a half-hour trip northeast across Eynhallow Sound from Mainland. There are a lot of sites, over 100, on this small island–its nickname is Egypt of the north–but first it’s scones, clotted cream, strawberry-rhubarb jam and excellent coffee at the Crafthub in Trumland before our 14-mile trip along the island’s only road. Clearly the Crafthub is a social hub for the whole island’s 200 or so residents. We head off clockwise, exploring Taversoe Tuick burial cairn and Blackhammer Cairn.
We don’t walk up the long hill to the Knowe of Yarso but drive on to Midhowe cairn and broch, the most visited site on this island. The original roof of the cairn is gone but this 90 foot long, chambered burial site has been totally enclosed within a hangar-like building with walkways around and over it. Because we can see everything from above and don’t have to crawl about on our knees we really get a good picture of a chambered cairn.
Just a few yards away is the broch from a later period, complete up to a height of about 10, 12 feet.
“Midhowe Broch is one of at least nine brochs that stand along the banks of narrow, dangerous Eynhallow Sound in Orkney. It’s in an excellent state of preservation, especially its stone internal fittings. A water tank, fireplace and room partitions are all visible.” (from Historic Environment)
From there we walk along the beach to the several iron age and medieval sites–a church, the remains of a hall. The link above describes these ruins well as well as giving good photographs. From here we can see Eynhallow (Holy Island) and to the south the broch of Gurness on Mainland.
The church on Eynhallow
After eating our BLTs back at our car we complete the circuit of the island. We watch seals cavorting on the Saviskaill Beach and arrive back at the ferry slip with enough time to visit the Rousay Cultural Centre, do a bit of beach-combing and watch a large sailboat dock with 14 musicians on board. They have been traveling around the islands for several weeks and will be playing this evening at the Crafthub, but unfortunately we can’t stay. We’re told they will be playing at the Reel in Kirkwall on the weekend so we’ll try then.
We catch the ferry at 5:30, pick up a few things for tonight’s dinner (fresh tagliatelle and homemade sauce), Jen and I break open the bottle of single malt I bought yesterday and we all watch Queer Eye before heading off to bed.
Jill is fighting a cold and sleeps in until 9 o’clock and we’re happy to just sit back and enjoy our coffee. By 10 though we’ve pulled ourselves together and we head off to Orphir, south of Stenness, on the road to Kirkwall. We visit again the Orkneyinga Saga Centre but skip the short film we had watched on our first trip, then walked to the Earl’s Bu, ruins of a Norse farmhouse and home to several of the earls who figure in the Orkneyinga Saga and finally to the Round Kirk of which only the apse remains.
We’re off then to Waulkmill Bay, this time properly shod in our new wellies. I’m sure that I saw a rock I’d seen two years before, coveted then but not taken because it was too big. Lynn and I aren’t quite as crazed by now but we all pick up a few to take back to the cottage. https://www.orkney.com/listings/waulkmill
A quick trip to Tesco to return some unneeded olive oil–there’s plenty on hand in our kitchen–and then we head home for lunch, our first BLTs.
We sit and knit for a bit but the weather is beautiful and here in Orkney, in May, one doesn’t waste warm, sunny, windless days so we head for the Ring of Brodgar. We can’t walk into the Ring! Victim of erosion damage, almost certainly caused by climate change, and perhaps too much tourism, the Ring is now cordoned off and we can only walk the exterior perimeter. We drive next to the Stones of Stenness and the neolithic Barnhouse village. https://www.orkneyjar.com/history/barnhouse
The Ring and the Standing Stones
We’ve never gone to the Unstan burial cairn so that’s next on our agenda. The cairn is located in a privately owned farm and we meet the owner. We crawl in and see the five burial chambers. There is a swallow-like bird etched on the lintel of one chamber. https://www.orkneyjar.com/history/tombs/unstan/index.html
Back home we have a delicious chicken soup that has slow-cooked all day, watch a Tiny House episode (though Jill is completely engrossed in her BTS K-pop videos) and make plans for a trip to Rousay.
Before I even begin to describe our third trip to Orkney a year ago, let me just say that here we are in month three of the Covid-19 era and I am pretending to write this as a day to day, contemporary account while our lives go on in semi-isolation, immersed in social distancing, sanitizers and masks. Strange it is to be describing our “normal” life, pre-virus, as if it were a pattern that would go on forever–at least as long as we are still able to travel without oxygen tanks, canes, and “Help me, I can’t get up!” buttons! Thank goodness Jen is still young and more than happy to be the driver. The rest of us have been deemed too old for car rental in the UK but despite that we are planning a fourth trip in May 2021, Covid permitting! Okay, so here’s our second day…
Button-Ben is quite a lovely B&B right near the water, the day is warm, the hosts are congenial and the breakfast is more than generous. I have oatmeal, toast and jam, smoked salmon and poached eggs on bannocks. There has been no email from Roncari’s and although I consider trying to pick up a cheap camera somewhere, it does occur to me that my Kindle might suffice though the camera is not a good one.
We are anxious to begin our day so with Jen at the helm of our Tepec we drive first to Fursbreck Pottery in Harray to visit with our potter friend Andrew Appleby. He tells us that he had planned to retire from his business but then discovered he would miss the shop. He’s been busy since we were last here writing a couple more volumes of his “Skara” as he describes them Neolithic noir novels. Jen and Jill buy new mugs in preparation for tomorrow’s breakfast. www.orkneypottery.co.uk
We still have several hours before we can move into our cottage so we head next to Kirkwall where we revisit all our favorite shops, purchase nearly identical wellies, and predictably end up at Judith Glue’s for lunch. From there we head to Tesco to stock up on all the food we will need the first few days and midafternoon we arrive at number 10 South End. This is the poshest yet! We each have our own en suite bedroom. The living room, on the second floor, is equipped with reclining leather couches and armchairs, though no basket of yarn and knitting needles! My bedroom has a wonderful sign saying: In the event of an emergency pull this dresser out and remove the panel behind it, then exit into the adjoining building–or words to that effect.
At Tesco we had bought a precooked chicken which Lynn and Jen turn into a delicious chicken salad. After dinner Jen, Lynn and I walked the entire length of the main street–South End, Alfred, Dundas, Victoria, and Ferry Rd–to buy milk at the Co-op. We rounded out our first cottage day with a couple games of Spite & Malice, a bit of knitting and a episode of Tiny House living before turning in for the night.
