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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
We go back to the cottage and Jill and Jen go beach combing above the cemetery in Warbeth. Jen finds a few cowries. Michael plaits Lynn’s hair into an obsessively detailed fishtail braid
and then he makes his “cozy chicken,” a dish he cooked for us three years ago. I have taken a good slug of cough medicine and am really sleepy.
After dinner Jill and Jen head downstairs and I wish I could say the rest of us had a wonderful evening. We didn’t…
The day begins raw and grey and there are white caps out on Hamnavoe harbor and although the forecast promises us temperatures in the upper 50s by noon, we have the heat on. I sketch a harborside scene while drinking a couple mugs of very good coffee (the only thing Rosemary has failed to provide us with is a frother, a recently acquired indulgence of mine!)
Mid morning we head up to Birsay. Here is the island as seen from Mainland Orkney, just across the Birsay Bay.
Having checked the tidal schedule we know low tide is at 12:40 so we plan to arrive there about 11:30. By then the water will be low enough for us to cross the causeway over to the island. In Birsay we stop for coffee and hot chocolate in the little store there and check out some of the local crafts the owner carries.. We then wander around the ruins of the Earl’s Palace built in the 1570s by Robert Stewart, a thoroughly unpleasant and imperious earl of Orkney and half-brother of Mary Queen of Scots.
It must once have been quite an impressive Renaissance palace–and given his propensity for violence–fortress.
From 2014, the causeway still under some water and the eddy that forms as the tide runs out
Jill standing on the Point o’ Buckquoy before walking over to the Brough o’ Birsay
And then a minor miracle–the sun appears, the wind calms and we all immediately feel restored. The causeway is totally open and we walk across to the Norse settlement.
A walk up the hill brings us to the lighthouse and we sit for a while looking out at the sea. From here you can see all the way to Hoy, the southern-most island.
Back on the mainland we find a sheltered place to eat our lunch which unfortunately is minus the cheese we forgot to pack. Beats a blank, well, just! Crackers and pickles, Hmm…..
At least we remembered to bring the beer!
We walk along the cliff side toward a geo (a deep cleft in the face of a cliff) but stop short to sit in the sun by this beautiful inlet.
After we leave Birsay we drive by the Barony Mill where, three years ago, we had learned all about bere and the mechanics of a water-powered grist mill . It introduced us to this wonderful ancient grain and the owner was enthusiastic and proud of this 19th century mill. Now we decide to stop there although it looks closed, as it has both previous times we have driven past. Indeed there is a sign on the door saying the mill is closed.
We also discover, after we have stopped at the Birsay Antiques Centre, new since 2014, that the mill owner is very ill. He doesn’t go into details but it has something to do with his back or spine.
On the way home we stop in at the butcher and buy lamb and chicken and for dinner I cook a curry-ish chicken dish with rice. Later we all, except Michael, head to the Stones of Stenness
and Barnhouse Village. Although Jill and Lynn have a vague memory of the village there, I have no memory of it at all although it is just a short walk away from the standing stones. We climb the stile and walk down the lane to this neolithic site. https://www.orkneyjar.com/history/barnhouse/
Back at #18 we have Orkney ice cream and watch a bit of TV, a program showing evidence of mammoths living once in Shropshire, and play a hand or two of Spite and Malice.
For weeks I have been pleading with Michael to send me some of his many, many excellent photos from Orkney and lo and behold this morning I was rewarded! Some of these are just plain better shots than those Lynn or I took. (Jill as driver didn’t get a lot of time to take pictures.) Others show a location, an event, a piece of Orcadian life from a slightly different perspective. I was going to try to insert them into the earlier posts at their appropriate places but who has that much time? Really? So instead I will put them here with labels and if you haven’t previously read some or all of the posts, here’s your opportunity to visit…or revisit…the sites.
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Above are some scenes from Stromness–a vivid blue door and a periwinkle one–Michael and a curious puss, Michael and Lynn and a couple of seascapes. I’m not sure where the bas relief plaque was.
Boats in the Stromness harbor…and one that has been beached behind a house. We all took pictures of the turquoise hull, Michael’s I think is best. Quilters, take notice. Wouldn’t some of these brightly painted boats be wonderful subjects for piecing?
We certainly did a lot of knitting and if Michael had had his way we would have spent even more time at the cottage knitting! Many an afternoon around 3 o’clock he would wistfully say “We could go back to the cottage now and knit.” But we were unmoved by his pleas. No, we’d say. “We can knit later. There are too many sights to be seen!”
The real Jill having her excellent cuppa’ This picture more than any captures an elusive part of Jill’s psyche.
We did a lot of toasting–every meal provided an opportunity
The site of the infamous “Sunday morning ‘J…F…C..!’ fallen ice cream cone” scene in front of St Magnus Cathedral and across the street from Judith Glue’s
These three shots are at the Earl’s Palace in Kirkwall, right across the side street from St Magnus. Check out that beautiful stone spiral staircase
Finding the perfect cabbage at Tesco’s
From time to time Michael passed his camera to one of us to capture the essence of Michaelness–a long-distance, by proxy, selfie I guess you could say. The last is best; he looks about 14–and I have to say, endearingly cute!
Scenes too beautiful to miss. The middle one is from the entrance to the Cuween Hill cairn…and look at the light of the setting sun on those stone walls
These too were taken on Cuween Hill (remember…where Michael sang an aria). Jill coming out was one of our favorites!
Thank goodness Michael got the photo of the Dounby butcher with her award-winner’s plaque
Jill enjoys a contemplative moment by the cairn on the beach
Some of the inventory at the Harray Potter studio
A Kirkwall barrister returns from lunch or is he perhaps making a plea bargain deal ?
And finally the perfect shot of the gulls who came to grab the lamb chop remains
. . . . .
For those who perhaps wondered if I ever conquered netzpatent, if I…and even more, Michael…had had the patience to stick with it, here’s the proof. Jill made the excellent suggestion to finish up with something different so the scarf wouldn’t end abruptly with a blunt edge. Skeptical as I was, I added several rows of garter, then some stockinette, then doubled the number of stitches. It looked great so I picked up the stitches at the beginning and repeated, more or less, the same ruffled pattern I had created.
Today I suggested that we all begin to plan our 2016 trip to the Shetland Islands!
I just downloaded? uploaded? what is the difference? all of Lynn’s photos from our Orkney adventure. Many of them I will be putting into the earlier posts in their appropriate spots but because I’m seeing the trip again from a slightly different perspective, I think I will mainly fill this post with a few of her shots. Here are some faces I hadn’t captured, or captured as well, during the Orkney Folk Festival.
Whilst Michael, Lynn and I played Spite & Malice in the hotel in Aberdeen, our veddy English Jill read up on the latest news of the Royals.
I didn’t tell Michael’s story earlier so I’ll put it in here….While we were checking out the dining room Michael was looking for the best place to play cards in the public sitting room. He settled on the table shown above but thought it polite to ask the young woman there if it was okay for us to use it. “Yes”, she said, “but I’ll be hovering.” “Oh, that’s fine,” says Michael, rising slightly up on his toes, “we’ll be hovering too” and then saw that in fact she had a vacuum and was about to do the hoovering. (Another of our favourite Englishisms!)
Here are more photos of more animals. We NEVER tired of watching, exclaiming over and photographing them.
Oystercatchers everywhere
Crossing the road
This little fellow greeted us in Kirkwall
Shearing Day we think might have been the reason everyone was in a small paddock near the barn.
And finally for tonight, for those who perhaps share a wee bit Lynn’s and my mania for the Waulkmill stones, a rich vein of rock ensues:
This was one of my favourites too, but way too big to carry back
I am still waiting for Michael’s photographs….tap, tap, tap goes my foot–but here’s one he sent me today of the North Ronaldsay pelt he brought home with his two latest projects.
“Set off on a North Ronaldsay pelt: ladle, a tiny soup tasting ladle carved from basswood (Tilia tomentosa) and a bolo tie made of waxed linen and several hundred tail hairs from one of my horses” he says……………….
Wed, May 28 We’re off this morning to one of the farm museums on Mainland, Corrigall, about a mile and a half east of Dounby. Corrigall is a traditional Orcadian longhouse built on a very ancient site…there is an Iron Age broch near by and evidence of neolithic settlement my guide book says. From Norse times until quite recently the people of these islands lived in stone longhouses roofed with thatch or sod very similar to this one.Today many of these houses are falling into ruins–the very ones we’ve been imagining we might buy and renovate and which our friends Liz and John have done on Papa Westray. Many others have been redone as more up-to-date homes. Here are some we’ve seen. Some are real handyman specials, others have been beautifully restored and moderised. The blue house is the only house we saw with any color…
And here is the farm museum of Corrigall…
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Traditionally the animals lived at one end, the people at the other, they shared the doorway. The higher end where the people lived was divided into two sections, the but was nearest the door and served as the sleeping area and kitchen and as a spot for weak, young or ailing animals. This part of the house was divided by the fire back, a large stone against which the fire burned. Smoke from the peat fire escaped through a hole in the roof called the lum. Whatever light came into the house came in through the lum. Only the well-to-do had windows. The ben at the far end of the house was the private bedroom for the farmer and his wife. Below is a counter with storage beneath and a detail of the roof–slabs of stones on which sod grows.
Virtually everything built in the house is stone: cupboards, shelves, even the beds until a couple of hundred years ago were the same neuk beds set into the thick walls as in neolithic settlement houses like Skara Brae.Again, only the wealthy could afford to import wood. In the byre at the other end of the longhouse stalls for the family’s cows or horses were sectioned off using flat slabs of stone. Whatever animals the family could afford were stabled indoors all winter. Having experienced the winds of May we can imagine all too well what the winds of January and February must be like! Corrigall has been restored a great deal and there is a fair amount of wooden furniture and windows. The first picture below shows the ben where the husband and wife slept in the enclosed bed and where the local parson might have been invited to sit and take his tea–with the doors of the “bedroom” discreetly closed of course. .
The byre and its stalls and the drainage trough that flowed to the piggery Our guide is excellent. He talks pretty much non-stop for over an hour, explaining farm and family life, peat cutting, stacking and curing, animal husbandry, grain milling. He demonstrates threshing and explains the basis of the word threshold (a step up at the door which allowed the chaff to blow away but retain the grain) At the far end there is an oast or kiln where the barley was dried before milling. The fire would have been built at the bottom (left) and the grain spread across a stone plate above the fire after threshing. He speaks with a lovely Orcadian accent and I videotape him several times so I will have his voice as a memory.
We were greeted by Puss, a very friendly 16 year old black and white cat who rolled over demanding to be petted. In the first photo Puss is sitting on the wall of the piggery which was directly outside the byre.
Puss, the Corrigall hostess
Our guide also shows us a very cleverly made mouse trap…it is clear that it would work very quickly and effectively!…and an oil lamp which uses the core of a sedge-like grass (junctus?) as a wick.
From Corrigall we head down to Houton which our guide has told us is the town where one books passage on the ferry that goes to Hoy. We only have a couple of days remaining and want to see the high hills, a closer look at the Churchill Barriers, the Dwarvie Stane (Dwarf”s Stone), the stack on the western coast–“The Old Man of Hoy”–and perhaps the Martello Tower from the early 19th c. Jill goes into the ticket office to book our ride and is told to hurry, there is just one space left for our car at 8 o’clock Friday morning. She comes back out to check with us–yes! yes! we say–and get money from the “kitty” but when she goes back two minutes later she is told “Sorry, there is no more space.” We are very, very disappointed…and a bit angry as the woman in the office clearly knew we would be buying the ticket. So we begin to head back toward Stromness when we happen upon a beautiful inlet called Waulkmill Bay.
We park the car and walk down to the beach and there we find the most amazingly beautiful stones I have ever seen. Lynn and I are completely mesmerized. The ones I love seem to me to resemble contemporary Japanese-inspired ceramic art. Lynn takes 35 photos and picks out a few to bring back. I find several irreplaceable ones which are heavy but cannot be left behind!
How could someone leave this stone behind? Here with my new Allison Moore stacked rings
A kind of madness has gripped us. We want to fill a container, load it on a container ship and bring them back, tons of them! Michael and Jill look at us with a degree of disbelief and pity, perhaps, though they do admit the stones are special.
And another with my Mark Lattanzi ring from western Massachusetts
This was one of my favourites too but way to large to carry back
Finally we are unwillingly pried away from the stones and once back in our cottage we eat Lynn’s excellent Guinness Beef Stew
Guinness Beef Stew
3 1/2 lb chuck roast seasoned with salt & pepper
1 onion and
3 stalks of leeks, chopped fine and browned in
2 Tbl olive oil and salt
1 tsp tomato paste
2-4 cloves garlic, crushed
Brown and sprinkle with
1/4 c flour to make a roux
Add 3 c chicken broth
1/2 c Guinness or any dark, flavorful beer
1 1/2 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp fresh thyme
Add the beef and bake in a 325 oven at least 2 1/2 hrs. (We had to simmer it on the stove as the oven has not been repaired.)
Add carrots, potatoes, celery or any vegetable that appeals
Add 3/4 c Guinness (Ahh, knew there had to be more beer)
2 Tbl Italian parsley and the
juice of one lemonSalt & pepper if neededServed with Lindemann’s Carbarnet /Shiraz…..So good!
Michael makes his own very credible version of the juncus core lamp we saw earlier today. The perfect stone of course came from Waulkmill Bay…
After dinner we played a couple of hands of Spite & Malice and although first I am way ahead and then Lynn is, Michael wins each time…and we knitted and I again tried to stay focused and not screw up the netzpatent. Finally in desperation Michael has me try it with just four stitches (and two of them were end stitches to boot.) Clearly this is doomed to failure, and once again we are in hysterics. Thus ends our antepenultimate day…
We learn that the owners of our cottage, Rosemary and her husband live in South Africa. This is a real surprise as we have been thinking that they live on Mainland, probably in Stromness. Rosemary has sent an email (by the way I now get email in the cottage with no difficulty. Such are the vagaries of this digital era) saying that Lynn may take one of the many conglomerate stones that are placed around the courtyard. She tells us that she and her husband usually stop at one particular beach in Scotland on their way north and these rocks have come from there.
Michael had forgotten his camera the day we went to SkaraBrae, so this morning we head back there so that he can surreptitiously get some shots. The rest of us go into the gift shop and Jill falls in love with a bracelet and we convince her that it is okay for her to buy something for herself, though she reminds us that she has indeed bought things for herself already. She loves it, does buy it and we congratulate her. The local craftspeople should love us!
Today we are prepared with tide information so now we drive up to Birsay again. The tide is still high and about half the causeway is still under water. We watch seals swim back and forth over the roadway.
The only seal I managed to photograph
We are the first to walk out onto the road to the brough and the ruins of the Norse settlement there. I walk across when there is still about eight inches covering the causeway and catch this photo of a small whirlpool caused by a hole which allows water to flow out toward the sea.
Eddy along the side of the causeway
Settlements on the brough began as early as Pictish times (6th c) when a small monastic community lived here, built a chapel with a graveyard and a few homes but the ruins seen here today are Norse, the older settlement being buried under it. A Pictish monument was found, in pieces, and a replica made from it while the original bits are in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
Replica of a Pictish monument stone, Lynn peeking around it
Remains of the 12th c church in this Norse settlement
Looking back toward the headland and causeway. The ruins of the bishop’s palace are in the background.
Although current weight of opinion is that Earl Thorfinn–for you Orkneyinga Saga readers–had his seat on Mainland, there are those who believe this was his base. In any case, it was a large and thriving and important Norse community.
We happen upon this nest made of smooth flat pebbles–the parents are shrieking overhead and trying to lure us away–nestled next to one of the walls. Several people have now walked their dogs over the causeway and have unleashed them, much to our dismay. We are still wondering if these eggs will survive to hatch.
We climb a stile, open a gate and walk up the hill toward the lighthouse. The view back to Mainland is spectacular, all the way to Hoy.
We sit for quite a while first on one cliff then another watching the birds and the waves. It’s a beautiful day.
Lighthouse on the Brough of Birsay
Back in our car we eat our BLTs this time enhanced with field sorrel we have picked on our walk.
Another stop in Dounby for the delicious coffee. We ask our waitress, who grew up not far from where Jill spent her childhood in north England, what she thinks of Orkney. She has come here because her father “came here to die” which really seems to mean he has retired here. She says there is nothing to do on Mainland but she will stay because she really can’t imagine any other options. She has no concept of the world and is amazed to hear there are other time zones. At the Dounby Butcher we buy beef for the upcoming Guinness Beef Stew and more of the lamb chops, this time the really thick ones. The young woman who waits on us throws in the fifth and last one for free!
In Kirkwall we pick up another ring (rings, not earrings, seem to be a theme of this trip and certainly unusual for Lynn and me who are earring junkies) that Jill has ordered to her size. Let’s see, I’ve bought two, Lynn two and Jill one!
Back in Stromness I go back to Harray Potter to buy a knife for Bob, hand forged with a horn handle. Neither Andrew (the Harray Potter) nor George (I think her actual name was Georgina) is willing to tell us where it was made, but not in the Orkney islands we gather. Scotland? Though there was also talk of France.
Dinner tonight is fish, this time we skip the chips, while Michael eats up the rest of the vodka linguine. Knitting and a movie, Holiday with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz, round out the day.
Jill standing on the Point o’ Buckquoy before walking over to the Brough o’ Birsay
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