Category: Maes Howe

Mon, May 26

Now that we’ve been in our cozy cottage through two weekends and explored so many of the Mainland byways we are feeling both very settled in, almost native Orcadian, and at the same time there is a touch of wistfulness, a hint of premature nostalgia. Journeys once they have dipped past the midpoint tumble down to their conclusion. We are checking our guidebooks more making sure we find the places we have missed so far.

And so today, suited again in our waterproof pants and our matching Slogger rubber shoes and with headlamps, we set out for Cuween Hill and its chambered cairn. Like the Tomb of the Eagles, which we decided last week not to visit, Cuween Hill’s cairn offered up what is surmised to be totemic animal remains, in this case 24 dog skulls, along with human remains and other animal bones. It is 4500 years old.

We are alone when we park and walk up the slope to the mound. The “torch” (flashlight for you non-Brits) has been left on no doubt and the battery is dead. We slither through a very tight entrance with at least two of us wearing our headlamps which though bright do not really illuminate the space well and the chamber is small, only large enough for the four of us sitting there. We can see the four cells off the chamber and we poke our heads into them. If there are any Norse graffiti runes here we can’t see them.

Again…this stone construction is 4500 years old, and being in here with no guide, no other tourists, the sense of history, of prehistory is very strong. One wonders what sorts of ritual, what acts were performed here and by whom. Priests or priestesses? This is just one of over 76 discovered chambered cairns scattered across the Orkney islands  Like children, however, we make silly sounds to check the resonance and Michael even sings an aria, which opera?, but the sound is muffled. This is a tomb.

Back outside Jill finds rhubarb growing wild and picks some. We’ll have rhubarb and apple compote later.

We head further east, and as usual we still comment on every adorable lamb and its mother, every calf with his mom and point out every abandoned farmstead and discuss buying, renovating and how we would live there for weeks or months at a time.

   

We ask Jill to stop so we can photograph another wonder but she generally says, with a stern glare but a sly smile, “No! You haven’t given me three minutes warning!” and then, once in a while, if she can, she stops. We also pull over to pick the more enticing bits of wool off the barbed wire that is used to fence off most of the fields.

The roads are mostly single lane with lay-bys for encountering oncoming cars and lorries. Farming is a big business here but as far as we can tell, it’s just livestock. We don’t see much except the occasional kitchen garden in the way of vegetables being grown. And the wool, unless it is from one of the special breeds, North Ronaldsay is one, is all sent to a wool pool.

We head out to the peninsula and the brough of Deerness where we have read that many varieties of seabirds can be found. We find seagulls, not even the ubiquitous oystercatcher shows up and we seem to have missed reading about the remains of a small Celtic or Pictish chapel there so we don’t look for it! We don’t see any seals either.

 

Heading back toward Kirkwall we try to find an iron age site, Mine Howe, with its 29 treacherous steps leading down into the subterranean chamber. We can’t find it. We drive the stretch of road three times, we ask directions…nothing. Besides being a place where considerable amount of metal work was done–there are kilns set into the interior–it was also a place of burial. We give up and later back in Kirkwall at the Orkney Museum we learn that the site is not always open which may explain the lack of signs. Jill buys the book on Mine Howe and we will have to make do with that.

We have excellent coffee and cake again at Judith Glue’s (and note the sign outside that says “Real” Food which we suspect is a slight poke at The Reel just across the street.

Michael buys the final ingredients for his specialty tonight. We force him to modify the recipe by using the linguine we already have instead of buying the correct penne!

Linguine/Penne with Vodka Sauce

1/4 c olive oil

10 cloves garlic, crushed

salt

35 oz crushed plum tomatoes (or fresh)

crushed hot red pepper

1/2 c heavy cream

2 Tbl butter

1/4 c vodka

1 lb pasta

Process tomatoes to aerate. Heat the oil, add the garlic to brown. Carefully add the tomatoes and simmer about 3 minutes.

Add salt and red pepper, vodka, the cream and butter (olive oil can be substituted)

Add the al dente pasta to the sauce and bring back to a boil.

Add 2 to 3 Tbl Italian parsley and 3/4 c grated Parmesan. Stir together

Serve with a salad…and here’s Lynn’s dressing

1 1/2 lemons, juiced

1 tsp hot Colman’s mustard

Salt, pepper, olive oil, chopped parsley. (Anchovies should be added but in deference to Michael we leave these out!)

It is delicious!!! We have Hereford Red, a tempranillo/malbec with it and then watch Death at a Funeral.