Category: Orkney

The Brough of Birsay

Sat, May 6

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.

https://www.orkneyjar.com/history/earlspalace.htm

    

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.

https://www.orkneyjar.com/history/broughofbirsay/index.html

https://www.orkneyjar.com/history/broughofbirsay/norseperiod.htm

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.

  Photos from 2014

https://www.birsay.org.uk/baronymill.htm. This link, along with a good description and history of the mill, has several bere recipes. Go for it!

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

  

https://www.orkneyjar.com/history/standingstones/

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.

A Sunny Day in Kirkwall…Mostly

Fri, May 5

Miracle of miracles, it’s another beautiful warm, calm day. In the morning I work on my netzpatent hat while some of the others go for a walk out along the Ness Road.

Later in the morning Jill and I meet up with Lynn and Jen and we do a really complete check of all the Stromness shops starting with the consignment shop owned by the Cat Protection Society of Stromness

This fella owns this corner and poses for us

where we buy a roller suitcase for all the purchases we’ve been making. At the Quernstone both Jen and I find sweaters we love and, egging each other on, she buys two, I one. And again we check out, more completely this time, its sister gift and housewares store across the street. We also visit one of our favorite stores from the last trip, Cream, which has an excellent selection of local crafts and art.

I’m almost embarrassed to mention it but yes, again we go back to No. 18 for BLTs, which continue to provide us with the perfect lunch. It’s the wonderful Orkney bacon, the vine-ripened tomatoes (perhaps from Spain) and lettuce on really good local toasted bread. We are not tempted to try anything else!

Michael, whose cold has grown worse, elects to stay home and perhaps work on a sketch or two. We all head out to Kirkwall to continue this day of shopping. We walk the entire length of the main shopping district–as in Stromness the street changes name every block going from Victoria to Broad to Albert and ending as Bridge Street down by the harbor.

There’s jewelry at Ortak, yarns and fleece as well as art materials at For Arts Sake where Lynn and I buy North Ronaldsay fleece (from the seaweed-eating sheep) to spin. Ola Gorie’s striking jewelry (yes, I buy earrings), pottery, clothes and a secondhand shop in a cluster at The Longship.  Jill really scores with two beautiful pendants--one an Ola Gorie piece–at the secondhand shop next door to Judith Glue’s to which we repair to have cappuccino and cake. We ponder the runic rings and bracelets at Aurora and more jewelry at Sheila Fleet’s.

 

Along Albert Street

 Judith Glue’s shop and cafe

  

                                     Looking down Albert Street

Chimney pots everywhere

We spend time in St Magnus Cathedral. It’s a beautiful late Romanesque church, the oldest parts having been built in the late 12th century by medieval craftsmen trained during the building of Durham Cathedral in England. The story of Earl Magnus’s martyrdom at the hands of his violent and treacherous cousin Earl Haakon is recorded in all its bloody detail in The Orkneyinga Saga, a must-read if Norse tales and Icelandic sagas are among your favorites. It was Magnus’s nephew who had the church erected as a final resting place for his uncle’s remains. https://www.orkneyjar.com/history/stmagnus/magcath.htm

 

Façade of St Magnus and site of my blasphemous fall three years ago

Toward the rose window

  

   

Four of the banners currently hanging along both sides of the nave and depicting the St Magnus story

We pay a visit to the Orkney Museum in the Tankerness House. The museum seems larger, more inclusive of the islands’ history right up into the 20th century and better organized than in 2014

. 

And we learn that the gardens behind the house are a popular location for weddings and in fact we do see a wedding party nearby.

After buying food (good god, how much DO we eat!!) at Tesco we drive to Finston and the Peedie (small in the local vernacular) Chippie van by the Wide Firth and buy huge plates of fish and chips.

 

The Peedie Chippie for dinner–very popular!

Our Stromness harbor

 in the gloaming

Michael gets to eat leftovers; he doesn’t do fish or seafood, period. Afterwards there’s more Spite and Malice.

The Gods Are Not Exactly with Us!

Sun, May 6

Awake this morning to a much windier, greyer and colder Stromness. Michael’s cold is worse so he opts out of any planned trips. We start out with the idea that we should buy tickets to Maeshowe for later in the week, Tuesday perhaps, although we aren’t at all sure whether we really want to revisit this neolithic burial mound. Of course Jen needs to see it but we have pretty vivid memories of the place and the stories that accompany it.

https://www.orkneyjar.com/history/maeshowe/

Tickets are no longer sold on site–the old mill that housed a small museum and gift shop as well as ticket window has been closed– and we know there is no point going to the visitors’ centre near Stenness because tickets can only be purchased ahead of time online (and we don’t want to use credit cards if we don’t need to) or by chance just before a tour begins. This seems pretty crazy but there you are. Can’t argue with inflexible rules.

So off we go to Dounby where we hear there is a tag sale in the local school. We arrive there at 10:30 and are told it doesn’t open until noon. Well, we say, let’s go to Corrigall Farm: Ha! that doesn’t open until noon either.

Lynn and I had both bought beautiful painted silk scarves at a gallery not listed as part of the Crafts Trail back in 2014 so we decide to go see if we can find it again. We are quite sure it was just a mile or two up the road from Kirbister Farm. It’s not there anymore–or we have somehow gotten ourselves in the wrong place. There is nothing to do but return to #18 for a quick lunch and hope that the afternoon will prove more fruitful.

Back in Dounby at 2 o’clock we find that the tag sale is now over; there are just a few stragglers packing up their wares. Oh, says one, you should have come in at 10:30! Ahh…

It’s off to Corrigall again where our guide Sue takes us through all the buildings and we learn a lot more about peat and peat-burning.

https://independentstitch.typepad.com/the_independent_stitch/2013/10/orkney-corrigall-farm-museum.html

 In the barn

This cupboard is not so different from Skara Brae’s!

  

 Is this the better mousetrap?

 A double oil lamp with a reed wick

 

 Jen sits by the peat fire

It is obvious that indeed yes, Puss the beguiling cat, is no more. The place seems a bit empty without him.

We mention the rhubarb that is growing near the house and ask where we might find some growing wild. Sue picks us an armful and off we head to Kirkwall.

  

It’s time for cappuccinos and scones with clotted cream and jam at Judith Glue’s.

https://www.judithglue.com/pages/orkney-shop

They have no clotted cream today! We settle for whipped cream; it’s not the same. Cold and wind-whipped we decide to go home where we while away the rest of the afternoon knitting.

Pretty soon the delicious smell of tonight’s (Lynn’s) lamb stew which has been slow cooking all day in the crock pot draws us to the table for dinner. It’s the high point of this rather dismal day. More knitting and then we’re all off to an early bedtime.

 

 

 

The Broch of Gurness and Stones of Waulkmill

 

 

Thur, May 4

It’s grey this morning but the forecast optimistically promises: Becoming sunny and less windy. Good enough for us. We leave about 10 and as we drive up the only other way out of town–slightly less narrow than the main street–Michael sees Jean Leonard, the music teacher who gave him the score for a piece played at the Orkney Folk Festival three years ago. From this Michael composed his Orkney Song which he has played for us numerous times and which became our God Save the Queen or Marseillaise. He leaps from the car to go meet her and we pull to the curb to wait for him. We wait and wait….and wait. Forty-five minutes later we’re still waiting so we finally come to our senses and drive off! We figure he will manage quite well on his own.

By now the sky is blue and we’re off to Waulkmill Bay where Lynn and I had gone crazy picking up one beautiful stone after another three years ago and wishing we could ship entire crates back home. I think we are perhaps slightly less crazed this time though we do bring back a number of irresistible specimens.

 

  

These markings are almost runic

This one looks very Henry Moore, no?

We also find a seal skeleton and, where the tide has run out, numerous worm castings in the rippled sand.

          

Back at No. 18 we find Michael who is completely unperturbed that we had waited so long for him; he’s had a great time with Jean, has played his piece for her and is happy to have his own adventure.

BLTs finished we’re off to the Broch of Gurness. Brochs are found only in Scotland and generally near the sea; Orkney has about 100. They are large round towers, up to 65 or 70 feet in diameter with hollow walls about 15 feet thick with internal staircases and the whole structure could be 40 to 45 feet tall. They seem to be built for fortification (a Roman threat perhaps but there is no evidence of this purpose.) In fact, their use is still a mystery. Gurness is one that has quite  a village built around it, most of the site within surrounding ditches, a community as large as 30 families. The site was occupied from the iron age (1st, 2nd centuries) through the Pictish times (9th century perhaps) to the Norse era (10th and 11th centuries) and the houses, though of a later date than Skara Brae, are very similar.

 

An aerial view

There are more photos and information at this link:

https://www.orkneyjar.com/history/brochs/gurness/

And here is one of the very few examples of a Pictish home, shamrock-shaped with five “cells” surrounding a central room with a hearth. There is also the remains of a Norse longhouse.

Back in Stromness again I try to call Bob on Lynn’s phone, which has been set up (why didn’t I do the same?) for international calls, to wish him a happy birthday but he’s not in the house so I have to make do with leaving a message. Jen cooks our wonderful Dounby Butcher pork chops

which she serves with applesauce and a salad. Afterwards, yes, it’s more Spite and Malice.

 

 

                        The ferry alit in the harbor

                                   

 

 

Tomb of the Eagles & Incidentally an Orkney Chair

It has completely slipped my mind until now to tell you about Lynn and her chair. Three years ago we spent time looking at several studios making the traditional hooded Orkney chair because Lynn had her heart set on buying one. Ultimately she decided the chair and its shipping cost too much and said no but she knew she really loved the work of Jackie and Marlene Miller, owners of the Scapa Crafts Orkney Chairs workshop.  https://www.scapacrafts.co.uk/

A couple of days ago she nonchalantly said, “Let’s just stop in again and look at the chairs,” and this time she was ready! In minutes she was getting her bespoke chair designed just for her with hood and drawer, to be delivered late this coming autumn!

Three years ago we all tried out  the Millers’ chairs

Here’s one under construction

Wed, May 3rd

It’s a beautiful warm almost windless sunny day. Three years ago we had decided to skip the Tomb of the Eagles, mostly because when we got there the wind was howling, the spitting rain was close to becoming sleet and the mile-long walk to the site was unappealing. Today however is perfect so we head out to South Ronaldsay, the most southern Orkney island and reachable by car over the famous Churchill Barriers–impressive World War II defenses against the German U-boats.

In the visitors’ centre our guides Lily and Jo fill us in on a lot of interesting facts about the two privately owned sites here, one stone age, one bronze, and the people who built and used them. Then we walk out toward the cliff edge. There are some excellent photos if you follow this link:

https://www.tomboftheeagles.co.uk/

The bronze age site is small and to the untrained eye not particularly interesting but the chambered cairn further on, built five millenia ago,  is impressive. The tomb was used for about 800 years and contained the remains of some 340 bodies as well as the skeletons and talons of numerous sea eagles, possibly a totemic animal for the local population. Artifacts–bones, tools, pottery–can be seen at the museum in the visitors’ centre.

Michael emerges

Jen and Jill in the cairn

We eat lunch there and then drive to the Hoxa Tapestry Gallery; we particularly love Leila and daughter Jo Thomson’s large wall tapestries

and then continue on to village of St Margaret’s Hope where we are eager to revisit the Workshop and Loft Gallery, an artist cooperative which specializes in knitware and other Orcadian crafts. Both Lynn and I buy sweaters. Mine is from The Quernstone shop in Stromness and is half silk, half merino wool.  https://www.workshopandloftgallery.co.uk/

A bit of grocery shopping at Tesco, a quick trip to Dounby and Alison Moore’s gallery where Lynn and I pick up our moonstone rings and then it’s back to Stromness where Michael makes a delicious rice and black bean dinner served with a salad and for dessert, ice cream. Michael and Jen go for a walk, some of us knit and later there’s a game of Spite and Malice.

Skara Brae and Peat Fire Folktales

Tues, May 2

The sky is blue! Off we head to the Bay of Skaill for a bit of beach combing. The water near land is a bright turquoise, farther out a deep ultramarine blue. The gulls swoop and skim the water as we walk along the sand until we are just below the cliff where Skara Brae lies above us.There are some enticing rocks but none that compel me to carry them back to the car. I’m waiting for Waulkmill Bay for that.

 Bay of Skaill

After some debate we decide to go to Skara Brae as we are so close. We buy our tickets, then have tea and scones in the little restaurant before going through the museum then out to the neolithic village itself. While burial mounds and cairns, stone rings and henges are fairly common worldwide, there are very few instances of residences from five thousand years ago and this place, a world heritage site, is probably the best preserved and most extensive.There are eight “houses”  and two other spaces, workshops perhaps, linked by passages. Once these houses most likely would have been roofed over with skins or thatching. Because there was so little wood available on these islands after farming became the way of life, stone sites here in Orkney were preserved. At Skara Brae the structures were buried under dunes for more than forty centuries until a storm in 1850 uncovered them.

Remarkably the houses, constructed of unmortared stones, do not differ greatly from the two and three century old farm museums we have visited.  Stone cupboards, dressers, beds, water tanks and a central hearth are the common motif. It is believed this was a community of about 75 to 90 people. Although it has been removed now, the village was originally surrounded and cocooned within its own midden heaps, both to protect the villagers from the weather–that incessant wind!–and to hide them from any marauding bands of enemies. Skara Brae was inhabited for 600 to 1000 years!

https://www.orkneyjar.com/history/skarabrae/skarab2.htm

We leave the village and walk up to the nearby Skaill House, home of the Graham family since 1620. The seventh laird, William Graham Watt, discovered the ruins of Skara Brae after that storm of 1850 and undertook the first excavations.

Skaill House

We head back to Stromness, still exclaiming over all the tiny lambs and their mothers in every field we pass. I have forgotten to mention, but this trip, because we have arrived two weeks earlier, right after lambing, we see that many of the babies are sporting little biodegradable poly jackets which disappear after a couple of weeks but which keep the newborn lambs dry. There are no sheds or even protecting trees for the animals to shelter under.

We have our BLTs–will we ever tire of them–and I and (I think) Jill, spend the rest of the afternoon knitting. The others go for a walk up to Brinkie’s Brae.

Jen, Lynn and Michael

This is from the official Stromness website:

From the top of Brinkie’s Brae and along the western coastline there are spectacular vistas across to Graemsay and Hoy. It is quite unlike any other town in Orkney, partly because its geology is so unusual.

StromnessBrinkie’s Brae is formed from granite-schist, unlike the fine-grained sedimentary rocks of the surrounding area. This is one of the only places in Orkney where rocks like these, more characteristic of the western Highlands, are exposed.

View from Brinkie’s Brae

Jill and Jen make dinner: lamb chops from Dounby, steamed new potatoes in herbs and butter, salad and Orkney ice cream. After dinner we drive to the Orkney Folklore and Storytelling Centre where we hear Lynn O’Brien Barbour tell stories of selkies and finmen as she sits by a peat fire in her traditional Orkney chair . It’s another magical evening.

Lynn Barbour

Two guests from Sweden

https://www.orkneystorytelling.com/peatfire-tales/

We decide we will want to hear her again, next time at the Stromness Hotel in the Whisky Bar.

Shopping the Crafts Trail

The first thing to note is that my second and third posts were set up as pages, not posts, so their titles–Sea Hames and Kirbister Farm and Beltane at the Ring of Brodgar–don’t show up in the list of posts and I haven’t been able to figure out how to reinstate them correctly.

Ahh… We have an update here. Yesterday Joanie brought over Reine, a knowledgeable young friend who came originally from Benin and visited us with her husband Zeke, originally from Belize, and she solved my blogging problem SO EASILY!! So all my entries now are posts, not pages. Thank you, Reine!!

 

And she bought a hat!

Meanwhile Zeke helped (immensely!) Bob get the tractor going again.

Mon, May 1st

Jason arrives in the morning with replacement parts for the sewer connection. The problem is fixed quickly and we suspect that this has been an ongoing problem along the main street as road construction has obviously been going on for some time. The street is closed immediately beyond us on the final portion of the main street which turns from South End to Ness Road just past our cottage.

Jill, Jen, Lynn and I head out to visit all our favorite shops along the street, the Quernstone and its sister shop across the street where we look at sweaters, Sutherland Pharmacy and Lynn and I visit the Pier Art Centre which has a show of contemporary Orcadian artists and a small collection of 20th century work.

After lunch we head out to follow the Craft Trail. It’s quite cool and windy and I am glad I bought a good sweater at a consignment shop back in Kirkwall last Saturday. Tomorrow we will be more organized and really begin to visit the various archaeological sites. I make a stir fry for dinner and then Michael, Lynn and I play Spite and Malice all evening.

Sea Hames & Kirbister Farm

Sat, April 29th

We’re doing well. No hour-long deep sleep to awaken wondering what day it was, not like last time when we had to call the desk to ask. We know it’s Saturday and we’re ready to hit the road! We order the full Orkney breakfast minus the haigis, a mistake as it turns out to be really good and spicy, and black sausage. Still it’s a full plate of fried tomatoes, good Scottish bacon, eggs, toast, fruit and coffee. The car repacked we head to Dounby where we learn that there will be a performance today of something called Sea Hames and that it will happen at noon at the Corrigal Farm Museum. Not so, it will be at the other farm museum, in Kirbister, and then with trepidation we ask whether Puss the very friendly tuxedo cat who was sixteen when we met him is still alive. He is not. During the winter he had curled up in a favorite place one evening and simply gone to sleep. We are told that he has left many many offspring and that he can’t and therefore won’t be replaced.

. Puss in 2014

We drive north to Kirbister and revisit this wonderful example of a three hundred year old farm. Michael hadn’t been with us before and of course Jen hasn’t seen it. A peat fire is burning in the open hearth in the kitchen, the smoke more or less rising up to the lum. We meet Tom Muir author of The Mermaid Bride and Orkney Folk Tales.

 Tom Muir

   A kettle hangs above the peat fire

The wind has picked up and it is cold. At noon the performance begins–magical in its perfect setting. First the four musicians slowly emerge from one of the stone buildings followed by the four “horses” and a ninth figure, we’re not sure who he is meant to represent, The costumes are fantastic, the pace is slow, the music and singing seem both ancient and modern, the story is about two Clydesdales who jumped a fence in 1984 and danced on the beach at Billia Croo. This is from their website: Sea Hames – Dancing Horses:

Sea Hames is the latest outdoor performance project from leading site specific theatre company Oceanallover. Inspired by ‘The Festival of the Horse and Boys’ Ploughing Match’ this multi-disciplinary performance fuses sonic composition, compelling performance and intricate costume to explore the mythology and iconography of horse, plough and the sea.

…They stood up on their hind hooves and danced in the low mid-summer sun. This project begins with those two horses and the sea; about freedom and creativity, the persistence of memory, tradition and innovation, attention to detail and wild brush-strokes.
The rituals of horse, land and sea inspire the visual poetry of ‘Sea Hames’ and the choreography responds to sources of natural power and green spaces as a stimulus to frame the performances.

https://www.oceanallover.co.uk/Pages/Sea%20Hames.html

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Back in Dounby we stop at the Dounby Butcher and buy meat for a couple of meals and plenty of the delicious local bacon for our BLTs we have all been pining for and then visit Alison Moore’s studio. Lynn and I had each bought a set of her rings four years ago and now we decide we each need to add a moonstone ring to our sets.

 My rings before adding the moonstone

Our final stop before heading to our stone cottage is the Co-op where we buy all the necessities for several days. (We’ve set up our kitties: one for food, petrol and sites where we all want to go and one, mine and Michael’s, for wine and beer. Jen and Jill buy their own beer.) Jen makes her first foray up the main street with its five different names totally unfazed by the narrowness of this two-way street and we arrive at 18 South End.

.   Harbor view

We’re in for a bit of a surprise. Number 4 South End (2014) had a large but cozy living room and fireplace where we sat knitting every evening; #18 has a narrow enclosed porch with a view out onto the harbor. (Yes, we will come to appreciate that view!) The lower suite is indeed separate from the rest of the house as described but with no interior connection; this takes us aback. Jill and Jen agree to claim it as theirs. The large dining room in #4 is replaced by a larger eat-in kitchen which needs rearranging to accommodate the five of us. And worst of all an odor, more than faintly reminiscent of sewage, pervades the lower suite. Opening the windows helps…some, but now it’s cold and turning on the heaters just exacerbates the smell. A frantic email to Rosemary (the owner who lives in South Africa) ensues. After we’ve all calmed down some and chosen our rooms–Michael has the first floor en suite room, Lynn and I each has a bedroom on the second floor with our own bathroom–and we’ve stashed all our baggage and provisions, we do begin to be charmed by our cottage. The kitchen has everything one could ever want including a complete supply of spices and herbs, table settings for a dozen diners, pots, pans, griddles, mixing bowls; toaster, microwave, convection oven which ironically we will never use (the oven didn’t work in #4 probably because we had failed to switch on the electric socket it was plugged into!), coffee maker, dishwasher, washer, dryer and an impressive array of teas, instant coffees and various condiments. Jen makes Shepherd’s Pie for dinner. Thus ends our first real day in Stromness. More tomorrow including how Verizon managed to screw up my only communication back home to Bob!

Beltane & the Ring of Brodgar

Sun, April 30

Today begins grimly. I have no email whatsoever. Verizon has dropped my account without the notification that I was lead to believe I would receive before I could proceed to opt for either a new address or stay with my current Verizon address to be administered through AOL. Jill and Jen have had a most unpleasantly cold and smelly night so another email is sent off to Rosemary. Soon her plumber cum handyman Jason arrives, diagnoses the problem as a clogged pipe due to the street construction just outside our door, covers the shower drain in the lower bathroom and, as all the stores are closed, promises to return the next day with the necessary parts. A good breakfast puts us all in a better mood.

 A few views of our cottage

We spend the morning settling in and by the time we make our long-anticipated BLTs (Orkney bacon is to die for!) for lunch, the house is warm and cozy and the smell is gone; we are at last ready to begin our adventure.

In the afternoon Jill, Jen and I drive to the Tesco (supermarket) in Kirkwall to complete our shopping while Lynn stays home to learn how to knit netzpatent in the round (perhaps it is also called double brioche stitch??) with Michael.

Ever since we had set the dates for our stay in Stromness we have known that we would arrive in time for a Beltane ceremony at the Ring of Brodgar so just before 6 o’clock we head off for the Ring. Want to know more about Beltane, also called May Day or Walpurgis Night, see the link below.

https://www.goddessandgreenman.co.uk/beltane

This ceremony is meant to usher in the fertile, warm late spring season, halfway as it is between the spring equinox and the summer solstice,  but it is quite cold and so windy we expect to be blown at any moment straight off the hill and all the way to the Stones of Stenness. We number about three dozen brave souls! We lean into this frigid wind and try to hear what the priest and priestess are saying. Part of ceremony is to leap over a bonfire but we have to make do with a couple of candles in jars, which is probably a wise idea since a fire once started on this windy hilltop of dry heather would quickly rage out of control. Still, “leaping” between two jars with candles is a bit of a letdown!

We stand in a circle but there is no bonfire to leap over–or stay warm by!

 

The musicians with bodhran and a stringed instrument

Sounding the horn in the four cardinal directions

 

All share ale from a horn passed around

 And then we partake of the honey cake

https://www.spiritualorkney.co.uk/open-rituals/4576890763 will introduce you to the celebrants.

Back home and we warm up with Lynn’s delicious tomato and lentil soup and afterwards we all sit and knit.

Orkney Chapter Two!! We’re Off Again

The story of our second trip begins a month ago. There are five of us this time: in addition to the original Orkney travelers Lynn, Jill, Michael and I, we have added Jill’s daughter Jen. We’ve decided that along with knitting projects we will also try sketching and to that end we have all bought watercolors or watercolor pencils, notebooks and other paraphernalia and some of us have been trying to hone our skills. The 18 months of anticipation finally ends, we’ve all packed and repacked a dozen times in order to have the fewest but most useful clothes for the Orkney spring weather. We don’t want to check our bags so we won’t have to worry about lost luggage.

And we’re off…

 Lynn and I at the still barricaded Heath Rd bridge

27 April 2017

We’re on the road to Bradley Airport (Hartford/Springfield) about 2 o’clock, Jen’s husband Neil driving us down I-91. Our Aer Lingus flight is at 6 o’clock. Going through security is easy enough and we’ve left ourselves plenty of time. No one has said “Oh my God, I forgot…”

The plane is full, cramped and for those of us who didn’t bring our own earphones (me, for example) the movies are all unintelligible. Dinner is adequate–a choice of cheese pasta or beef stew–but the free glass of wine has become a luxury of the past for us Economy Class folks. Luckily I have my Kindle which keeps me entertained, mostly. At the Dublin airport we have to slog our luggage miles and miles, up and down stairs, with no time to buy drinks or food.

Flight number two to Edinburgh is aboard a creaky old plane with a flight attendant who must be Mr Bean‘s brother, a twin perhaps? We are invited to purchase snacks and drinks which look like they have circulated through the cabin far too many times. We don’t take him up on the offer. Another interminable trek up and down and through the Edinburgh airport to our waiting Flybe plane–even smaller–to Kirkwall, Orkney. At last we arrive and the very pleasant and knowledgeable car hire man is waiting for us. We get our beautiful Citroen Picasso stick shift and Jen takes to the car like a duck to water and is instantly expert navigating the narrow roads and streets of Kirkwall. (Jill is delighted to relinquish her role as driver!)

 At the car hire

We check into the Kirkwall Hotel right down by the harbor and while Michael and Jill take naps (we’ve been up for about 36 hours) Jen, Lynn and I decide to drive out to Stromness, see our cottage which will be ready for us tomorrow,

 Our first visit to No. 18 South End

and make a quick visit to the Ring of Brodgar.

The weather is as predicted (turns out it’s about the same back home) cool, grey and windy. We stop and buy beremeal biscuits, various cheeses and a couple Orkney beers. (Beremeal, if you don’t remember, is an ancient type of barley grown on Orkney. We plan to revisit the Barony Mill which still grinds this delicious grain.)

After we’ve eaten–no one is very hungry–we play several games of Spite and Malice before retiring to bed about 9:30. Jill and Jen share one room, Michael, Lynn and I the other.