Orkney – Page 4 – Moonshine Mohair at Keldaby Farm

Michael Comes Through

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.

bright blue door Stromness seascape e night falls

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!

Meanwhile back at Keldaby

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

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 to large to carry back — 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……………….

And so we come to the end…

Fri, May 29 It’s our last day in Orkney and I am trying really hard to stay cheerful. Tomorrow morning we will have to be up at 5, eat breakfast, wedge everything into our car–and our baggage has grown larger, we know because we’ve been practicing fitting everything into our luggage–and hit the road at 6 so we don’t miss our ferry. Michael is feeling a bit under the weather and we three leave him at the cottage and head off to the other farm museum at Kirbuster, not far from Birsay. We make a couple wrong turns, one which goes to Kirbister on the west coast, so we get to see some unexplored places and finally find the museum. Kirbuster turns out to be very interesting for a number of reasons. It is the only remaining farm in northern Europe with an open hearth with its fireback in the middle of the main room, the smoke escaping through the lum in the roof. In the photos below you can see the light coming in through the skylin. The smoke is directed out by the moveable wooden lum depending on wind direction. A peat fire has been laid and there is a group of visiting photography students (from Maine, we hear) who have set up their tripods and cameras. Kirbuster was built or refurbished in the early 18th c by a family of means. It was built with windows and from the beginning the animals were housed in separate buildings. In fact this house was lived in until 1961 and the newer parts are quite commodious in a very old-fashioned way. (I can remember visiting aged relatives in Orleans Co in upstate New York whose homes looked quite a bit like this.) The guide here, however, is definitely not the hands-on sort like our guide at Corrigall. He stays in his little building and sells Orkney ice cream (one more opportunity to indulge!).

The gardens are truly lovely with several ways in…a whalebone gate, an iron gate and a cut in the stone wall. From every angle the gardens are gorgeously in bloom. Lots of bluebells of Scotland.

On a whim we stop at an art gallery just up the road. Jill is good and practises restraint but Lynn and I, as usual, each buy a dyed silk scarf…mine is actually a shawl but will become a wall hanging at home. It is in brooding grays and although it is in no way representational, it reminds me of the Ring of Brodgar. Lynn’s is more a sunset over heathered hills.

As we will be driving through Dounby a final time we decide to stop in for a late lunch and that wonderful coffee. Back in Stromness I take my camera and Lynn and I videotape the walk down South End, Alfred, Dundas and Victoria Streets a final time and then it’s time to get creative with the bits and pieces left to make a dinner from.

All the quantities and ingredients used were dictated by the remnants of our several grocery shopping sprees. Unfortunately there was no final bottle of wine!

The Rovers’ Farewell Frittata

Saute 1 onion, chopped

1 whole head of garlic, crushed

2 small sweet peppers, chopped

Beat together 3 eggs and

1/2 container of plain yogurt and

pour over well-cooked vegetables.

When eggs have set add

3/4 c shredded Parmesan and

2 Tbl chopped cilantro

Simple and very tasty!

While we watch Pretty Woman with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, Michael who has seen it “dozens of times” takes a walk out Ness Road and back up past the golf links and reports back that it is a glorious walk that we have missed. It will have to wait for another trip! The next morning we bid farewell to our wonderful cottage and the amazing two weeks we have spent here. On the ferry back to mainland Scotland we play a last couple of hands of Spite & Malice,

drive to Aberdeen,

divest ourselves of our trusty Ford Focus

catch our plane to Heathrow and the next to Logan Airport (Boston), find Lynn’s car with no problem and arrive back in Colrain, Shelburne and Leyden in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

And So We Come to the End

The gardens are truly lovely with several ways in…a whalebone gate, an iron gate and a cut in the stone wall. From every angle the gardens are gorgeously in bloom. Lots of bluebells of Scotland.

All the quantities and ingredients used were dictated by the remnants of our several grocery shopping sprees. Unfortunately there was no final bottle of wine!

The Rovers’ Farewell Frittata

Saute 1 onion, chopped

1 whole head of garlic, crushed

2 small sweet peppers, chopped

Beat together 3 eggs and

1/2 container of plain yogurt and

pour over well-cooked vegetables.

When eggs have set add

3/4 c shredded Parmesan and

2 Tbl chopped cilantro

Simple and very tasty!

drive to Aberdeen,

divest ourselves of our trusty Ford Focus

catch our plane to Heathrow and the next to Logan Airport (Boston), find Lynn’s car with no problem and arrive back in Colrain, Shelburne and Leyden in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

Warbeth in the Sun

Thur, May 29 Well, here we find ourselves on our penultimate day and at last a sunny warm one. For the first time we take the Outertown Road to Warbeth just north up the coast.. We park near the water and several cemeteries and walk along the beaches. Here we are in our Moonshine Design mohair socks–and not for the first time to be sure! .

In the distance we can just see the ruins of the palace built by the last bishop of Orkney at Breckness and right on the beach we come across a beautifully constructed cairn (modern). Here we sit for some time watching the birds and boats and soaking in the sun. The views out toward the cliffs of Hoy are spectacular.

We walk back to the cemetery (or cemeteries?) and I and a Glaswegian couple with the help of a groundskeeper who had attended the funeral spend quite some time trying to find the gravestone for the author Geogre Mackay Brown. We expect something larger and more showy so it takes a while for us to start focusing on the smaller stones. Success at last. I love the quote on it: Carve the runes then be content with silence

I suggest that we pay a final visit to the Ring of Brodgar and on the way, in Stromness we go to Julia’s, a cafe that has been recommended to us. The cappucino is excellent as are the pastries. Michael makes a quick trip to the Harray Potter to try to discover more about the knife maker or his knives but no further light in shed on their provenance .

The Ring is far less forbidding in the sun and of course the warmth has brought out a swarm of tourists. We try to keep the mystery but it’s a bit difficult with people off a couple of tour buses everywhere shooting pictures. I preferred the brooding and dark, cold day with scudding clouds. Not far outside the Ring we notice very distinct mounds which turn out on inspection to be a couple of rabbit warrens–shades of Watership Down! The bunnies scamper about but I never seem to have my camera ready at the right time.

From Brodgar we head once again into Kirkwall. and finally visit the Earl’s Palace and the Bishop’s Palace next door…and just across the street from the cathedral. The Earl’s Palace, begun in 1601 by Earl Patrick Stewart, was to be the Renaissance showpiece of Orkney and all Scotland but Patrick was a shady character (he didn’t pay for the sandstone brought in from the island of Eday, for example, and the builders were to all intents and purposes enslaved and unpaid as well. Within five years Patrick was deep in debt and nine years after, both he and his son were executed for treason. The palace complex was joined with the older Bishop’s residence and today is still a most imposing set of buildings.

We next pick up Lynn’s new ring from Alison Moore and around the corner Lynn and I each buy a small model of an Orkney chair. It’s an impulse buy and we both have slight buyer’s remorse though now I am happy I did buy it. It brings back many memories.

Back in Stromness I make dinner trying to use up as much as I can of the remaining food, all built around the wonderfully thick Dounby Butcher’s lamb chops:

Cynthia’s Last Supper

Prepare rice using chicken broth in place of half the water

Add cardamom pods, raisins and the remaining salad dressing Lynn had made

Chop and saute on large griddle

3 small sweet peppers

1 large onion

6 oz mushrooms

1/2 head of garlic

6 to 8 oz frozen lima beans

Push vegetables to the side and grill

5 lamb chops until they are just barely done…so tender!

There is no wine left so Michael makes himself and me a vodka plus sweet syrup in soda water drink.

We watch the sailboats out on Scapa Bay and Jill puts the bones from the lamb chops out on the back deck. Instantly a dozen gulls swoop in and we race to get our cameras. We try to entice them back using soggy water biscuits but they are not impressed. At least we have gotten a few photos.

Corrigall to Waulkmill Bay

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…

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.

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

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 lemon Salt & pepper if needed Served 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…

Jill can't stop laughing — Jill can’t stop laughing

Brough of Birsay

Tues, May 27

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 Skara Brae, 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.

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 Norse monument stone,,,original is in Orkney Museum — Replica of a Pictish monument stone, Lynn peeking around it

Remains of a Norse settlement — 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.

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.

The Rovers Head East

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.

Cuween Hill...entrance to the cairn — Cuween Hill…entrance to the cairn

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.

The Gloup...or is it a geo, pronounced gew? — The Gloup…or is it a geo, pronounced gew?

DSCN3699

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.

The Stones at Last!

Thur, May 22

We wake this morning to bright sun, a milder temperature and we’re in great spirits. Today we are going to visit two of the three most important west Mainland neolithic sites, the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar, and reserve a place for ourselves tomorrow at the third, Maes Howe. The two stone circles occupy important sites on the narrow neck of land that separates the salty Loch of Stenness and the freshwater Loch of Harray, lakes that account for a large area of central Mainland.

Off we go, first to the Stones of Stenness, probably the oldest of the many archaeological sites on the Brodgar peninsula, having been carbon-dated to about 3100 BCE. It was built as a henge, which is to say, a level, circular platform surrounded by a ditch with an external bank. The henge here was more than six feet deep and about 22 feet wide. It was later that holes were dug for the placement of 12 standing stones, the largest being 18 feet high. Only four stones remain upright today.

The weather in the meantime has made a most remarkable reversal; it is now much colder, the lowering sky promises rain–or sleet maybe?–the wind is biting. But these massive stones with their angled tops convey such a foreboding, mysterious presence that the cold is almost forgotten.

A brief word about the high hills of Hoy. Generally speaking the Orkney islands are not hilly, but Hoy which lies just south of Mainland has two moderately high hills at its northern end, Ward and Cuilags. Seen from Mainland the slopes of these two hills form a V and it is the orientation of the sunset between the hills in the weeks around the winter solstice, the placement of the stones at Stenness and Brodgar and the entrance of Maes Howe that suggests the sophistication of these stone-age people. We will probably never know what their religious beliefs were but it is fascinating to theorize the possible uses for which these structures were built. The Stones of Stenness are a very popular motif for Island artists.

When we leave the stones we try to locate the Ness of Brodgar which we know is nearby and which we have been told is either open and accessible for anyone wishing to see it or, conversely, will not be open at all until later in the summer when excavations will again begin. It was only discovered 12 years ago. In any case, the only possible site we find is a large mound totally encircled by fencing and covered with turf and some sort of mesh visible in spots. Can this be the Ness? Or a part of it? How tantalizing! It seems to be in the right location, somewhere midway between the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar. The guide book makes this 5000 plus year old site a cogent argument for a return trip!

We push on to the Ring of Brodgar, probably the most familiar landscape in all of Orkney. The Ring is about 310 feet in diameter and the circle is perfect. It too is a henge with a ditch and outer bank. Of the original 60 stones, 27 stand today.

It is nearly impossible to photograph in its entirety except from the air. It sits atop a slight knoll in a huge field of heather, just barely beginning to green up a bit, with a long view down over the Loch of Stenness toward Hoy. In the photo you can just make out the V of those two hills.

Again the sense of endless time pervades the site: people mined, transported and dressed these massive stones and placed them around this henge in a perfect circle. What did they know of geometry? Wasn’t that Euclid, a long time later? How did they do it?

I haven’t felt this touched by the enormity of time since my first visit to Stonehenge more than 50 years ago–before all the fences and gates, the tunnels and parking lots, the swarms of tourists milling around the visitor centre and once, horribly, graffiti. It was midnight then and a nearly full moon and just my mother and me.

. . . . . . . .

Michael, Lynn and Jill suited up for a spring day in Orkney

We eat our sandwiches, surely a different riff on the BLT theme by now, and then drive northeast to the Broch of Gurness. This is also a very impressive site, though practically modern by comparison, a scant 2000 years old or so. This site with its ditches, walls, broch tower and ruins of the community’s buildings, perhaps about 30 families, arrayed around the broch was occupied from the Iron Age to Pictish times to the Norse era about 800 CE. At the same site there is a rebuilt Pictish settlement.It is in the shape of a shamrock with rounded rooms radiating off from the main hearth area. Here’s a shot from one of my guide books showing the site from the air.

In the visitor centre I buy a new copy of Orkneyinga Saga and a book of short stories by the best known Orcadian author George Mackay Brown.

We make another foray into Kirkwall for another round of shopping–Michael buys a beautiful North Ronaldsay sheep fleece, Lynn a ring, T shirts and a biking jersey and Jill found several items for Nicky, Fayley and Gussy. I’m sure I bought something too. Perhaps my second ring from Alison Moore!

Back at the cottage it’s Michael’s turn to make dinner and here it is:

Michael’s Cozy Chicken

Ingredients

2 Tbl olive oil

1 or 2 onions, diced

1 or 2 bell peppers, diced

1 1/2 lb skinless, boneless chicken thighs

6 plum tomatoes, diced

2 Tbl tomato paste

1/4 c worcestershire sauce

2 tsp fresh thyme, salt, pepper

1 1/2 c water

10 oz fresh or frozen corn

10 oz baby lima beans

1 lemon

Heat oil in a heavy pot or dutch oven. Add onions, peppers, salt and cook until onions are translucent

Place chicken on top and add tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, pepper, thyme, worcestershire sauce and water and bring to a boil.

Simmer 15 minutes, covered. Remove chicken to a plate and add to the pot the beans and corn and continue to cook, about 15 minutes.

While the above is cooking, shred the chicken, then return it to the pot, add the juice of 1 lemon and serve.

Note: other vegetables may be substituted and fresh basil is good sprinkled at the end.

We had this wonderfully moist and delicious chicken with Tesco’s version of Trader Joe’s Two Buck Chuck. This one was Vino Rosso Italiano, bottled by CVSC of Ortona, Italia.

Do we let what we eat dictate the color of the wine? Of course not! What a tired canard that is!

When Jill, Lynn and I cook we try to limit the number of utensils dirtied in the meal’s preparation. Not so with our Michael!!

A Focus on Orcadian Crafts

Wed, May 21

Not surprisingly it is rainy, cool and windy so this will be another day pursuing crafts and art, this time heading south to South Ronaldsay where we had landed from the ferry. Our first stop is the Hoxa Tapestry Gallery which everyone has told us to visit. Leila Thomson’s work is large and beautifully executed and she tells us that she works at her loom 12 hours a day or more. Her daughter Jo and son Andrew have joined her and their work speaks very much to the wide open windy spaces, the beaches and sky, the birds and the seas. (www.hoxatapestrygallery.co.uk)

Andrew lets me use the WiFi connection (ever in the pursuit of email from home, news of crises…or actually mostly to get rid of unwanted spam). I buy several cards, Jill buys a framed print.

From this gallery we head back to St Margarets Hope to check out The Workshop and Loft Gallery, a crafts producers’ co-op specializing in knitted items and local crafts.

I fall for another sweater; fortunately it’s not my size. Enough already!! Show some restraint! I did however buy a set of Alison Moore’s stacked rings, Michael exchanges some yarn for a darker color. (www.workshopandloftgallery.co.uk)

Here’s a good place to insert a few of the Harray Potter pieces I have bought, both at his studio and in the Stromness shop:

Notice the runic inscriptions.

One of Andrew's "willy" cups! — One of Andrew’s “willy” cups!

Using motifs from neolithic pottery shards

A Loving Bowl that I've bought to give Geoffrey and Monica at their September wedding — A Loving Bowl that I’ve bought to give Geoffrey and Monica at their September wedding

We eat our sandwiches back in the car–can they indeed be BLTs again? Probably, and then we head north across the causeway to Burray Island where we stop to get coffee at the Fossil Museum there. The gift shop is uninspiring, the museum display, as much as we can see, is uninviting and the coffee is undrinkable. We strike that off our list for any potential future visits! I fail again to get a good picture of the sunken ships in Scapa Flow and I tentatively mention that I’d like to visit some of the World War II sites but get no endorsement for the idea. I have watched many British war dramas (I think particularly of A Family at War) that I feel an attachment to this place. I will have to be content with the Italian Chapel.

Then of course we are back in Kirkwall again, but this time we are looking for Orkney chairs. Lynn has been talking about buying one of the hooded chairs for months. Our first stop is Scapa Crafts Orkney Chairs where Jackie and Marlene Miller show us how these traditional chairs are made. (www.scapacraftsorkneychairs.co.uk)

This one is sold and will be on its way to California soon.

Jackie and Marlene Miller — Jackie shows off a nearly finished piece and Marlene talks with Lynn who is wearing her new Orkney sweater

The chairs are very comfortable and Lynn has practically handed over her credit card until we learn how much just the shipping will be. About $1000! We tell them that we are thinking of visiting Eday Island because it is such a good place to observe seabirds. Jackie, who is originally from Eday, says they will be going there on Friday, practically invites us to go with them but then remembers it is for a funeral. From there we go just a couple of blocks to the studio of a former Miller apprentice, Fraser Anderson, and look at his furniture. His is a bit more varied in style but the shipping cost looms ever larger. Eventually both Lynn and I settle on buying small model chairs. She really hates to give up the idea but we try to convince her that she can craft her own, perhaps with the help of Michael and Ruth (ruthbmcdowell.com) who have done a lot of basketry and twig furniture.

Jill has been hankering for fish and chips so this will be an evening without one of our home-cooked meals. We pull up next to the shop and Jill calls to some teenage boys hanging out, fish and chips in hand, “Is it good?” and we are told that yes, it’s good and one boy says to the other, ” Eh, you fancy ‘er?” We bring in three portions (Michael never, ever eats any sort of fish or seafood so he heats up the remainder of the pot roast and tries not to gag over the odor floating up from our decidedly heavy meals. If we do this again we’ll skip the chips.) And no, they’re not wrapped in newspaper, but in plain white butcher’s paper.

We watch a bit of the Chelsea Garden Show judging and an English version of American Pickers and do a bit of knitting. I am getting more and more frustrated trying to master netzpatent! Poor Michael. Every time I screw up I hand it to him to tink–that’s knit spelt backwards–back past the mistake and get me on the straight and narrow again. Hopeless!!

Category: Orkney