St Magnus Cathedral – Moonshine Mohair at Keldaby Farm

Sun, May 14

Last night Lynn, Michael and I were rudely awakened about 1 o’clock when the TV suddenly roared on, complete with a bare-breasted woman. At least that is what Michael says. I was too sleepy and, sans glasses, barely a witness to this porn-not-on-demand epiphany. We mention this event when we stop to pay for our night’s accommodation and £20 is instantly subtracted from the bill!

Ceiling in the Inn’s restaurant

We have our final Scottish breakfast across the street at the Ferry Inn, including black sausage and haggis (really good!), pack the car and go for a final walk through Stromness. Then, although it is now raining steadily, we decide to make one last visit to the Ring of Brodgar. Jill really wants to see the rabbits and their warrens again so despite the cold, the rain–becoming heavier by the moment–and the presence of four busloads of tourists, we park and walk up to the stones. The rabbits have the good sense to stay underground and we can’t see their warrens, only the sodden tourists dutifully plodding around the circle.

Soaked now we drive up the east coast and eat our lunch near the water. Jen has read about “the forest” at Cottascarth which, when we finally find it, turns out to be a wee patch of trees, a lot of heath and numerous birds, at least according to a sign that is posted there. It’s too rainy for any exploration however. We see no curlews.

https://www.visitscotland.com/info/see-do/rspb-scotland-cottascarth-rendall-moss-nature-reserve-p580061

We drive into Kirkwall. We have too much time to kill before our dinner at Helgi’s. a harborside pub next door to the hotel where we spent our first night (we will have gone full circle by the time we are finished.) The restaurant has come highly recommended by a local gent Jen spoke with earlier. The rain has mostly stopped. I pay one last visit to St Magnus and then we all take a walk along the pier front and out along the jetty.

We top off the diesel for the car and have one final drink at Judith Glue’s but the town is mostly closed up for Sunday. It’s too early for dinner, too late to explore anywhere new; it’s that uncomfortable in between time.

Helgi’s is not the treat we hoped for. Perhaps we have chosen the wrong menu items. Jill and Jen’s fish n’ chips looks the best, my roast beef sandwich–grey-brown meat on grey-tan bread–is dry and unpalatable, Lynn’s cheese salad is just that….cheese, and I have already forgotten what Michael ordered.

Window at Helgi’s

And now we begin the long slog home. We drive to the airport, drop off the car which has served us well and, miracle of miracles, board our Flybe flight with a rainbow touching down right over the plane!

A magic moment

Looking back

In Glasgow we check into the Holiday Inn Express which is within walking distance of our arriving plane. Once again Lynn and I are bunking in with Michael who finds the HIE a properly run establishment (at last!) where the people understand the hospitality biz. We have to be up at 4:30, breakfasted and ready for our early-morning flight to Dublin where we have the most tedious five-hour layover I have ever experienced. We don’t have Euros so can’t buy anything easily. By now two of us are trying hard to ignore the increasingly tense atmosphere, two of us have perfected the eye-rolling expression of annoyance and one of us is terminally hostile.

At last we board our final flight for Bradley and after interminable movies (Enough Said–excellent, with James Gandolfini in his final role–and Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children for me) we arrive a little after 4 o’clock on Monday afternoon, all our baggage still intact and accounted for.

Epilogue

So what went wrong? As you may have guessed one of us is no longer friends with the others. Was it the feng shui of this cottage which didn’t have the cozy fireplace-centered living room with really comfortable couches and a special-occasion dining room that graced Number 4 three years ago? Was it the really bad colds that two of us endured through much of the fortnight? Had there been some change in the group dynamic before we ever left? Perhaps it was the zeitgeist resulting from Brexit and November 8th and all the other depressing news. Whatever it was, I am so sorry this happened…

And I still want to return to Stromness with friends!

In happier times, in our Orkney-flagged mohair socks

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.