First of all I want to thank Carol Adams for guiding me through some of the intricacies of blogging. Don’t have it all under my belt yet and she probably would not appreciate a call for help at this time of night! You can find her blog by googling Whispering Pines Farm Colrain. And thanks to all of you who have already found this journal
May 16
We pick up our rental car at the Aberdeen airport, a classy black Ford Focus, squeeze in all our luggage and very tentatively Jill drives us into the city–stick shift, six-on-the-floor, left-hand drive, narrow streets and a less than helpful map. But Jill is after all English and quite capable of handling anything…until she finds herself headed into the wrong parking garage and tries to back out and can’t find reverse. The tension is palpable but eventually, and just before slamming into the wall, she and Michael discover that the shift lever has to be raised, not pushed down, to achieve reverse.
The Douglas Hotel is a lovely place, we settle in, take a brief walk around town and at 5 decide to eat dinner though we’re not very hungry. We play cards, the first of many sessions of Spite & Malice. We do everything we can to stay awake so as to defeat jet lag but about 6:30 we all admit defeat and collapse into our beds. Michael, down the hall, has the alarm clock and has been told to awaken us at 7 AM so we can get to the ferry on time.
I am sound asleep when suddenly Lynn wakes us, “We’re late! Oh my god, we’re late! It’s 8:30…why didn’t Michael wake us?” She’s all dressed, Jill leaps out of bed to get into the shower, both of them agree that they are SO refreshed. What a great sleep! Refreshed? I’m a bit skeptical about that. Down the hall goes Lynn to get Michael, whose mumbled response through the door is “Have you all been drinking? Go back to bed!” But the sun is shining so brightly, the shadows are not long, people are going about their business and Jill says,” Look, there are all the kids with their backpacks going to school! What is wrong with Michael?” I suggest we phone the desk so Jill with her best English accent calls and asks what time it is. “Nine-fifteen” is the answer and she hangs up. Yes, I say, but Jill, is it Friday or is it Saturday? Well, of course you know the answer. The second call confirms it is indeed still Friday and we have slept just two, not 14, hours. We are hysterical…for a long time. Every time we stop laughing someone says “Is it yesterday or is it tomorrow?” and we begin all over again.
A good sleep…an all night sleep later, we eat a fabulous breakfast and head north to the ferry at Gill’s Bay that will take us to St Margaret’s Hope on South Ronaldsay. There are roundabouts at every road crossing it seems and each of them is more terrifying than the one before. After bumping over several kerbs (yes, this is the UK) Michael, who is still in the front seat, puts his head down, covers his ears and assumes the crash position we have been advised whilst in flight to take in the event of an unanticipated and watery landing.
A fairly common sight in Scotland and Orkney
But we’ll leave our journey here for now. Tomorrow, or is it today, we’ll be in Stromness.