Unintended Consequences

  

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

 

Our Last Cottage Day

Fri, May 11

I hate coming to the end of a trip, especially journeys where I have stayed in one place long enough to make it feel like home. This morning I stand in the kitchen, awash in nostalgia. I look out at the harbor and think, this is the last day I can breathe in this particular view.

The four of us–Michael again stays behind, this time to work on his drawing–walk down the main street, popping into the bookstore where I buy a print copy of The Outrun so I can share it with the others. Then we drive off to Kirkwall where Jill finally decides on sweat shirts for Gussie and Fayley.  We catch a quick lunch at The Reel, a cafe but also a popular site for folk music and shows,

 https://www.wrigleyandthereel.com/

and then a quick ride up to the Dounby Butcher for lamb chops (to be our final cottage dinner!) and to buy the really substantial tote bags they sell.

We haven’t been to the Michael Sinclair Shop and Gallery–he’s new to the Craft Trail although he has been turning bowls for a quarter century–so he’s our next stop, nearby in Howar. I have collected enough bowls  over the years, surely I will not be tempted here at least. Wrong! I love his work, we all do and all four of us buy bowls. His wife Sara is fun to talk with too. In fact, at one point, she tells me, they too had raised Angora goats.  www.michael-sinclair-woodturner.co.uk

                          This is the one I choose

  

 

Back at the cottage Michael has been busy. He has taped his painting up on one of his windows, drawn the curtains around it and then we are all invited in to view it, one at a time, and only from a certain distance. As each of us is positioned, the curtain is drawn back to reveal his still unfinished work. No, I have no photo of it as this was not allowed.

Jen finally sits down and does a small painting of the Ring of Brodgar.

And Lynn has done some sketching too.

We haven’t exactly been prolific with our painting and sketching, not as we had thought we would be. Perhaps the cold, persistent wind deterred us from our plein air plans!

Our last cottage supper, prepared by Jill and Jen, is Dounby lamb chops, mint sauce, steamed new potatoes, herbed carrots and a salad. We drink up the remains of the wine, scotch whisky and beer. A bit of TV, a bit of knitting finishes the evening. We are all pretty quiet. In our bedrooms we pack and repack our bags. Tomorrow we will have to be out of #18 by 10 o’clock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We Are Cast Adrift

Sat, May 13

By 10 o’clock all our bags are lined up at the cottage door, the kitchen is spic ‘n span, pillows are plumped, beds neatened, final showers taken and it is sadly time to bid our home adieu. Fiona and Maggie have come this way to feed and walk their friend’s cat so we have the chance to say good-bye and to exchange email addresses.

Our first stop is at the Cat Protection Society thrift shop where we lighten our load by several shopping bags worth of donated sweaters, shoes, boots and I buy one final roller bag to hold all the books and brochures plus the Sinclair bowl and the Harray Potter coffee mug. Then we’re off to Dounby a final time. Michael buys their last Dounby Butcher tote bag.

Jen has read about a mid 17th century dovecote, “the doocot”, in Evie, and we drive off to find it in the mist. It’s a lovely site, the mist adding to its mysterious presence. From the website:

                     Rendall Doocot — Spirit of Orkney 

The Rendall Doocot (dovecote) was built in 1648 on the Hall of Rendall estate to house pigeons. Doocots or Dovecotes were built to house Pigeons and the evidence of such structures can be traced back to 3000 BC and the 5th Egyptian Dynasty. Doocot is the Orkney word for Dovecote and the Rendall Doocot in Evie, is built in the Beehive style, the oldest type in Scotland, built in a cone shape with four string courses of stones or slatesprotruding from the outside of the four foot thick walls, as a barrier to rats.

The Romans were noted for their Dovecotes which brought in large amounts of revenue in Florence and Rome, but it was the Normans who introduced them to Britain.

 

The only sod roof we’ve seen on a new house

At the water’s edge we eat our lunch, gleaned from the kitchen before we left, of crackers, cheese, apples and carrots, then we head into Kirkwall for a couple of errands, ending once more at Judith Glue’s. We share a table with an older Irish couple (love how I still refer to “older” people as if I were younger!) who have gotten off the cruise ship docked in the harbor. Suddenly, as we are sitting there enjoying our cappuchinos, Michael, during a general discussion about farming and their small holding in Ireland, addresses the Irishman, “Do you know American Pharaoh?”

“Eh?” he replies.

“Do you know American Pharaoh?” Michael repeats, louder.

“Eh??” says the man, cupping his ear.

“Do you know American Pharaoh? The Triple Crown winner?” Michael is now leaning way across the table.

“Eh?” says the obviously hard-of-hearing and now baffled Irishman.

“My gelding is his cousin” says Michael with pride. The man smiles wanly and we’re not sure if he ever really understood the question.

As we leave Kirkwall we hear loud music and drums and general carousing and see a wagon go past with several young men laughing and singing and carrying on enthusiastically. We think maybe there is a show about to begin in the main area by St Magnus, but no, it is a “blackening” and soon we see the second wagon, this one with young women equally noisy and exuberant. This link is well worth reading if you don’t know about blackening!

https://www.orkneyjar.com/tradition/weddings/blacken.htm

Late in the afternoon, back in Stromness we check into the Ferry Inn, though it turns out we’re in the annex across the street called the Harbourside. We are a bit dismayed, adequate but not a wonderful place, not after our cottage. We dress up a bit for dinner.

  

The Ferry Inn                                                       The Harbourside

We have made reservations at the Hamnavoe which at this time of year is open only on Fridays and Saturdays. We’ve heard good things about it and we are being taken to dinner by Lynn whose daughter, Kim, gave the meal to her, to us!, as a Mother’s Day present.

 

Our waitress had studied music with Michael’s friend, Jean Leonard

Our dinners were very good, ending with elaborately plated desserts. https://www.facebook.com/hamnavoerestaurant/ After dinner we stroll around the town, down along the docks and out to the ferry terminal. It’s a beautiful evening and Lynn and I continue our walk up the back streets as the sun goes down while the others return to the inn.

  

  

 

Yesnaby

Thur, May 11

There are whitecaps on the harbor and we don’t rush to go out today. There’s plenty of knitting and I finish reading The Outrun by Amy Liptrot on my Kindle.

It had been published in the US (and delivered to my Kindle) just hours before we left for Orkney. She is Orcadian and although she doesn’t quite feel native (her parents were in-comers), she returns to Orkney when her London life is no longer sustainable and certainly not enjoyable. It’s a nature book, and an excellent one, as well as a memoir of a tough personal battle. Part of her story takes place on Papa Westray, the tiny, far northern Orkney island where she counts bird species for a couple of years. Papay, as it is mostly called, is where our good friend Liz Sorensen https://sheepandshawl.com/  and her partner John Nove own a restored croft (which, by the way, they rent out as a self-catering cottage when they’re not in residence.) https://www.papawestray.co.uk/papay/peatwell.html

There are many reviews of the book; here’s a link to the NY Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/books/review/outrun-amy-liptrot.html

In The Outrun the author mentions Yesnaby, noting that it is a place known for suicide. Now, that’s intriguing. We have also learned from Fiona that it is the site of extremely old fossils and she recommends a short walk along the beach.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesnaby

So after lunch we head north toward the coast. We find the cliffs, park and start to get out of the car.The wind is so strong that when Michael opens his door it very nearly blows off. There is an abandoned building, vaguely threatening and unsafe looking, and broken glass scattered among the rocks. Clearly this is a place also to go with buddies to seriously drink. The sky is lowering and the wind nearly rips our jackets off. We beach comb a bit, finding some fossils, but no one seems eager to attempt a walk along the beach. This is too bad, as I now know from reading all the online references, because we also miss the Yesnaby “Castle”, a sea stack, similar to the “old man of Hoy” which, clearly, we are not going to get to this time either. For a detailed description of the geology, go to this link:

https://blogs.agu.org/mountainbeltway/2017/06/01/geology-yesnaby-coast-orkney/
We go back to the cottage and Jill and Jen go beach combing above the cemetery in Warbeth. Jen finds a few cowries. Michael plaits Lynn’s hair into an obsessively detailed fishtail braid
and then he makes his “cozy chicken,” a dish he cooked for us three years ago. I have taken a good slug of cough medicine and am really sleepy.
After dinner Jill and Jen head downstairs and I wish I could say the rest of us had a wonderful evening. We didn’t…

Stromness Museum and More Folk Tales

Wed, May 10

Three years ago we did not go into the Stromness Museum just down the road from us because the dusty, faded items displayed in their window were sadly unappealing, especially as it was somewhat pricey to enter. This year with nothing more pressing than the prospect of more BLTs, terrible telly, knitting and Spite and Malice, we decide to chance it. The idea that we spend a day on a different island has no legs, so to speak. (Whether by ferry or plane, with car or without, choosing one island that would make us all happy or breaking up into different groups; it all seems overwhelming to contemplate.) So we don’t. We go to the museum.

Turns out it’s well worth the visit–and the tickets are good for a week! This is a museum of the old school, the Victorian model of many, many objects on many, many topics, arrayed in small rooms, some reached by winding back stairs. Here are some of the displays: Hamnavoe (Safe Harbor) before Stromness, the town’s distillery, local newspapers, the fishing industry, transportation and crossing the firth to the mainland of Scotland, commercial enterprises along “the street”, World Wars One and Two and the importance of Scapa Bay, lifeboats and lighthouses, the Hudson Bay Company and John Rae Sr (Dr John Jr, the Arctic explorer was born in Orphir which we haven’t revisited), the writer George Mackay Brown, whaling, indigenous birds and plants, astronomy, maps and nautical instruments, clothing, ceramics, paintings, furniture and Buddo, the whalebone figure from Skara Brae rediscovered in the museum’s storeroom last year….

This year is a special one, the 200th anniversary of the creation of the Burgh of Barony and the emergence of the renamed Stromness as a busy vital harbor community. The celebrations and exhibit are called Per Mare (By the sea) and the museum, with its booklet written by Tom Muir, folklorist we met in Kirbister Farm, has been a real find.

https://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/stromnessmuseum/

We pay another visit to the Pier Art Museum, then head back to the cottage for lunch and knitting. Meanwhile Michael, after hearing Jill rave about the effectiveness of her “sniffy”  when stuffed up, walks down to the pharmacy where the clerks are utterly baffled by his request. “A sniffy?” they say and roll their eyes. “Oh, these Americans!” (As a new owner of one I will tell you that it is an Olbas oil inhalant and decongestant but don’t ask me what olbas is.)

Monday we met a couple who had come to the house next door to feed the cat while the owners were away.

We stood and chatted with Fiona and Maggie for quite awhile. They had noticed us particularly because we all were wearing the hats we’ve been knitting so avidly with the Orcadian yarns.

Fiona has a island connection; her family had raised sheep (those seaweed-eating ones) on North Ronaldsay though no one in her family lives there now. She and Maggie had moved north from England; both are artists. They invited us to come round to their house before we leave and have some wine. Now we buy a bottle to share as well because we are going there before walking down to the Stromness Hotel this evening to hear the folktale teller Lynn O’Brien again.

Their house, tucked just up the hill a block or so away from #18, is of course charming and they most engaging. We admire the art work everywhere and learn, too late now, that Fiona gives workshops on casting in sand.

 Fiona used to work with fiber

Now she does metal casting. Here’s a limpet

Then we head down the street to the hotel and its Whisky Bar where, included in our admission, we get a wee dram of single malt or a beer or a soda. We wait for nearly 45 minutes for all the audience to straggle in from the dining room, far too much time to fill with this wee dram, and by the time Lynn O’Brien becomes the peedie old woman telling tales, the peat smoke has gotten to me and my racking-cough stage cold, and I am forced to leave so I never get to hear the new stories.

I walk back taking several of the side streets up toward Brinkie’s Brae photographing the harbor and the beautiful stone houses. The sun is low by now and the lights begin to come on all around town and ringing the harbor. I am becoming more and more sure that I lived here in some previous life.

 

Back at home I find Michael, who hadn’t gone with us, watching Charles III, a wonderfully hypothetical take on the future of the prince after the death of Queen Elizabeth. Amazingly the actors all look very much like their real counterparts and the script is, to say the least, Shakespearean. How the Royals must hate it! Playing Charles is Tim Piggott-Smith  (he of The Jewel in the Crown and many other tremendously good movies) who has just recently and unexpectedly died.

I’ve still not been able to contact Bob directly but Jen’s Neil has spoken with him and all is well.

The Gods Aren’t Smiling

Mon, May 8

I took a wonderfully hot shower last night–nothing unusual, the showers in the cottage are wonderful. But…when I went to wash my face this morning there was NO hot water. I let it run a long time; it got colder. Downstairs Jen was making coffee, I gave her the bad news. We took turns trying the faucets; perhaps someone will have the magic touch? Nope. It’s time for another email to Rosemary.

Oh well, we can’t let this little glitch stop us because this is Maeshowe day for Jen, and for Jill who has decided to go with her. The rest of us remember our visit last time, an amazing site where we had an excellent guide, and we feel it would be tempting fate to go again. We make a quick trip up to the Woolshed to buy some more of the North Ronaldsay yarn, both beautifully dyed and natural colored.

https://www.orkneydesignercrafts.com/members/textiles/the-woolshed

 The Woolshed

 North Ronaldsay rams

Back in Stenness we learn the next available tour is at 1 o’clock so Jill and Jen buy their tickets and we browse the little gift shop in the visitor center, not as extensive as the one in the former location.

 Yes, Lynn could have bought this fetchingly lovely helmet

While they go on the tour Michael takes a walk and Lynn and I sit in the car and knit.

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

When they return from the burial cairn we all head back for lunch. Now our road is closed not only at our end but down by the Stromness Hotel as well. At #18 there is still no hot water or message from Rosemary. Fortified, however, with our sandwiches (notice I can’t even say BLTs anymore!) we all head to Kirkwall. Jill has an appointment for a massage which she is eagerly awaiting, Jen goes to the Earl’s and Bishop’s Palaces, both Renaissance buildings near the cathedral and both in ruins now, Lynn and I go shopping together, especially to a couple of consignment shops on a search for luggage, and Michael, on his own, buys a vest. We meet at Judith Glue’s for our requisite afternoon cappuccinos and scones.

Jen at the Earl’s Palace

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

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

Now the gods are really frowning; what have we done to offend them, what can we do to appease them? Back at the cottage there is still no hot water. There is an email from Rosemary saying that the water heater has been switched back on and all is fixed. Sadly, our nerves are beginning to fray. Another email goes to Rosemary from whom there are no more responses today. Jen makes dinner using various leftovers, I heat water so I can wash the accumulation of dishes (thank goodness for a really fast electric teapot!) and then we eat sitting in the front room. (It’s not the front room really but the enclosed porch with the great views onto the harbor.)

When Michael disappears to his room to emerge an hour later with his laptop, we figure he has been editing photos which he plans to show us, but no, he has written an email to Rosemary which he proceeds to read aloud. It lists every deficiency, as he sees it, going back to 2014,  and we, aghast, tell him, no, no! If he is hellbent on sending this he must make it very clear that it is his and his alone. Jen and Jill sensing the coming storm wisely retire downstairs. To his credit he does disappear again, returning with a somewhat softened version. However, Lynn and I reiterate: It’s yours, Michael. Make that clear.

We don’t play Spite and Malice and the cold, which I have been pretending I didn’t have, is much worse. Tomorrow will be better!

 

The Italian Chapel and Hot Water at Last

Tues, May 9

We awake to another cold, grey day in a cold, unheated, cold-water house by the North Sea. What do we expect? This isn’t the Mediterranean nor the Caribbean! While we drink our excellent coffee, Michael gives us his latest version of “the letter,” this time direct from his laptop in a computer-generated voice. Ouch!

But help arrives in the welcome form of Jason Scott with the full plumbing crew! He tells us that he had come yesterday and re-set the heater and now suspects that the reason it isn’t working again is clogged pipes because of the road work. We suspect this is not the first, nor will it be the last, time for many of the houses along the main street.

We tell him that we are on our way to the Italian Chapel in Burray and he tells us that he got married at the chapel last year. This, he tells us, is appropriate as his name was originally Scotti. We just want to hug him because he’s cute and because we won’t have to resort to more cold sponge baths!

Michael stays home again and we four drive to Cuween Hill, the neolithic burial cairn we visited before where Michael regaled us with part of an aria.

 Up the hill from the burial cairn

On a sign it says there is another cairn nearby so after going into this one we try to find the other. We drive up some pretty sketchy roads, get a good view of the sea, but can’t find it.

We’re off to the Italian Chapel at Lamb Holm (two Nissen huts set end to end) with its amazing trompe l’oeil interior designed by the Italian prisoner-of-war Domenico Chiocchetti and built by the POWs brought there to help construct the Churchill Barriers (good photos of the Barriers at this link.) The link will give you the story–truly an inspiring one. There are many videos on Youtube. My dad would have loved it.

https://www.visitorkney.com/things/history/the-italian-chapel

Next we continue on to So Ronaldsay in hopes of finding a necklace Jen lost the day we went to the Tomb of the Eagles. No luck at the Hoxa Gallery nor at the Workshop and Loft Gallery so we decide to have a late lunch at Robertson’s, the cafe Jen and Jill had found previously. It’s a lovely high-ceilinged bar and coffeehouse but our waitress is totally devoid of personality. When one of us orders an appetizer and others a main course and one a dessert only, the food is brought in that order so we eat in shifts as it were. When we ask why she says, “Oh no, we don’t serve the main at the same time as the starters!” How silly of us to have expected such an outlandish request. Nor was she able to package the dessert to go.

 Robertson’s.

Note Lynn’s latest hat with runes. It says Hamnavoe

Jen and Jill do a bit of beach combing near the Barriers on the way home; Jen is determined to find cowrie shells. Another stop at Tesco and then it’s back to the cottage and heat and hot water! Lynn makes chili for dinner after which it’s Spite and Malice, knitting and TV watching (dreadful real estate programs endlessly showing effusive realtors and couples looking at and rejecting various houses.)

The Gods Continue to Frown

May 8

I took a wonderfully hot shower last night–nothing unusual, the showers in the cottage are wonderful. But…when I went to wash my face this morning there was NO hot water. I let it run a long time; it got colder. Downstairs Jen was making coffee, I gave her the bad news. We took turns trying the faucets; perhaps someone will have the magic touch? Nope. It’s time for another email to Rosemary.

Oh well, we can’t let this little glitch stop us because this is Maeshowe day for Jen, and for Jill who has decided to go with her. The rest of us remember our visit last time, an amazing site where we had an excellent guide, and we feel it would be tempting fate to go again. We make a quick trip up to the Woolshed to buy some more of the North Ronaldsay yarn, both beautifully dyed and natural colored.

https://www.orkneydesignercrafts.com/members/textiles/the-woolshed

 
The Woolshed

 
North Ronaldsay rams

Back in Stenness we learn the next available tour is at 1 o’clock so Jill and Jen buy their tickets and we browse the little gift shop in the visitor center, not as extensive as the one in the former location.

 
Yes, Lynn could have bought this fetchingly lovely helmet

While they go on the tour Michael takes a walk and Lynn and I sit in the car and knit.

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

When they return from the burial cairn we all head back for lunch. Now our road is closed not only at our end but down by the Stromness Hotel as well. At #18 there is still no hot water or message from Rosemary. Fortified, however, with our sandwiches (notice I can’t even say BLTs anymore!) we all head to Kirkwall. Jill has an appointment for a massage which she is eagerly awaiting, Jen goes to the Earl’s and Bishop’s Palaces, both Renaissance buildings near the cathedral and both in ruins now, Lynn and I go shopping together, especially to a couple of consignment shops on a search for luggage, and Michael, on his own, buys a vest. We meet at Judith Glue’s for our requisite afternoon cappuccinos and scones.

Jen at the Earl’s Palace

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

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

Now the gods are really frowning; what have we done to offend them, what can we do to appease them? Back at the cottage there is still no hot water. There is an email from Rosemary saying that the water heater has been switched back on and all is fixed. Sadly, our nerves are beginning to fray. Another email goes to Rosemary from whom there are no more responses today. Jen makes dinner using various leftovers, I heat water so I can wash the accumulation of dishes (thank goodness for a really fast electric teapot!) and then we eat sitting in the front room. (It’s not the front room really but the enclosed porch with the great views onto the harbor.)

When Michael disappears to his room to emerge an hour later with his laptop, we figure he has been editing photos which he plans to show us, but no, he has written an email to Rosemary which he proceeds to read aloud. It lists every deficiency, as he sees it, going back to 2014,  and we, aghast, tell him, no, no! If he is hellbent on sending this he must make it very clear that it is his and his alone. Jen and Jill sensing the coming storm wisely retire downstairs. To his credit he does disappear again, returning with a somewhat softened version. However, Lynn and I reiterate: It’s yours, Michael. Make that clear.

We don’t play Spite and Malice and the cold, which I have been pretending I didn’t have, is much worse. Tomorrow will be better!

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.