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.
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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.
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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!