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.)