9-10 May 2019
We’ve packed and repacked for days! The anticipation has kept us happy for months. Finally we assemble at Jill’s, check to insure we all have our passports, tickets, money, Gussie takes a couple of final photos us crowding into the car and we’re off to Bradley Airport. Bob is sad and wistful but Sally and LJ will be arriving later in the afternoon so I am sure all will go well.
At Roncari’s where we are leaving the car Lynn is mysteriously handed an envelope with a $100 bill in it and the brief message: Enjoy! Lynn phones her daughters but they both deny knowing anything about it. It has to be them we all agree though we momentarily think perhaps Roncari is rewarding us. We have given ourselves a lot of time for check-in and security, way too much time as everything goes remarkably smoothly. At six o’clock we’re on our Aer Lingus flight to Dublin. The food, not memorable, and wine no longer complimentary, I immerse myself in a Beatles documentary, 8 Days a Week, and then watch Rami Malek play Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. At five in the morning we touch down in Dublin.
As we have had, finally, the good sense to check our bags straight through to Aberdeen, we have only to find the gate for the next leg of our journey and we’re there before nine o’clock. Here we have a long, long layover but we are too weary to drag our suitcases into town and there’s no way to check them in yet. We have seven, yes, seven deadly hours to kill and it nearly kills us and this is because a flight we had booked to Kirkwall has been cancelled. Our airport breakfast–at last–is good and the airport shops are somewhat entertaining. I read the titles of every possible book in the bookstore before burdening myself with a Hilary Mantel and an Ann Cleeves. We play a very long game of Spite and Malice. The wait is interminable–during which I decide to take some pictures. No camera! I empty my backpack to no avail, my small Bagolini isn’t hiding it. No camera. I remember handing it to Gussie for the requisite departure shots and I remember getting it back from him. The luggage has already been checked in and I pray that I stowed it in my rollerbag.
Finally around four, dazed with boredom and too much sitting, (and worrying about the camera, which isn’t even mine, but Joanie’s) we are finally airborne and heading for Kirkwall, a 40-minute flight away. Hurray, it is beautiful, warm, windless and sunny. Can this really be Orkney! We get our car, a large, very square Peugeot Tepec and head into town where all the shops are closed but we have an excellent dinner at Lucano (putanesca for me) and then drive to our Button-Ben Guest House in Stenness. www.buttonbenguesthouseorkney.com
We are too tired for a card game (it’s been 40 hours since I’ve slept) and try as we might we have a hard time enjoying the tea and cakes our friendly host May brings us in the sitting area. Worst of all, the camera is not to be found; I’ve turned out every pocket, nook and zippered compartment. I shoot off an email to Roncari’s just asking them to look in our car and let me know if it’s there. Fraught with anxiety and depressed that I have no way to record our trip, I fall asleep in the luxuriant double bed with a dozen pillows.