This morning was a sad disappointment for Molly. Duncan came up but there was no Jock. He did howver go back later on and fetch Jock up so that Moll could prove that she is still a floozie.
This afternoon we went to a couple of the science festival lectures, one on the origin of the Picts in Scotland and one on the transition from hunter gatherers to farmers and the changes wrough by this.
The first talk on the Picts was very interesting but was about the theory of the speaker that the Picts had originated in Sythia (the modern day area around Georgia). The theory was a bit short on evidence and there were contradictions in his ideas but at least it made me use my brain to figure out if it had any virtue or not. Unfortunately for the speaker, this being Orkney, there was an archeologist in the audience who specialised in the bronze age and he gave him a bit of a hard time in the questions session after the talk. Still there were bits of his theory that sounded worth consideration as far as I was concerned and I am sure that DNA analysis could confirm or deny the possibility of there being anything in it.
The second talk on the beginning of farming and its impact on society was also interesting but the talk was only for one hour and the subject was to big to be covered in any detail in this time. Still the lady has also published a book so we bought the book and can now read her ideas in a bit more length. One theory that she mentioned after her talk was that some new research seems to show that white skin only appeared about 5000 years ago when farming started. People then ate less seafood and therefore their intake of dietary vitamin D dropped and so they needed paler skins to increase the synthesis of vitamin D. I had not heard of this but it seems a reasonable idea.
On Friday morning I managed to get a hole dug down to the water supply pipe close to where it comes off Mr Scotts farm supply. Now all we need to do is get hold of Davy the disappearing plumber and get him to fot a stopcock so that I do not have to interfere with the farms water if I need to do anything to our supply.
In the evening we went to a talk at the church hall in The Hope on the changing ecology and natural history of the barriers, especially No4 barrier which is the one nearest to us. It was a toss up whether to go to the talk or to "The Grand Old Hopry" at the Cromarty Hall but as country and western music is not really my favourite so I decided on the talk.
There is a walk on the dunes by No4 barrier tomorrow morning linked to the talk so I will probably take Molly down for a run on the beach then leave her in the car while I go on the walk. I think that it will only be about an hour so Molly can sit in the car. Pam says that she may also come along but I don't know if she will change her mind when it is time to get out of bed.
Saturday morning was a bit overcast with a brisk wind to start with but I could see clear sky coming this way so thought that it may improve before the walk on the barrier.
I don't think that Duncan and his dad will be putting the roof on the extension today as planned. The end panel of the roof is a bit kite shaped anyway and I am sure it would be totally unmanagable in the wind. Tomorrow the wind is supposed to be stronger, possibly up to gale force, so I suppose it will be at least Monday before they can get the roof on. Still they are getting on with it faster than either we or Duncan expected, so no problems.
Well we went to the beach walk. The poor girl who was doing the geomorphology part of the talk looked perished in the wind and the walk was a bit shortened probably to save her from any further discomfort. This unfortunately meant that we missed the far end of the beach where there is the more varied vegetation so the bloke doing the ecology part of the walk had to cut his bit short. Still I suppose all the plants will still be there at a later date so I will have to go and figure it out for myself.
On the subject of plants, the little heartsease by the back door that Molly ate the flower from the other week has bravely produced another flower. Molly saw me touch it yesterday and it was very nearly another eaten flower but I managed to stop her. We will have to see if it lasts or if the dog gets it one day when I am not watching.
We went to Kirkwall in the afternoon to the dreaded Tescos but at least there was a bit of light relief. There was a wedding at the cathedral and a lone girl piper piped them out.
Onthe green outside the cathedral the Orkney vintage club had a display of cars with a few stationary engines and tractors and by the side of the Reel cafe there was a group of kids playing traditional music.
All very picture skew, so we just had a coffee at the Reel and chilled out like proper retired people.
Good news for Molly today though. Bev from across the road told us that she has managed to persuade Steve that they should get a puppy so she is getting a border collie pup off working parents from a local farm. Does this sound familiar?
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