Visitors and maybe more but no seals.

Sunday 1st May 2011
Hazel and Sue are due here off the Aberdeen ferry at about 11pm tonight and surprise, surprise, we still have no working shower or bath in the bathroom. Fortunatey the shower in the en-suite (aren't we posh) is OK so we will manage.

There were also rumours that Orkney may have other visitors.
A few days after the royal wedding, a helicopter was seen to drop 2 people off at the Foveran, a good quality restraunt up here. It later came back, picked them up, did a sightseeing flight round the islands and then went off towards the Castle of Mey, the queen mother's house on the north coast of Scotland a few miles away.
It was a real good rumour for a couple of days until somebody in the know spoiled it by stating that there were no members of the royal family on the helicopter.

Once Hazel and Sue got up here we had a reall good touristy week showing them both round. The weather cooperated and we had sun and no wind all week. Pam and I joined Historic Scotland as we are due to have other visitors over the summer and it is cheaper to join than to keep paying every time we go to one of their pay and display monuments.

Of all the famous archeology, natural history and scenic sights that they both wanted to see, they decided that the real treasure in Orkney's crown was the baby clothes, prams and malt whisky shop in Kirkwall. The shop has recieved massive publicity by being mentioned in one of Mark Steele's programmes. Unfortunately, new rules mean that they can not now display the whiskies in the window alongside the prams but they do have hundreds of bottles inside.

We did manage to get round a fair number of other sights during the few days that they were here though.

Skara Brae is of course the one that everybody has to go to. It is an amazing site and makes you realise that neolithic people were very similar to us. It is the little things like the small shelves in the wall by each bed that make it easy to identify with whoever lived there.
When I first went there 40 years ago I was blown away by it. It is not quite so good now because there is a big tourist centre and you are not allowed to actually go down into the houses. 40 years ago there was no centre, no cafe or shop, it was free, there was nobody else there except my mate John Bowker and we just wandered in and out of the houses, sat by the hearths and really got a feel for it.
They get 70,000 visitors a year now so I suppose that they have to protect it but you lose a lot by not being able to just go and sit in the houses.

The other "Must see" places, Maeshowe, the ring of Brodgar, the stones of Stennes and the ring of Brodgar were of course absolutly necessary. They are all very close to each other so at least this made it easier.


This photo is the three of us at Barnhouse village just a hundred yards or so from the stones of Stennes with Stennes Loch in the background.

The weather was beautiful all week but unfortunately this meant that the ring of Brodgar was not at its best. It is normally a magical place and feels mysterious and has a bit of a brooding but in bright sunlight it is just a whole load of stones sticking out of the ground.



It is better in normal Orkney weather (windy and overcast) or sunrise and sunset as in the photo below.





We also managed to fit in The Saga Centre, Orphir round church,The Brough of Birsay and the viking village as well as the rspb hides at Burger Hill and The Loons.
There has been an otter right in front of the Loons hide recently but that would be a bit much to expect so we had to settle for a pretty little dabchick.

Normally if you spend any time at the coast here then you see plenty of seals so it is not worth actually going to look for them. They will turn up anyway. Just because we had visitors though all the seals had "legged it" (Legged it may not be the right phrase for seals). We even made special trips to the Ness at Stromness where there are always seals and to Finstown where not only are there normally grey seals but a single bearded seal from the arctic has lived there for a couple of years. Were there any seals? Not one. We did get a very long range glimpse of a couple on the beach at Birsay from the Birsay tea rooms after a trip to The Brough,the viking village and the Earls palace. It was a real long range view. Even with binoculars (which the tea rooms obligingly always leave by the windows) we could just make them out.

Just to rub salt into the wounds, Hazel and Sue took us for a meal at The Skerries on the southern coast of South Ronaldsay. The lady there was telling us that she has a couple of seals on the beach by her house every day and even has pet names for them. She also has an otter path across her garden and a recently excavated neolithic chambered tomb just outside the door to the restraunt. A full set.

On Friday night I took my sisters back to Kirkwall to catch the ferry back to Aberdeen. We managed a quick pint in The Shore and then that was it. I hope they enjoyed it and maybe they can see a bit of why I love this place.
Sue phone me Saturday morning to let me know that she had seen the porpoises at the end of the breakwater as they entered Aberdeen harbour so I had not lied about all the sea life. Hazel of course missed them as she was still rotting in her bed.

On Thursday it was election day here for the Scottish parliament. Orkney and Shetland have been Liberal party strongholds for more than 50 years but this time there was a strong local independent candidate and the SNP were also expected to do well so it was not a foregone conclusion. In Scotland as a whole, the SNP had a landslide victory but we kept Liam Mcarthur, the lib Dem who lives on Burray a couple of fields away from us. I think that all of Burray had to vote for him as he is the goalkeeper for Burray football team and they did not want to risk losing him.