Sun, sleet and a near miss

On Saturday we set off for the Isle of Hoy on a 25-minute ferry ride across the Hoy Sound from Stromness. And the sun came out. Only one other passenger was on the boat: a young zoologist with two skis looking for a slope to whizz down. Because of him, we have a photo of ourselves, taken before riding up a hill and freewheeling down the road towards Rackwick while marvelling at the snowy peaks and feeling the joy of being ‘on the road’. At low tide we picked huge mussels, then steamed and ate them while warming up at our friend’s wood-fire. There we baked wholemeal bread, made hemp-seed milk, stoked the fire again and again and again, and nearly missed the last ferry back to Stromness fighting fierce hail, sleet and wind. We made it to the pier without a minute to spare and shared notes with the skiier who also only just made it in time.

Surfing Skaill

Sunrise surf at Skaill's right-hand break in early November. Sea = 10 C . Air = 9 C. Two other surfers out in superb, offshore, big swell conditions that don't come around often enough. Lucky for me a visiting surfer had a camera in the water -- I saw the flash go off as I dropped down a wave twice my size. It was a fantastic surf, but getting out of my wetsuit in the open air ... Ouch! Nearest landmark a few metres away: the ancient ruins of Skara Brae. Nearest hot shower seven miles away: my tiny apartment in Stromness.

A fiddle for a tenner

In Shetland last month I visited a friend I'd made at the 2005 Folk Festival. She announced that she'd "just put her son's fiddle to the charity shop" because he never played the b l o o d y thing. I was mortified -- I've always fancied a fiddle! So we raced to the charity shop to try an get it back, but a price-tag of £45 was already hanging from its E-string. After much persuading, Elspeth redeemed it for a tenner, which I paid, and now have the fiddle.

So I took my fiddle to The Reel, a music shop and folksy bar back in Orkney, to see what the owner Wrigley Sisters thought of it. Jennifer and Hazel are super-musical twin sisters, one on fiddle, the other on guitar & piano. Jennifer said of my fiddle she'd seen worse, that it could be put to use. So I got rosin for the bow and a new E-string (which broke while tuning) and next I'll need a case for it... not to mention the lessons I'm going to need to play the b l o o d y thing!

A Royal Visit

Camilla & Charles in Stromness

I was living inside the red circle

Stromness, with the Isle of Hoy across the way