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