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I was going to wait until I got home to share my adventures on the Seine, but OMG, so much has happened and the boat hasn’t even left the dock – a tale worthy of serialization.

Let’s go back to Pre-Thursday:
I booked a river cruise with Uniworld: the Seine – Paris to Normandy & back. It’s an 8-day cruise – I have done a similar cruise, but with another company, and that was with my mother, whose dementia was becoming more pronounced, and my father, who was tired from caring for Mum. So I spent most of that cruise caring for them, and not really seeing the towns and villages.

Uniworld also book my flight from Heathrow; I was in charge of getting myself to LHR. I booked my flights to and from Scotland. The timing meant I had to spend a night at a Heathrow hotel, which I booked on Expedia. I did all the booking, arranged for a dog sitter, and started planning, list-making etc…. Now, to the events thus far:

Thursday: I sat down to check in online – OH NO – I had booked my hotel in London for Saturday night, not Friday! I would have arrived Friday night with no room at the inn. After a couple of phone calls to the hotel & Expedia, I had cancelled the Saturday room and re-booked for Friday night (they waived the fee, but there was a hefty hike in room rates). Then I went on to British Air’s website to check-in there – OH NO – I had made the same mistake with the flights from Kirkwall and Glasgow! Seriously, what was wrong with me. I started imagining myself arriving in Paris one day late and being taxied to the first stop.

Fortunately, something made me go and check the Uniworld cruise itinerary.
Ah. It left on the Sunday, not Saturday – turns out all my original reservations had been correct. A good news/stupid news sort of a situation. Back online, changed the hotel room back to the correct dates (slight improvement in room rates at Heathrow). Not my finest moment.

Friday: a whole day of time handed back to me – it let me really attack minimalist packing, which I did with a vengance – one rolling carry-on and a large purse.

So, now the stage is set for Lainey’s Lovely Holiday.

So it seems it’s not ‘spag bol’; it’s ‘a spag bol’, as in, “I made a spag bol for dinner last night.” Just as they don’t order in Chinese or Indian food, they order ‘a Chinese’ or get ‘a curry’ (the ‘meal’ is silent I guess).

And I saw my neighbours on pizza night – they had 6 pizzas: one each. I mentioned this to someone local who said, “Well what else would you do; what if they all want something different?” and I explained that in that case, in Canada we would order 2 large pizzas, one with only vegetables, and one that was half Hawaiian, half pepperoni, and that way everyone got something they sort of wanted, and no one was completely happy.

I told my cousin that I was surprised by British tuna sandwiches – the tuna is always made with sweetcorn (or ‘corn’ as we would say). She & her daughter thought celery in a tuna salad was bizarre.

Random thoughts: it must be term break – either that or we’ve gone back into lockdown and no one told me. I don’t really think of living next door to three schools and a student residence as intrusive – I just notice them as background noise if anything. But the absence of the kids makes our walks very very quiet – a weird feeling. My first week here coincided with the fall term break, it got dark early, I didn’t have internet, the house was new to me – I admit now that I was a little freaked out my first week here by the general silence and darkness. There is a fitness centre on the 2nd floor of the high school and I can see it from my windows – it made me feel better to see the lights on and people working out (yes, like they would see and hear me being attacked by a knife-wielding madman from all the way across a field, and then make it over here in time to stop the carnage – that’s NOT the point). But now, the days are longer and I feel at home, so it’s more Scout who misses their presence; the kids do like her.

House Inspection: I have been notified by the property managers that they are coming later this week for a property inspection. I immediately started cleaning !?! Honestly, what do I think this is going to be? White gloves and litmus papers? I realised I was a tad OTT when Scout got up for the third time and left the room I was working in.

Spag Bol: I have an Aussie friend who abbreviates a lot of words. She likes a cuppa, often with a biccy. My favourite – and it did take LL & me a while to figure this one out – is when they talk about Macca’s. It wasn’t until she mentioned a cheeseburger that we realized she was talking about McDonald’s! It seems this is a very Aussie thing to do. Brits do the same thing, often regarding food: mash for mashed potatoes, sarni for sandwich, bevvy for beverage. Tonight I am making a British classic: spag bol. Not spaghetti bolognese, that takes too long to say and sounds pretentious. I’m making spag bol.

It seems each month has its own flowers. In January, we had snowdrops (okay, in very late January, let’s not split hairs here); in February it was crocuses. In March all the eye could see was daffodils: little pale narcissi, huge yellow & gold trumpets. They are all over my garden, everyone’s gardens, parks, roadside ditches, even little crevices in the pavement have tiny ones flowering. They are still going strong, but it seems primroses are going to be April’s main backdrop. Again, every garden, stone wall, planter, and window box is covered in every colour imaginable. These pale yellows are my favourite.

I can’t wait to see what May brings.

Woke up this morning and the knee that started acting funny on Sunday was still flaring up. At 8:45 I called the doctors’ office with whom I’m registered. Unlike my doctor’s office at home, the conversation with the receptionist was pleasant and productive. She booked me in with a physiotherapist for 10:30. All the G.P.s’ offices in Kirkwall seem to be located in the hospital. I pulled into the hospital parking lot at 10:25, parked for free in the patients’ parking area, walked into the hospital, and was taken at exactly 10:30. The last time anything happened that swiftly for me back home was 28 years ago this week when I found, had diagnosed, and had removed a cancerous tumour – for which I thank Dr Sheppard, OHIP, & Credit Valley Hospital greatly. But back to Orkney. The first words out of his mouth were, “This is a 20 minute consultation.” Which may be why they were running on time, or may just be to stave off chatty patients. Either way, I was in, examined, and out in 16 minutes, and did not feel rushed at all. I don’t know if my experience was typical of the U.K. or was island-specific, but I don’t care – I was most impressed. (No, we still don’t know what the prob is with the knee – it didn’t act up once while I was with the therapist – isn’t that always the way?)

On another note: vacuum cleaners. Remember when vacuum cleaners had bags? And then Mr Dyson or someone came along and said, “No more messy bags; we have canisters!” Well, yuck. For the last 25 years I’ve been waiting for the pendulum to swing back and the industry to re-introduce bags, saying, “No more digging around in canisters, we have nice clean bags!” I don’t care what anyone says, when it was a bag, yes, clamping the new one in took an extra 3 seconds, but the full bag came out of the machine in a nice, contained, easily disposed of sack. Now, after pulling the canister out, I hold it over the garbage can, pop the opening, and watch as a fine layer of dust flies up from the waste that pours out of the canister and settles throughout the recently cleaned room. Then, with the particular cordless stick model I have now, I have to reach in and scrape out any of the clumps of debris that are caught right up against the filter. NO, this way isn’t better, dammit.

But, this week, mine broke. Well, the roller brush stopped spinning. I carefully removed & cleaned it, and tried it again – to no avail. I took it to the shop where I bought it, but customer service isn’t their strong suit, and they basically told me, “yes we’ll take it back and get it fixed, but you might as well phone Hoover first and see if they can help you. ” Lovely.

So I wrote Hoover, who replied promptly. But their solution was that they wanted to send me a new roller brush. But isn’t that like telling the mechanic that your wheels aren’t turning, and having him say, “let’s put on new tires!”. I tried explaining to the person at the help desk that the problem might be more complex than replacing a pop-in, pop-out unit, but he seemed confused. So in spite of fearing that I may be putting the vacuum out of warranty, I got out the screw driver, lifted off the base, saw that a spindle was clogged, cleaned it, replaced the base, and voila! it sucks! (you know what I mean).

All in all, not quite the day I had anticipated.

British houses don’t often have basements, but they do have useable attics. When I was a little girl we visited my grandmother’s house and her bungalow had a sort of second floor, but no staircase. Instead, when my Dad & Uncle Ian wanted to go to bed as little boys, they opened a door in the ceiling and pulled down a hinged angle ladder. This absolutely fascinated my sisters and me.

My little house here in Kirkwall has the same thing – there is a latched door in the ceiling, leading to heaven knows what (some nights I sleep better than others). The loft in the photo is at my uncle’s house – it’s full of old toys and appliances and furniture, as well things that my uncle still uses periodically (Scout’s travel crate is up there too). Uncle Ian will be 90 next month, and he pops up to the loft probably at least once a month. I was there watching him one day – my heart was in my mouth. But no, it seems it’s no problem for him – on and off the ladder without a thought.

Carry on and stay calm.

Those are fulmars, nesting on the cliff face by The Gloup. It seems that if you get too close to a fulmar or its chicks, it will vomit on you. Yes, vomit. Bright orange oil that absolutely reeks. Even odder, it is the chicks who are the most skilled at projectile vomiting and are so dumb they will upchuck on their own parents for the first few weeks of their lives, until the chicks learn to recognize the adults. (This is why one shouldn’t have children)

An acquaintance told me that when she inadvertently got too near a nest, the birds vomited on her running shoes. No amount of airing, washing, or disinfecting would get rid of the stench; after weeks of trying she had to throw the shoes away. Sort of like the skunks of Scotland.

This morning Scout sprained a paw. She was romping with some other dogs, and I think it must be like when a 40+ year old guy joins a bunch of twenty-somethings for a game of hockey, and thinks he can keep up with the youngsters. I, on the other hand, blew out my knee whilst sitting on the sofa this afternoon watching the Great British Sewing Bee (first time I’ve been injured watching other people work). So, I figured we were stuck inside all day, but, as I’ve said before, when it is 13°C and sunny on Orkney, you have to go out. So off we went to the peninsula of Deerness to The Gloup.

This is The Gloup. A gloup, according to Merriam-Webster, is ‘an opening in the roof of a sea cave through which incoming waves may force air to rush upward or water to spout’. We know I’m not exactly Ansel Adams, so let me explain what you are seeing. The thin blue line above the fence is the North Sea and the peedie (small) blue square towards the bottom is an arched opening to the sea. The whole thing is 80 metres long and 25 metres deep.

We limped along beside it (well, I limped – Scout seems to have recovered), and then along the cliff tops towards the Broch of Deerness. We didn’t quite make the broch, as my limp was becoming more pronounced, and a rather aggressive looking bull terrier was off-leash up ahead.

But, I’ve seen a gloup.

A couple of months ago I commented on a short paragraph in the local newspaper about an unexploded bomb. It had been reported on way back on page 7, in a section called In brief . . .

Last week, the Orcadian reported on a body found on a beach. This was also not reported on the front page, or even page 2 – those pages were reserved for high fuel prices (fair enough), and an ongoing discussion about roadworks in the next town over. There it was, tucked away in a tiny corner on page 4, in In brief . . . (that ellipsis seems to diminish it even further.)

I have to think that in Milton this would have been headline news. The Champion most definitely would have led with a dead body, and it would be all over Milton Talks & Milton Mommies FB pages.

Clearly it takes a lot to rattle the Scots.