When out walking, I’ve noticed a lot of green garbage bags snagged on tree trunks and blowing in the wind. I was a little surprised, because for the most part, there is minimal litter on Orkney (still more than there should be, and I try to remember to take a bag to the beach to copy a few of the other beach walkers and pick up plastic bottles and beer cans when we’re out).
But I was walking along a different trail on the outskirts of Kirkwall last week, and I saw these trees. It looks like they were planted years ago – they must plant trees here with their root ball in a garbage bag, and then the tree just grows up out of it. So now, in my mind, the blowing bags are less awful. Still ugly, but at least it’s not some inconsiderate local pitching their garbage in amongst the trees because they can’t figure out the local trash collection.
When I was imagining my life here on Orkney – you know, when I was sitting on the flight over here, or during those long, long months of lockdowns 1 through 11 (or whatever), I had certain images in my head.
I pictured Scout & me, walking along windswept beaches, hiking up heather-covered hills, or visiting ancient historic sites (see The Stones of Stenness below). I saw myself in my little kitchen, overlooking the countryside, and making up batches of lovely stews, or warming soups. I imagined what it would be like to curl up in my compartment on the Caledonian Sleeper, wending my way from Inverness to London. What I had not foreseen was the amount of time I spend thinking about, dealing with, writing about, focusing on trash.
Yesterday morning I put out the re-cycling at 8:45 am. I could see the garbage truck up the hill; clearly I had just made it out in time. I saw the same truck at the other end of the street an hour later. When I went out to pull in the bin in the afternoon, it was still full. FFS. What had I done wrong this time? How hard can it be to dispose of one’s waste in Scotland? Had I put the wrong category out on the wrong day? Had I not washed the bottles according to the Council’s standards? Was this a passive aggressive swing at unwanted incomers?
Well I left the bin out overnight, thinking they were running late (hope springs eternal). But to no avail – it was still full the next morning. I dragged it back to the back yard (here’s hoping another gale doesn’t blow up anytime soon; my bins dance around the garden during a windstorm like members of a very heavy dance troupe). I really was feeling like the local council had it in for me. So, while the street was empty, I glanced around, tiptoed across the gravel, scooted up really close to my neighbour’s side wall so they couldn’t see me out their windows, sidled over to their bins, lifted the lid, and peered inside. Ha! Theirs were still full too! It wasn’t a vendetta against the interloper; the bin men had just missed our block.
I can’t believe how much better I felt to see their full bin; clearly I need more and bigger issues to focus on these days.
I bought Scout a new treat: Paw Pops. They’re like Mr Freeze, but for dogs (they don’t smell very nice, IMO). I gave her one and she seemed to quite like it, licking and crunching. Then I looked around and she had just stopped, halfway through the treat, and was just staring at me. I didn’t really think anything of it. A few minutes later, she started eating it again. Then, again, silence. I turned around and she had her head on her paws, with the remaining bits of flavoured ice beside her.
I find my behaviour perfectly sensible, but when I was telling a couple of friends, they went into fits of laughter and said I had to share it.
One of the things I missed when I retired was getting dressed up every day – I liked suits, I liked high heels, I liked pantihose. I also knew when I retired how easy it would be to just sit around in sweats, watching Oprah and eating bonbons (well, more likely watching Netflix and eating Cheetos, but bonbons sounds classier). So I decided that every weekday I wouldn’t wear jeans; in fact I would be dressed by 9am in ‘nice’ clothes. By nice I meant that if a friend called at 11:45 and said, “Hey, I’m in Milton and my 12 o’clock appointment just cancelled; meet me for lunch”, I would be in nice enough clothes that I could just walk out the door. And yes, that did happen. I even took it a step further during the first lockdown; while the rest of the world was on Zoom calls in a nice shirt and pyjama bottoms, I made sure that I was wearing my most expensive scarves, or nice jewelry, when I took Scout for a walk. (I’ve gotten over that.)
I also don’t like leaving my bedroom in my pyjamas or nightie – I mean I don’t schlep around the house in pj’s for the first hour or so. I don’t know if that’s a bungalow thing, but as soon as I get up I drag on some yoga pants and a t-shirt, or some leggings and a sweater. And then, of course, I have to walk the dog, at least once, usually twice a day.
So, when you put that all together, this is what a typical day looks like: wake up in my pj’s and change into comfy clothes immediately. After breakfast, change out of those clothes and into my dog-walking clothes. Return from walk, and put on something nicer like wool pants (trousers for the Brits reading this), a pretty top, some jewelry, and make-up. Then for the afternoon walk, put on my warmer dog-walking clothes. Return from walk and put my day clothes back on. At bedtime, back into nightwear. So, yes, I change clothes six times each day.
The first few weeks of my retirement, Scout became less obedient, not coming when called, pulling on the leash for every walk, even ran off more than once. I put it down to the fact that I was now around more, and she didn’t feel she had to work as hard to please me. A few remedial lessons using some online training tips, and things got back on track.
Well, I gotta say, someone is showing a wee bit of attitude these days. A few things have cropped up: she takes longer and longer to eat her meals, mostly, I think, because she is waiting for me to have mine to see if it’s any better (and to be fair, it always is). I’ve started adding a scoop of canned food to her kibble, but even then, I often get a “this is it?” look from her as I set the bowl down.
She is also very very needy, constantly coming up and nudging me to play with her. She used to understand that sitting at the desk meant I was unavailable, but now she is constantly nudging me, or scratching the desk, or knocking the fridge (that means she wants treats), or scratching to get out. In that last case, she has more than once then run next door when I wasn’t looking.
Compared to dogs in much of the rest of the world, she has a very good life. But from time to time I get twinges of guilt that I’m not playing with her enough. Then I remember an article I read a few years ago in which it was pointed out that the average European dog owner thinks North Americans are nuts for how much they spend on toys for their dogs, and playing with them, and dreaming up ways for the dog to be stimulated and entertained. And then my guilt mostly passes and I remind myself, she’s just a dog.
But this neediness has moved into a bit of defiance, as evidenced by last evening’s little trick. After asking to go out for the third time, instead of ‘doing her business’ and returning, she walked out the door, down the steps, onto the lawn, turned around, lay down and just looked at me.
Edit: And as I am writing this, she just barked (she never barks). When I turned to see what she was barking at, she was just sitting, in the middle of the living room, looking at me. So pushing her luck.
I packed a lot (and I do mean a lot!) of obvious things (clothing, boots, toiletries, etc), but that’s not what I’m referring to. I thought I’d list some of the things that weren’t so obvious, but I felt were ‘pack-worthy’, that is to say deserved space in the luggage.
Technology: Apart from the obvious (earbuds, cables, etc…) I did throw in my GoPro, a cell phone stand, my Rocketbook, and two flash drives with TV series, from MM, without which I would have had a very rough two weeks in October before getting wifi.
Books: I know bringing books in luggage sounds insane, but I was rather proud of myself for limiting them to: three Scottish travel books, the Reid Family Cookbook, my favourite Canadian cookbook Cellar & Silver, and my English/French & English/German pocket dictionaries. (Quite an accomplishment for me – you should have seen the pile I had started with.)
Pictures/Photos: Sibling 1 tucked some old family photos she had had mounted into my carry-on luggage (because I needed yet another reason to cry as I was leaving) and Sibling 2 painted an amazing picture of Scout. These items were the first things I set up in my hotel rooms, and in my house.
The Dog: Scout travelled with her blanket (which I had had her brother sleep on for the weeks leading up to our departure, my shirt (which I wore whilst working around the house then didn’t launder) and 5 lbs of food. I packed her bowls, 5 of her favourite toys, a couple of leashes and her grooming kit. I don’t know how much comfort the blanket & shirt brought her on her voyage, but the shirt went in the garbage and the blanket into the washer the minute she landed.
Personal: I packed a few quirky items (and for a couple of them, I’m not really sure why I chose to bring them). But they all make me smile. A stuffed teddy rabbit called Monsieur Lapin my parents gave me when I was in hospital (I was 33 and we’re not French). A Maple Leaf pin from a good friend, made from the copper that once was part of the roof of the Canadian Parliament Buildings. Kampot white pepper, which I bought in Cambodia – it’s the only food I brought with me. And a cheque book?! I have no idea why.
Television. I don’t watch a lot of TV anymore; I find Netflix, Amazon, Britbox, Acorn, and YouTube (especially YouTube) are enough for me. But I do have more time on my hands here, and I do miss television. I could get a TV and a license, but I think this just might be a winter thing, and once the days are longer and people start visiting, it might not be so much of an issue.
My Friends. Okay, I this isn’t how it sounds. I do miss my friends and family. A lot. Think about it: the only people I have seen in person since October 29th are salesclerks, librarians, hotel staff, and a half dozen elderly day trippers in Oban. So yes, I miss everyone. What I mean is that due to Omicron, I’m in no worse a place here than at home – I would still be interacting with friends and family virtually back there. COVID has taught me I can live a solitary life and has forced other people to become more skilled at virtual gatherings (I had two Zoom calls this week, both with friends who only ever used their computer as a word processor prior to 2020). So when I say I am not missing my friends, I mean I have accepted that isolating is the new norm and technology abounds, so I am as much in touch as I would be at home.
My House. I love my house. Someone once asked if I would build a different house if I won the lottery – nope. So I thought I’d really be missing it. But I am enjoying the opportunity to live with different ‘things’, I’m not shovelling a driveway, and I got rid of a lot of stuff before I left. That last point means I have the opportunity to do some major re-decorating when I return, and I spend a fair amount of time researching and thinking about potential changes. (Oh, and turns out I’m not a minimalist.)
Ethnic Foods. Britain is, much like the GTA, truly multicultural with all the wonderful groceries that go along with that. I just assumed that living on a remote island meant there wouldn’t be much in the way of ethnic ingredients in the local shops. Imagine my delight to find gochujang, and miso, and harissa. So I am still cooking my favourite East Asian and Middle Eastern recipes.
My Books. I love my home ‘library’ (the movers moved 29 boxes of books into storage); any time I was in the mood, I could wander over and either pull out a book from the unread pile or re-visit an old friend. But, I very cleverly (she said with undue modesty) kept my Milton library membership as well as opening one here in Orkney, and both have online (and different) e-book catalogues. So even on the most dreich day, when I want to hunker down on the couch, I can just go online and check out a book or two. Nice.
One of my sisters suggested I do some kind of a Top Ten List for year end. Things that Surprised Me, Mistakes I Made, etc. But I couldn’t thing of ten items in any one category. Instead, I can think of a few items in several categories, so, for the first week of January, I thought I’d do a series of Top Five Lists, the first being things I miss from home. (Obviously, topping this list is family & friends – I miss you all very much. But let’s not get soppy here.)
I miss:
Certain foods (some examples):
Ginger Ale is the only soft drink I like. Here it’s hard to find (ginger beer is not the same), and only comes in large bottles. And while I do like it, I don’t drink a lot each day. So about half the bottle goes flat which feels wasteful, so I rarely buy it.
Rice Vinegar. I cook a lot with rice vinegar. They have it here, but it is in tiny bottles and costs almost twice what it does at home.
Miss Vickie’s Spicy Dill Pickle Chips. ‘Nuff said.
Snow. By February, I am usually pretty fed up with snow shovelling. But other than that (and the dangers of ice lurking under the snow when we’re walking), I love the way snow looks, sounds, smells. Here, we can expect two or three dustings of snow over the winter, and it is not likely to stick for more than a couple of days. In fact, I can tell I am going to miss having four seasons (there are three here: cold & rainy, cool & rainy, cool & pleasant).
My shower. I can’t believe I’m saying that, as my shower at home is not very big, and for someone my height the showerhead is not the most convenient. But I do miss the water pressure, a lot. (And having a bathroom that opens directly into my bedroom, not into the hall by the kitchen.)
My garden. At this time of year, my thoughts usually turn to planning the spring gardening: I dig out my garden books, I start researching online, I visit Terra Nursery (mostly just for the splashes of colour & the smell of soil). Here I keep looking out the window and thinking certain plants would look good in certain places in the yard. Then I think, “What are you doing? You are here for only two years (or maybe only one if owners decide to sell); you are not putting in a vegetable plot. Or annual beds.”
My neighbourhood. This is a very nice neighbourhood, with families, dog owners, a couple of schools, and so on. There’s lots of foot traffic along the street. But my house is designed such that the bedrooms are facing the road, and the living room faces the back garden. Don’t get me wrong – I see why the original owners did this. The kitchen & the living room both have huge picture windows from which I can see the hills behind town, a few farm fields, sometimes sheep, and often the most spectacular weather displays (like today’s horizontal rain); as well as flock upon flock of birds (I am learning a lot of new types of birds). But I miss sitting in my front window and seeing people go by, kids playing in the street, dog walkers stopping to wave at Scout and me.
Edit: I just thought of a sixth one: Appliances. I just went through to the kitchen and realised I miss: my induction stove, my roomy fridge (but not the freezer – I like this style better), my quiet washing machine & dryer (this washing machine would wake the dead), my Kitchen Aid food processor, my Le Creuset pots, my Kobenstyle pot, and my dishwasher that actually fits the dishes (the dinner plates in Scotland are bigger than the bottom rack of the dishwasher – granted, I am basing that on a sample-size of two (my uncle’s and here), so that may not be the norm).
Happy New Year! New Year’s Eve / Day is a big deal in Scotland (it’s called Hogmanay here), and certainly when my parents were growing up it was bigger (read: more festive) than Christmas. Different communities have different local traditions, like Orkney’s ba’, or Stonehaven’s fireball swinging (my mother’s family is from Stonehaven) which sounds very dangerous. And there are more general traditions: all debts paid up (I paid my MasterCard bill on Tuesday), housecleaning (did that yesterday, along with the dead seal cleansing), steak pie for New Year’s Day dinner (I will miss out on that, but my sisters still do that each year), singing Auld Lang Syne with arms linked, and first footing, where at midnight people visit one anothers’ houses to wish them a happy new year. It is considered good luck if the first person to cross your threshold in the new year is a dark haired man – my fair-haired Dad used to accompany his best friend (and brunette) Duncan as he first-footed around Bellshill – they were offered a wee dram of whisky in each house. 😊
Some of this year’s Hogmanay festivities were curtailed by Omicron – I’ve mentioned the Ba’ (cancelled) and the tractor run (went ahead) here in Kirkwall. I didn’t know if there would be any first-footing in Kirkwall, but my bedroom faces the street, so at around 11:45 I opened my window and blinds, got into bed with a book, and waited to see – sure enough at midnight I could hear some fireworks going off somewhere, and a few people walked past on their way to visit friends (at least I assume that’s what they were doing – they could just have been walking their dogs).
Anyway, I’m very excited to see what 2022 will bring – my resolutions this year are pretty simple: swear less, learn to cook at least 5 types of seafood I’ve never cooked before, and visit at least 10 of the 70+ islands that make up Orkney.
Happy New Year, and as we Scots say: lang may yer lum reek!
Woke early; tea, toast, & marmalade; lovely weather; planned out my day. First we would walk along the beach at Scapa, then a lunch of homemade onion soup and a smoked salmon sandwich, then a stroll downtown and along the harbour, then spend the afternoon with tea, cookies, and a new book.
The beach was lovely. Until . . . . the ficking dead seal. I wasn’t watching her closely, and when I turned to look, she was rolling in dead seal. Freshly dead seal. What you see there are blood, guts, and bits of seal fur. FFS.
We kept walking, I mean what was the point of turning back right away? We might as well get the rest of the walk in. I made sure not to get too close (except when I had to clip on her leash). When we got back to the parking lot, I tied her to a handle of the car and grabbed the tea towel I keep in the car to wipe her muddy paws and soaked it in the ocean. I tried scrubbing off what I could. Then I lined the trunk (boot) with her rugs from the back seat and asked her to jump in. (I should mention that, for the first 8 1/2 years of her life, she would not jump into the car; she would put her front paws on the car seat, or the car frame, and wait for the back end to be lifted in by me. Only recently has she started jumping in without help.) Needless to say, she didn’t jump this time – I had to lean down and lift her while averting my face. Sigh.
We drove home with the windows open. I got into the house first and stripped down to my t-shirt & jeans, then went out and got her and led her into the shower. God, the stench. (Again, an aside: it wasn’t as pungent a smell as skunk, not by a long shot, but it is the odour of death, which comes with its own ‘ugh’ factor.) I started out outside the shower, just reaching in, but fast realised that wasn’t going to work. So into the shower I went, jeans and all. And have I mentioned the low water pressure? When we were done, I left her in the shower stall and waited for her to shake. She wouldn’t – I really should have taught her that command – so finally I caved and let her out. She promptly shook.
I can still smell it. After I gave her a shower, I gave the shower stall a shower, then I had a shower. Then I wiped down the bathroom, I washed the leash in the bathroom sink, the towels are in the washer for the first of at least two rounds, and they will be followed by the rugs, then my clothes.
I can still smell it. Is it on her? A bit still on me? Is it in my imagination? I’ve sprayed us both down with Chanel No 5.
