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I got my first electricity bill the other day, and I freaked out.  It was astronomical, or so it seemed to me.  What with the in-floor radiant heating, the water heater, and the fact that Orkney’s electricity rates are among the highest in the UK (a statistic that makes no sense to me), it was a bit of a shock (pun unintentional).  My immediate reaction was to go around the house, lowering the thermostats, turning off all the wall outlets (UK outlets have little on/off switches), closing the doors to rooms, and hanging my last load of laundry on hangers and rails around the house instead of using the dryer.  LL in Calgary is rolling her eyes right now and saying, “Of course you did, Elaine.  Of course you did.”

I know this sounds like an overreaction, and it’s not like I can’t afford whatever the bills turn out to be each month, but it comes on the heels of many, many instances of flagrant overspending since I arrived here, the most recent incident being earlier that same day.  I had just seen my phone bill in which I had made a call to an International Toll-Free 1-800 number in Toronto.  Turns out my UK phone provider still charges for numbers like those, so I had unknowingly spent $60 on a single phone call to a bank in Canada earlier last month.

You see, since I have landed in Scotland I have spent significantly more money than budgeted for on a variety of items, for four different reasons.  I have overspent due to: 1) ignorance – the aforementioned phone call, and buying large furniture items here in Kirkwall because I needed them quickly and didn’t know there is a haulage company that does a weekly run to Ikea in Edinburgh for a really reasonable fee; 2) stupidity – over tipping a porter on the first day because I hadn’t looked at the denomination in my hand, and buying that handmade toque because I didn’t look hard enough through my luggage for a hat; 3) circumstance – having to make an extra 4-day trip to Glasgow to pick up a replacement bank card after mine was compromised; and 4) intent – buying Kirkjuvagr Gin instead of Gordon’s, and having lunch at The Foveran restaurant instead of eating at home. On top of all of those examples, many other instances, and the phone call, the electricity bill was the straw that broke the banker’s back.

I wrote the landlord asking what a typical month’s rate was – it’s not that I can’t afford the bill in my monthly budget, it’s just that I don’t want to find out I’ve been doing a poor job of managing my usage. Then I spent an entire day going through all my expenses for the last four months, working through a spreadsheet to analyse my up-front costs and build a budget going forward.  The good news: my bill was in line with what the previous residents had been spending and my monthly budget for the next 24 months is absolutely do-able.  The bad news? I have spent waaaay more than I had planned for when it comes to getting settled. 

The day before I left, Sibling 1 asked me if I really thought that by the end of this adventure I would be breaking even, and I blithely assured her that, oh yes, based on my calculations I would be fine, possibly even ahead of the game.  In retrospect, not so much.   

But, I do still have to live. Ergo, the heating is back up, the sheets and towels are in the dryer, and I’m off to buy a new pair of winter boots.  Panic averted.  Or at least postponed.

Step One in Dog Grooming: Spend 30 minutes brushing her and/or cutting away any knots. As I brush her almost daily anyway, there is no need for this rolling into a ball under the desk in hopes I will go away. Pure drama.

Step Two: The shaving. This is done on a soft sheet, on a carpeted floor, with a well-guarded electric dog groomer, so again – the look of contempt I am getting is not called for in the slightest. I mean, it’s not as if she knows I accidently used a shorter blade on one leg than anywhere else, making her front right leg look withered and misshapen. After an hour of this, the bulk of the work was done. We both needed a break – I went and had a cup of tea, and she went and sulked in the bedroom.

Step Three: The extremities. Now we move on to everyone’s favourite part: the paws, private areas, ears, face, and tail (actually, I only remembered the tail as I was typing this – I don’t think either of us is ready for yet another re-visit, so it will have to wait until I’m mentally prepared. Maybe the weekend.). This involves shorter blades, closer work, and a great deal of patience on both our parts. Scout never fights me as we’re doing any of this – she just gently turns her face away, or draws her paw back, or sits down when I have the razor perilously close to her, well, you know, her bits. Blessedly, she sits completely still as I cut around her eyes – wise dog.

Step Four is actually a two-parter: Cleaning up the shaggy bits and uneven fur, and cleaning up the room. The former is a 2 or 3 day process – I leave the scissors out on the coffee table, and anytime she drifts by and I notice an unruly tuft of fur, we have a little snipping session. The latter is also a 2 to 3 day process, but that’s just because even after what seems like a thorough vacuuming, I keep seeing little bits and pieces of fluff. Everywhere.

Someone once complained to me about the cost of dog grooming – you know what? The professionals deserve every penny they charge. This is my final result – it’s been several hours over the last two days, I think the ears are uneven, I can see a couple more patchy spots, and I haven’t even tackled the tail. Robin & Maria at Pet Makeover in Milton: we miss you!

My hairstylist Enzo once chastised his parents for buying a slow cooker because, as he said, “You’re retired; you’re home all day. You can just cook whenever you want.” I do get his point, but I do love slow cookers. I’m a morning person, so I like doing all the prep before lunch and then having a lovely dinner waiting. I can make a bigger batch, and freeze a couple of portions for later. And as I’m only cooking for one these days, I only need a smaller unit.

So I ordered a Swan Retro Slow Cooker online (yes, I had tried to shop local, but the only ones I saw were six-litre monstrosities). It arrived this morning and I started unpacking it from its nice big box. It was the lid that was the first clue that I may have misjudged. Then I removed more and more packing material to unveil the cutsiest, teeniest, darlingist little cream coloured crockpot. Scout came through from the sitting room to see what the giggling was all about.

I’ve put the coffee mug on the counter for scale – that’s a normal-sized 400 gram can of tomatoes in there. I have no one to blame but myself; I guess I was too caught up in the cute retro look to read that it was called a “Compact Slow Cooker”, not small, or to see the words “1.5 litre capacity” right there in the description.

Here’s my dilemma – I really wanted to be able to do some batch freezing (as I do with my 3-litre unit at home), and I do think all it will take is one can of chickpeas and a can of tomatoes and this thing will be full. But it is adorable – I mean, just look at it. And maybe making smaller batches is okay. And I did watch that documentary on how much of returned Amazon items just go straight into landfill. Hmm.

Yeah, I’m keeping it – I owe it to the planet not to return it. Off to make Obi’s Moroccan Harira!

Sitting reading the local newspaper this afternoon – the front page headline of this week’s Orcadian was about a local quarry; page 2 had an article on increased funding for mental health; and on page 5 there was a story about a man who had fallen off the main harbour pier one night last week and was rescued by the harbour master.

And then, tucked away in a tiny corner on page 7 there was this article about an unexploded ordnance. That’s a bomb. A bomb. On a beach. Less than 10km from here. That Scout & I have visited.

They blew it up three days later.

Kinda makes you wonder just how often this happens, for it to be an after-thought on page 7.

We woke up to the first snow of the season this morning – not what I had expected after yesterday’s gales. The temperature is still quite mild (3 degrees) so it was a lovely walk. One of those “A year ago this week” streams showed up in my Google Photos – guess which was a year ago this week in Ontario vs today? And while we’re going down memory lane, the third photo is 9 years ago this week – Scout’s first day in her new home.

Instead of snow days, the schools here close for wind. There is an amber weather warning in place in Orkney for the next 18 – 24 hours. The wind is currently at 83 mph, and there are potential gusts up to 100 mph expected this afternoon and evening. Not only are the schools closing at 1pm today, but garbage collection has been cancelled (I really am not having the best of luck with waste management, am I?). I’m not sure where my garbage bin is at the moment – I’m heading out as soon as this is posted to retrieve it.

Scout & I went for our morning walk – the wind was so strong that parents were carrying their children to school. Not just the toddlers at the Nursery School, but actually carrying their 8- and 9-year olds, it was that wild. A few of the kids were crying because the rain felt like needles. Scout has an appointment at the vet this afternoon – it’s been postponed twice already, so I don’t think I can re-schedule yet again, but I am really really hoping their office calls me to cancel (it’s just her annual jabs, nothing serious).

Oh, one more thing. Just because I hung Scout’s towel on the heated towel-rail before we left for the walk so it would be nice and toasty when we got back does not mean she is the most spoiled dog in the world.

One of the things I noticed about houses here vs home was the entry way. When I first got to my uncle’s I found the two-part front doorway interesting, but I thought maybe it was just specific to his neighbourhood, or a thing from the 1970’s, when his house and the ones around him were all built. But it seems it’s the same up here in Orkney.

Many, if not almost all houses have a front door that opens into a very small vestibule, with a second, often frosted glass, inner door. Both doors lock and in Uncle Ian’s neighbourhood in Carluke many people leave the outer front door wide open during the day, with the inner door closed and presumably locked. My house has exactly the same set-up, as do all of my neighbours, and I often see their outer doors ajar.

I really hadn’t given it any more thought until yesterday, when I heard my outer front door open, someone step inside, set down a package, and leave, all without calling out or ringing the bell. I had inadvertently left the outer door unlocked as we had just returned from a walk and I was going to go out and bring in a few things from the car. It seems this is how larger packages are delivered – no knock or doorbell to slow the process down, the postal worker just opens the door, drops the delivery, and heads off.

Very practical, but both Scout & I were a tad surprised at the time, to say the least.

It’s probably not fair to say that walking Scout back in Milton was boring, but in all honesty, one day was much like the next. Walks here are very different – over the course of a 1-hour walk we can experience blinding sunshine (blinding because the sun is very low in the sky, not because it is in any way intense), light showers, gale-force winds, and today – a rainbow.

Today’s walk definitely had its highs and lows – I don’t know if you can call the crows arranged along the street as running the gauntlet, but boy oh boy, it’s hard to believe they weren’t doing it intentionally.

The low today was when Scout and I walked across a field. From the pavement it looked like a grassy meadow, and for the first 50′ or so it was. Then, it turned into a bog and as we were by then in the middle of the field, there was no turning back. You know it’s a damp country when a field at the top of a hill is boggy. My wonderful Vessi shoes lived up to their promise – my feet were bone-dry when we got home, but someone else did not quite fare so well. (The shampoo on the left is mine, the shampoo on the rug is hers – guess which was the more expensive.)

The highlight of my walk? In town a couple of men stopped me on the street and asked for directions (from their accents I’m guessing they were from Glasgow). And I knew the answer! Me, the Canuck who just landed, confidently pointed them to a nice place to get breakfast. I’m still quite chuffed about it.

Much like the stockpile of garbage in my freezer, I had missed one of the re-cycling days, so the glass had started to pile up. Finally glass & plastic day came around and I lugged all the empty bottles to the bin, then to the curb (kerb). Now, before anyone says anything smart, you should know that Tesco’s Finest Sicilian Lemon & Mint Presse comes in glass bottles, as does Baxters Crinkle Cut Beetroot, and Branston Pickle. So the bin wasn’t entirely dead soldiers. (Oh who are we kidding, it was mostly empty wine & gin bottles. So what?)

Scout & I were just coming back from our walk as the garbage truck was rounding the corner. At the same time, the lady down the street stopped across the road to chat to my elderly neighbours. Scout wanted to stay and socialize, but all I could think was, get in the front door and close it before the bin men pick up and open the bin full of empties in front of my neighbours. We made it in before I had to see any grins or raised eyebrows. Whew.

Garbage collection on the islands seems quite involved – every house is supplied with at least three of these waist-tall (well, maybe chest-tall on me) wheelie bins, and much like at home, the colour of the bin designates the contents. The bins are cool – the garbage men (yes, so far it’s all been men) roll them up to the truck and an apparatus lifts the bins, tilts them to open, dumps the contents into the truck, and then sets the bins back down to be rolled back to the driveway. Much slower than at home, but much much easier on the workers’ backs. Again like at home, certain garbage is picked up on differing weeks. The property manager walked me through the rules and schedules the day I moved in: the re-cycling bins (there are two) pick up four different types of recycling depending on the week: glass, paper, metal, plastic; and that’s what the inserts in each bin are for. Except they don’t like you using the inserts, so don’t. It’s because of COVID. The black bins are for all other garbage and now, because of COVID we don’t separate out food waste for composting; it’s all gets thrown out with the trash. COVID is blamed for a lot: one less-than-cheery hotel receptionist told me I couldn’t have a Do Not Disturb sign for my room because of COVID!?! (But that’s a story for another day)

The schedule is also quite detailed and as a result of the bi-weekly black bin (garbage and food waste) pick-up, coupled with my arrival day and trip down to Glasgow, it was several weeks before I managed to be home on that day. Now, after having lived two decades in a neighbourhood with skunks and raccoons, I was leery to leave my garbage outside in the black bin. It since turns out that there are no predators strong enough or clever enough on Orkney to open the bin, but I didn’t know that at the time. So the garbage started to build up. I was able to get rid of one small bag in a petrol station one day, but the staff don’t like you doing that, and I was worrying about the rest. So I froze it. By the time the actual collection day came around, I had two bags of garbage in the freezer, and one in the fridge (as shown). Yep, I was stockpiling garbage. In my own defense I was trying to be prudent – I’ve always had my garbage cans in a closed garage up until now, and a racoon could very easily open these bins sitting in the backyard. And I do not relish the thought of cleaning up the mess they make.

But yes, in case you’re wondering, I do now put my garbage directly in the outdoor bin. Still haven’t mastered the rotation for re-cycling, but I’ve lots of cupboard space for now and I’ll figure that routine out soon.