My cousin, my CIL (her hubby), and their four friends arrived late afternoon, after four days of serious physical labour building stone walls (see prev post), last night’s rowdy ceilidh (more on that later), and a stressful journey from North Ronaldsay to Kirkwall – the flight is only 18 minutes; it was the four hours leading up to it that were stressful. So, first thing for the weary travellers? – wine, obvs. Once that was done we headed over to the County Show as it was slowly wrapping up in the late afternoon. We checked out the horses, the wool, the gin, and, interestingly – the Lorne sausage. My CIL is Scottish, now living in the south of England, and can’t get Lorne or ‘square’ sausage back home. It’s a pork & beef sausage in a square patty, and Scots go nuts for it. Okaaaaay. It was his mission for the afternoon. After disappointment at the first few food trucks (they’d run out of Lorne sausage by noon and it was now 4 p.m.), he was becoming more and more despondent. He finally settled for a hamburger, and the only thing that cheered him up was when we hit the gin-tasting tent (God, a gin-testing tent. How good is life?). While at the tent, we ran into a young man working there who had spent the last 3 days with my friends building the stone dykes, and whom I’ve known a few months from one of the tasting rooms in town. Gotta love small town life.
We thoroughly enjoyed the show – it was very small-town, country fair, and a perfect way for them to wind down their day.
After some snacks and wine at my house (the afore-mentioned all-island, all-highland charcuterie board), we headed out to a local gin distillery that has the cutest covered patio bar out back (called Oot the Back – get it?). On the way they met another young lady who had been with them on North Ronaldsay; we scooped her up into our little gang off to the pub. Again, small town life.
They don’t serve food in this pub – although, as an aside, every pub or bar in the UK sells little bags of nuts, or crisps, or snacks – why don’t we do that in Canada? – but at Oot the Back you can order in from one of the local takeaways and eat on the patio. The gin cocktails were delicious. It was mostly young locals at the tables around us – I am not going to get into a round of second-wave feminism – I will simply say that was the smallest lace bra I’ve seen worn as a top out in public. Dear God.
We headed home and ordered in Chinese food to my house for a late dinner. I’ve mentioned this British custom before: last fall I ran into my neighbours as they were bringing in six pizzas, one for each person in the house, as opposed to the North American custom of buying one or two extra-large pizzas for all to share. Well, last night we got out the Chinese menu, and each person ordered what he or she was going to have. So, one person was having the crispy beef, another the chicken chow mein, etc. It seemed we were going to share the rice, but each of the mains belonged to one individual. It was very interesting. On the whole, I guess it is the more sensible way to order takeaway vs our method of: get two meat, two veg, one noodle, some rice, and some chicken balls and everyone dig in. But I’m more used to our way. *BTW – they don’t have seem to have chicken balls here – yet another example of British superiority. Well, as long as you ignore deep-fried Mars bars and French fry sandwiches (aka chip butty).