I first visited the Hamnavoe when I was here in 2018.  It is one of Orkney’s fine dining establishments, a peedie restaurant up a narrow wee close in Stromness.  It seemed like the perfect choice for this last evening: I could leave my car in the ferry’s parking lot, walk to the restaurant, have wine with my meal, head back to the car and drive 50 metres onto the ferry for the night.  (Scout dined on kibble from a bowl in the backseat while I was gone – she was not impressed.)

As usual, I got chatting with the wait staff as I placed my order: Orkney salmon to start with Prosecco, then Orkney beef with a Pinot Noir.  I rhapsodized over the gochujang salmon sashimi starter between courses, so the chef came out to deliver my main course personally.  Ox cheek with smoked garlic mash – equally rhapsody-worthy. When asked how my meal was going, I told the waitress this was turning out to be a delicious ‘last meal’.  Well, when the chef heard that this was my last day on Orkney, he comped me a glass of dessert wine (which I normally don’t have), which meant I had to order dessert (which I normally don’t have). Valrhona mousse with miso caramel sauce. OMG – what a finale to an amazing dinner. 

Thank God the car was parked right in front of the boat, and I only had to drive in a straight line to park onboard – let’s just say I slept well that night.

I had spent a lot of time over the last few weeks planning out my last day in Orkney.  I wanted to re-visit certain favourite spots, indulge in a few tugs on the heartstrings, and take full advantage of every last minute of my time here.

So, the first thing I did after locking up the Community Fridge was to cross the street and go into my favourite shop in all of Orkney: The Brig Larder, where I said good bye to the lovely staff, and bought a stonking big bottle of Sea Glass Gin from the Deerness Distillery.

Then (and this is where I lost the plot just a peedie bit), I did some driving around town.  Specifically, Bridge St, Albert St, Victoria St, and Main St.  This is a series of narrow, one-way, twisty, cobbled streets that get narrower and narrower as you progress.  When I first moved here I marvelled at the drivers who just popped along, avoiding pedestrians and parking wherever they saw fit.  My first winter here, I was leaving Kirkwall early one morning for the 7am ferry, so I bravely (and rather daringly, I thought) turned up Bridge St and navigated my way, thinking that a dark and deserted 6am was the only time I would ever do this.  Well, fast forward 19 months: I drive along those streets and lanes often, giving it little thought.  But I thought it would be a fitting last drive before leaving town.  And it was.

Then a circuitous drive through the countryside, ending up at my favourite hiking spot in all of Orkney, the cliffs at Yesnaby.  It was a glorious day, cool and sunny, and off we headed for one last walk out to the seastacks.  Everything was going just fine until Scout found a dead seal, and started rolling.  Dammit, dammit, dammit.  I got her away, but what was I supposed to do now?  I had no bathtub to take her home to, the sea was miles below us, and I was about to spend that night locked in a tiny cabin with her on the ferry, followed by two days close-quartered in a 4-seater hatchback.  Well, splendid. 

Headed back to the car, and drove into Stromness and parked at the harbour.  I had a library book I had to finish and drop off at the Stromness branch before leaving.  We sat for a while in the carpark while I found out who the murderer was (it was the second wife) and sitting there I realised Scout actually didn’t smell too bad at all.  I had had a glimpse of the seal before dragging Scout away and I guess the reason she wasn’t as squiffy as last year was because, well (sorry about this), the corpse was fresh this time.   It was just a sleek, smooth corpse, unlike when Scout was covered in all the decomposed ‘bits’ the first time round (again, my apologies).  So that was a blessing. 

Next on the farewell tour (after returning the book to the library) was a walk through Stromness and out to the Ness and back.  Stromness is beautiful on a sunny day, so this was quite a treat.  Then back to the car, where I abandoned Scout for 2 hours in a carpark while I went and had one final Orcadian dinner.

When I went to bed last night, everything was packed.  Well, everything except my toiletries, technology, and anything in the fridge.  I had asked my landlord if he wanted to come by at 9:45 to hand over the keys (which would have meant being ready by 9:30 just in case he was early), but he was busy and said to leave them under a rock.  So this meant no rush; I had just gained another half hour.

He had made it very clear that I was to be out by 10:00 a.m.  That gave me lots of time.  Up at 6:30, tea, a walk on a beautiful morning, then back to the house to do some last minute tidying, clean the bathroom, and pack the car.  But.

But, late the day before I had received an email from my accountant, needing more documents (see previous post), and that took a little time, plus, I was supposed to be sending out my club’s monthly newsletter (well that was a disaster).  Suddenly, it was 9:30 – finances done, but still packing up and cleaning to do, and newsletter not sent – well, the race was on.  Remember Samantha Stevens in Bewitched?  She’d twinkle her nose, speed herself up, and race around getting things done – that was me (the dog watched in fascination and dismay).  At 9:58 I had shoved the last suitcase out onto the driveway, done one last swoop around the house (I never did mop the kitchen or utility room floors), and had hidden the key under a stone.  Then another four minutes to shove everything willy-nilly into the car – by 10:02 I had vacated the house and the driveway.  Whew.

But I still had so much to do before showing up at noon at the Community Fridge for my last volunteer stint on Orkney.  So here’s what I did in under two hours:

1. Out to the Hatston recycling centre with my last bag of garbage, then over to the vet for Scout’s flea & tick meds.
2. Park overlooking the harbour and put on my make-up (there’s no need to drop standards just because it’s my last day).
3. Drive back into town, head into the library, log on, and send out a pathetic excuse for a newsletter (sorry members of CFUW Milton; next month will be better).
4. Zip back out to Hatston for an early lunch at my favourite food truck.  Take the food back to the harbour parking lot and dine in-car on an amazing nduja rigatoni.  Then get out of the car, pull everything (including the dog) out and re-pack.  Those who know me know how I like a well-packed car.  (Last winter my cousin-in-law was both impressed with my Tetris-packed trunk (boot), and unimpressed that he had to play Jenga and haul out all those cases, and gift bags, and coolers, and knapsacks to get at the emergency tire repair kit.)
5. Then after all that, I re-loaded the car, calmly drove into town, and headed into the Community Fridge for the next two hours. Even though dogs aren’t allowed because there’s food involved (I must say, restaurants, pubs, cafes, and food shops all interpret those laws differently over here), I took Scout anyways. After all, what were they going to do, fire me? And I relaxed.

More to come on my farewell tour.

Even though tomorrow is my last day on Orkney, today, Friday, turned out to be the best day to have the removal firm come.  We arranged for a 9:30 a.m. pick-up, and then I have to clean the house, get my hair done (obvs), and pick up tonight’s dinner.

With three exceptions, everything that has to go was packed last night.  As most of my stuff is in storage with this firm already, it was only a couple of pieces of furniture and about dozen boxes of books, linens, cookware, and food. Oh, and two massive suitcases of clothes. I’ve held back a few fridge items to go in a cooler bag on the drive south, along with two small suitcases of clothes for the next four days.

The three items that were still unpacked this morning were a mixing bowl and two loaf tins. I wanted to do something nice for my hair stylist, who has just been delightful the past 18 months and has looked after me well.  I decided to bake her a loaf of my Cheddar Beer Bread.  (We’d been discussing it last time I was there; it’s not like I suddenly got it into my head, “Gluten.  That’s what Shannon needs, gluten.”)  So I got up at 6:00 this morning to make and bake the bread, giving me time to wash and pack the bowl & loaf tins before the movers arrived.

This isn’t the first time I’ve made this bread here – I made some for my walking group, and everyone liked it so much that they asked for the recipe.  There were one or two hiccups along the way that first time. It’s a Best of Bridge recipe (remember them?) from the 1980’s and is all in volume, so I’m having to convert the ingredients to weights (I halved the sugar, as our tastes have changed). I had already mixed all the other ingredients when I discovered that UK beer bottles are smaller than back home, so I didn’t have quite enough beer.  And, the temperature dial has been wiped clean on my oven, so baking temps are a guess at best.  But they seemed to like it.

Given that I was packing everything to go to the movers, I decided last evening to weigh out all the ingredients except the beer (bought a bigger bottle this time), and put them in a bowl in the fridge.  Then I packed the cupboards.  So this morning at 6 a.m. I turned on the oven (a 15 minute wait to heat up), retrieved the bowl of raw ingredients, mixed in the beer, baked it, cooled it, washed the bowl & tins and packed them, then sat down to wait for the movers.

As they were coming in and out of the house, one man mentioned he could smell baking, so I sliced up the second loaf and gave them some.  Well.  That guy liked it so much I got a fist bump, then as they were leaving he turned, walked back, and shook my hand about the bread.  Another one of the movers also works as a chef at a local restaurant, so I’m sending him the recipe today, as he wants to try it out. 

Honest to God, I’m less than 36 hours away from leaving this island I love, but instead of being sad, I’m absolutely over the moon that three total strangers loved my cooking.  (Sad will come later.)

(Oh, and they did a great job with the move, too.)

It’s funny.  I keep saying I’m not the kind of person who watches reality TV, and yet I’m about to talk about my second team-challenge-style UK TV series in less than four months.

There is a show on BBC where five British couples are plunked down in a country, given some cash, a paper map, and a camera-person, and have to get across the country to a pre-determined endpoint.  Not my usual fare; I wasn’t even aware it existed.  But, ever since mid-March, any time someone hears I’m Canadian, it’s the first thing they talk about, as it seems Season 3 is set in Canada.  Even so, I still really wasn’t paying attention, but after at least half my phone call with the computer help desk was spent discussing the episodes to date, I figured I’d better watch it.  I was clearly letting people down by not being au courant.  (The guy from the help desk kept going on about how boring one episode was, where they just did nothing but ‘go from the top to the bottom’(?).  I’ve now watched all episodes, and can’t figure out which north-to-south episode he means.  I think he meant when they crossed the Prairies.)

It’s quite good!  There are brother-couples, friend-couples, father-daughter couples, and couple-couples.  And again, it doesn’t contain the thing I hate the most about these types of shows: ludicrous & unpleasant challenges where they’re forced to eat things, or touch things, or whatever. The contestants on this show seem quite normal, and their reactions to and knowledge of Canada are entertaining.  They have to give up cellphones, credit cards, etc..  They started from Stanley Park in Vancouver, were handed a huge paper folding map, and were told their end destination was a place called St John’s.  Which took a while to find on the map.  😊   Their first pit-stop was Haida Gwaii, so off they all went.  Three hours later, four of the five teams were at bus or train stations, but one couple was still wandering lost in Stanley Park.  Three hours!  I know it’s big, but I’ve been to Stanley Park many times and I mean, really.  How on earth will you find Newfoundland if you can’t get out of a park?

The views are stunning, wildlife abounds, they are seeing whales, and elk, and bears.  And they simply can’t get over how nice everyone is.

Anyway, if it’s showing anywhere back home, I do recommend it.  Right now they’ve just hit Ontario – I’m looking forward to the next episode.

This is the first year managing my finances on my new computer.  It was time to gather up all my tax info, and I must admit, this year I wasn’t as efficient as I have been in the past.  I spent hours gathering up all the lists of expenses regarding the rental of my house in Milton (everything from bank statements to emails), plus hunting for last year’s charitable tax receipts – that really freaked me out, as I always just save those e-receipts in a folder in Outlook, and retrieve them at tax time.  It seems that at some point in the last 18 months Outlook decided to start archiving all emails older than x-number of weeks or months – I didn’t know that, took ages to finally stumble across them.  And my sister, who has been great at being my ‘post office’ in Canada, chose for some reason to scan and save all my T3’s and T5’s upside down (Adobe Reader wouldn’t let me flip them).  But eventually I downloaded all the necessary documentation, and created a detailed summary page of my rental finances.  All ready to fire off to the accountant.

The next day, my 4-month old computer wouldn’t start.  At all.  Just one, big, blue, stuck screen. I got on a FaceTime call with Currys’ Customer Service (think Best Buy) and once I explained to the young man from Birmingham exactly where Orkney was, we realised I was going to have to wait two weeks until I move south, to take my computer in to be fixed.  It will be free, and there’s an outlet just a short drive from Braidwood, so no biggy.

It was later that day I remembered my taxes.  Yes, I’d downloaded all the documents, but I hadn’t got around to uploading them to the cloud.  So, every single solitary piece of tax documentation was locked in the new, dead PC. But all was not lost.  Because I’m a boomer, as I was collating all the expenses, etc, I had written them down.  On paper.  An old-fashioned piece of paper.  See the benefits of rocking it old school?  What had taken hours the day before, took 30 minutes the second time ‘round, and the accountant now has all she needs to get me my $85.00 return.

Oh, and my sister is wonderful, and I am supremely grateful to her for all she’s done on my behalf while I’ve been away. There, that should cover it.

It’s my last week here in Orkney; I leave Saturday evening. I haven’t started packing yet, but that shouldn’t take too long. I have begun our farewell tour: Scout & I are visiting a different walking trail each day this week, and so many of my friends have arranged meals out to say good-bye.

This is a good bye get together with the walking group – everyone was able to be there that day – and we had lunch at The Neuk. It’s the restaurant attached to the hotel my sister, nephew, and I stayed at the very first time we came to Orkney, so that was nice. My lunch was the worst, most overcooked fish & chips I’ve ever had, and completely inedible, so that wasn’t so nice. But the company was great. And there was wine.

And people are so kind. I had been thinking I should buy myself something Orkney-specific as a memento of my stay here, but I don’t want to be laden down with excess luggage when I fly home. You’d think they’d read my mind – they bought me a lovely (nice and small and easily packable for the plane) photo book of the islands. How thoughtful was that?

Still got a few dates set up for the rest of the week – it’s becoming very hard to say good bye to all these wonderful new friends. A few have promised to visit Canada. I have noticed everyone always wants to go to British Columbia – yeah, yeah, yeah, those mountains and ocean are stunning, but what about Ontario? Fortunately, all I have to do is say I live within an hour of Niagara Falls (only a peedie exaggeration there), and their eyes light up and the GTA is back on the itinerary.

I have mapped out a whole itinerary for my last two days in Orkney & my two-day drive south (of course you have, Lainey, of course you have), seeing some of my favourite spots one last time, but I’ll save that for later in the week.

Well, the cruise ships have started arriving. As it’s April, we’re only looking at one or two a week. But I’m glad they’ve started back up before I leave; I really do love tourist-watching. All my Orcadian friends think I am nuts, and will actively avoid coming into town on the days a ship is in port, but I make a point of wandering along the high street, watching all the different faces, and hearing all the different languages, and listening to some pretty daft comments (“Did they say if the locals speak English here?” I desperately wanted to start babbling at her in French, or pointing out that all the shop names and road signage was only in English, but that would have been mean), and answering direction-related questions. The last point is my fave – they see someone walking with a dog and some groceries and rightly assume I’m a local, then it’s the look on their face when I answer in a far from Orcadian accent. (I’m easily entertained.)

Speaking of easily entertaining myself: where I live this year is on the route that many of the tour buses take out of town to go to the Italian Chapel, or the Churchill Barriers, or the distilleries. When I see one of those coaches coming (and assuming there are no locals nearby to see me), I have taken to waving madly at the bus and its passengers. I don’t mean a hand up in the air with an accompanying slight smile. I mean a full-on, Prince-Louis-on-the-balcony, frantic, arm-reaching wave with a ginormous open-mouthed grin as the coach passes by.

What can I say, I’m just a wild and crazy guy.

I’m never sure if the differences I experience here vs home are: rural small town vs major urban centre, or Scotland vs Canada, but below is a recent conversation I had with the company that is moving my furniture to Lanarkshire.

Me: So I think I will need to buy a half dozen large packing boxes and a half dozen medium boxes. Unless you rent them? (she said hopefully)

Shawn: Oh, we can lend you what you need – we can just re-use them with the next customer. Plus of course, you’ll need tape and wrapping paper; we’ll throw that in too.

Me: Oh, wow, great. So when should I stop by to pick them up?

Shawn: No, no. We can drop them off at your cottage anytime next week.

Me: Great, thank you. Now, I’m assuming your movers will need me to unpack those boxes quickly once we arrive, so they can take them back when they leave.

Shawn: No, don’t worry about that. I’ll just have the guys swing by your new place the next time we’re down near Glasgow on a run, and have them pick them up then.

Me: Really? That’s terrific, thanks. Oh, before I go, I’m guessing you need a down payment on the quote you gave me?

Shawn: Not at all. You can pay when we send the final invoice after the move.

Me: Well thank you so much – see you in 10 days. (and she stumbles out to the car, sure she has entered another world in the multi-verse.)

I’ve been meaning to do this for two years now, but much like the CN Tower or Niagara Falls, once you live in a place, you never think to sign up for an actual tour through a local attraction. I’ve wandered through the cathedral many times, and often attend Sunday services there, but everyone keeps going on about the Upper Level Tours, and yesterday I finally booked a tour.

We were told to arrive a couple of minutes early, so they could explain what we were about to do. It was quite the explanation. Because we were climbing up 900-year old stone staircases, and squeezing through incredibly narrow passageways, and going out on tiny balconies, there were a lot of questions about heart conditions, and respiratory issues, and vertigo, and bad knees, and so on. They even passed around photographs of someone posing in the hallways, or stepping on the stairs, to make sure we clearly understood what we were getting into. When we signed our lives away and paid our £10, up we went.

It was spectacular. We saw the bells that ring on the hour, and play just before Sunday service – they were new bells, cast in 1528. The old bell was still tucked away in a corner. The ‘old’ bell. Riiiight. We saw the stained glass windows that had nowhere to go – someone miscalculated, and accidentally made too many 5′ tall windows of saints, as one does. (Somedays I miscalculate a recipe and buy too many carrots. Much the same thing.) These windows are just propped against a wall in the rafters – a clever person put lightbulbs behind them, so at least those people on the tours get to see them at their best. We saw the chair the bellringer sits in on Sunday mornings as he plays the three bells at start of service. I was a tad freaked out about that – I once read a book about a man who was killed by sitting in a bell tower as the peal rang out – but this bellringer had a nice wee set-up, with a music stand, a metronome, and a chair bolted to the floor. Hunh.

And from out on the balcony I saw the islands of Orkney to the north, my house to the east, and a glimpse of Scotland to the south (It was slightly overcast, so I might just have imagined that last bit).

What mankind has accomplished over the years, in the name of the glory of God. Amazing.