Yesterday was Robert Burns’ birthday and it is traditional to have haggis for dinner. Because he wrote a poem. A poem to a haggis. A poem to a massive lamb & oatmeal sausage. He actually used the words ‘Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race’. In a poem about a sausage. Okaaay.

And every year, people around the world recite that poem, often while holding a cooked haggis aloft (think Mufasa presenting Simba to the animal kingdom), and waving a dagger at it.

My Rabbie Burns’ dinner was a tad more prosaic. I did have haggis, but not a whole one, just a couple of slices from the local butcher, with neeps (turnips) and tatties (potatoes). Maybe not as festive or dramatic as some Scots and Scot-wanna-be’s, but delicious nonetheless.

* I gotta admit: it wasn’t until I looked at this photo the next morning that I realised I had plated my meal to look like blossoms on the top of a stem with leaves. Clearly I am an instinctive artiste.

I’ve mentioned before that food waste really bugs me. I also like my cupboards to be tidy. And I think the UK’s 1/2 pint milk cartons are very useful. (Stay with me; I do bring this all together.)

I don’t like scrunched up plastic bags of pasta, or rice, or lentils, lying about in my cupboards, spilling over and attracting bugs; so any time that I have opened one of those bags, back home I pour them into a cleaned out jar. Here I buy very little in jars, so I use the milk cartons instead. They have a narrow opening, so I will stand at the counter and very carefully feed the grain or pasta into the little carton (which has been thoroughly cleaned & dried beforehand, of course).

On Sunday I splashed some water on my cell phone. I wiped it quickly, but thought I’d better dunk it in a bowl of rice (the accepted methodology for drying cell phones). I set my phone in a little chafing dish and poured over about 1/2 carton of rice. After half an hour, I figured the phone would be fine, so I removed the phone, carefully poured the rice into a pitcher, and then laboriously poured the pitcher into the milk carton. There, all done – a pain, but done. Some time later my phone started making funny noises, so I figured a half hour in the rice hadn’t been long enough. So back into the tray, rice poured back over it, and I left it overnight.

Yesterday morning, after retrieving the phone, I poured the rice back into the carton – this time with a makeshift funnel (fyi – tin foil funnels don’t work). I was careful not to spill any rice (no food waste here!) but that was not easy. The phone is now completely fine.

Yesterday afternoon Scout & I got back from a lovely walk at the beach. As usual, I tortured Scout by bathing her paws in a basin of warm water to clean off the sand. And my ear buds dropped into the basin. F*!$! So, for the third time in 24 hours, I poured rice over one of my electronic devices. This morning the earbuds were fine. But I just couldn’t face another ficking rice-funnel. I held the carton over the garbage can, tipped the glass into it, and whatever didn’t make it into the container is going out with the trash. Waste, schmaste.

Last fall (autumn) I started volunteering at the Greener Orkney Community Fridge, whose goal is to reduce food waste here on the islands. They applied for and received a grant to purchase and give away a few hundred slow cookers. In this time of ridiculous gas & electricity costs, anything that will help people save money while reducing food waste is a good thing.

As part of the slow cooker give away (locals had to apply and then based on their situation were ranked to receive one), Greener Orkney has been running a series of recipe contests. Every two weeks is a new category of slow cooker food, and people submit recipes – at the end of the fortnight someone wins a £50 grocery voucher.

I was the judge for the first half of January (our theme was Soup), and as well as choosing the winning recipe (Root Veg soup), I posted a couple of my own. I went with a Canadian vibe for one, and a waste-reduction bent for the other. I think this is such a great initiative.

While COVID has certainly cut into my alcohol consumption, no, I’m not going Dry January. I mean why would you pick one of the longer months of the year to give up wine? If I ever do try a dry month (stop laughing), it would be February and not in a leap year. But I have given up on something this month: crisps.

Those of you who know me well know that I consider potato chips/crisps a food group unto themselves, and one that, if one looks closely, must be somewhere near the base on Canada’s Food Pyramid. More specifically, Walkers Cheese & Onion Crisps are my all-time favourites. I could give up chocolate, or sugar, or bread, long before I would consider letting go of my crisps habit. But, it was an indulgent December (God, my cousin is a good cook), so I thought I’d forego crisps for the month of January.

The options to substitute are limited: Brits don’t eat a lot of popcorn or pretzels. I could cheat and go after some Quavers, or Skips, or Wotsits, but that feels wrong. Yes, I do know about carrot sticks, and cucumber slices, and apple wedges. And I do eat a fairly healthy diet – certainly during my little bout of COVID, I’ve been living on homemade veggie soups. But around four o’clock each afternoon, I feel like something crunchy and munchy. So this month I’ve been having pretzels, popcorn, and peanuts, all of which I normally eat in much smaller quantities than I do potato chips. Sigh. If I’d known I was going to have COVID, I wouldn’t have picked this month to give up my favourite treat. Ah well, only 13 days to go.

But typing this has made me think – over the next few weeks, I should share some of the typical snack foods that you find in Britain. No Bits & Bites, or Ketchup Chips, or Orville Redenbacher here. Wait until you hear about Twiglets. Seriously.

Not in the obvious ways – I feel reasonably fine. Still just feels like a cold with a lingering cough. The fever came back, but it’s gone now again and so is the headache. I’m able to walk Scout myself – each morning walk is anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes, depending on the weather. So that’s all alright.

But this week has been a missed opportunity, thanks to having to quarantine. For the past 15 months, I have not once seen the Merry Dancers (aka Northern Lights). For the first six months, it was due to my nervousness at driving after dark. Then it was the summer months, and the sun wasn’t setting until 11p.m., which is just a tad too late to be out driving, even if I was more confident. And then, this past autumn, I did try going out a couple of times, but the clear evenings were few and far between, and like anything with nature, there are no guarantees.

But this week, the lights have been phenomenal. How do I know? From all the photos people are posting from all over Orkney. Every evening this week the northern sky has been very busy. One person even saw them from here in town; unusual, as you normally have to get away from the lights of the town – my house faces south, so I can’t even view them from my front yard. I could still isolate and get in my car and drive up Wideford Hill, or over to Inganess Beach, but that doesn’t seem like a good idea. It’s one thing to take the dog for a walk in a deserted field less than 200 yards from your house during the day, and another things entirely to get behind the wheel of a car, in the dark, on icy streets, when other drivers are out too. What if I was in an accident? Even a fender-bender would have me interacting with people.

So, I’ll just sit here in my house, waiting for the test strip to show only one line, and admiring other people’s photographs.

And – I just found out that they’ve been visible in Southern Ontario too. Killing me, just killing me.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but there are some good things that have come out of COVID-19, and I don’t just mean how much more proficient many of my friends have become with technology.

I know this sounds macabre, but think about it. When the lockdown was at its worst, funeral homes came up with a way that people could ‘attend’ a funeral remotely. And now, it’s just a part of a service they provide. It meant I was able to attend my aunt’s and cousin’s funerals from across the Atlantic, ditto my sisters being able to attend my uncle Ian’s. I think this is a good thing.

Groceries: I know Longos had grocery delivery before COVID, but because it wasn’t really used a lot, it wasn’t a heavily staffed service, which meant you often had to place your order 3 or 4 days before delivery, and there was a fair cost associated. And I’m sure other Canadian and UK supermarkets had something similar. But now, Click & Collect and Home Delivery have become such commonplace services that they are easily accessed, and reasonably cost effective. I placed an order at 6pm on Thursday, and it arrived before 10:30 the next morning. And here in Orkney, I can book a Click & Collect for the same day.

These are the things I think about while lounging about on the sofa watching cooking videos on YouTube, and sipping ginger ale or lemon ginger water. As I’m typing this, I’m reminded of all those period British novels in which the convalescents are served barley water – I think I have barley in the cupboard – how hard can it be to make? Well, there’s this afternoon’s project settled.

After dodging it for almost three years, I’ve got COVID. I’m not too bad: head cold, dry cough, fever, and (most annoyingly) a headache that just won’t go away. So much for getting back oot ‘n aboot – took less than 24 hours to break that resolution.

I’m very lucky; things could be much worse. The dog walker very kindly fit Scout into her schedule again, I had recently stocked the fridge and pantry, and I have a stack of books from Christmas that I haven’t read.

Being sick in a cold house does have its problems, but I’ve even been able to work around them. My ‘lounging around on the sofa with mug after mug of hot tea or hot water with lemon outfit’ is: thermal underwear, two pairs of socks, a t-shirt, a sweater, leggings, a hoodie, and a scarf. And slippers. Plus a pillow & blanket on the sofa. When I’m about to head into the kitchen (mostly making soups – I am awash in liquids these days), I will turn the oven on to 400°F/200°C, then after a few minutes, turn off the element, and open the oven door. It warms the kitchen nicely.

In the words of Gloria Gaynor, I will survive.

So, no more of this cocooning in my cottage all winter – Thursday I decided it was time to get back out exploring Orkney and enjoying the beautiful countryside. Yesterday was my first day of ‘doing’ – so, how did I do?

The plan for Friday was: morning walk to the polytunnels at the hospital (it’s a wonderful community gardening project for hospital staff, patients, and local neighbours), then instead of our usual Friday afternoon hike, my walking group was meeting at the cathedral museum café for coffee (on really bad weather days, we don’t usually venture out, and it was teeming down yesterday). I was looking forward to the museum, as I haven’t been yet. Oh, and even though we weren’t walking as a group, I intended to walk there and back, rain notwithstanding.

Well, that was the plan. The reality? I woke up with a cold. I know, I know, no biggie, right? Except I couldn’t find my box of COVID self-tests, so I couldn’t go out. I know it was just a cold, but still, my group is elderly, and it would be irresponsible to meet up with them without knowing for sure.

The only problem is, how do you get a self-test, if you can’t go out to a shop for a self-test? Fortunately, this being a small town meant that the Click & Collect had pick-up slots available first thing the next morning . So, I masked from brow to chin, stayed in my car with the trunk (boot) popped open, and had them drop my groceries in, waving from a distance. Came home and just did the test.

I have COVID.

Last month my cousin and I visited a vineyard in Kent, Squerryes. It is a huge estate and has been in the Warde family since the early eighteenth century. We met Henry Warde and did a tasting of their sparkling wines. He was very UC English (upper-class). They’ve only been producing wine for less than a decade, but all three that we tasted were very good.

There are several wineries across the south of England – last summer I visited one as far north as Yorkshire. It is a new industry, a result, no doubt, of global warming. I chose not to mention that to Henry Warde. You know, no digging him in the ribs with my elbow and saying, “So, Hank, that whole dying planet thing seems to be working well for you, doesn’t it?” Maybe not on.

It was a very impressive set-up: the wine shop, a lovely restaurant overlooking their woodlands, a brewery, and a delicatessen. We got talking to the Master of Wines, and my cousin introduced me, as she always does, “This is my Canadian cousin, Elaine. She lives in Orkney.” Which gets the same conversation going, why Orkney? where in Canada? But the conversation became slightly less typical when I said just northeast of our Niagara wine region (usually I say I’m from just outside Toronto, then they tell me they know someone in Vancouver. Same routine each time.). This time the response was, “ooh, the home of ice wines!” And then she proceeded to show me the Peller Estate Ice Wine they carry in their shop! That’s the first Canadian wine I’ve seen this side of the Atlantic.

I bought seven English wines that day: three were gifts, one was for my New Years Eve/Day dinners, one is for my wine tasting group’s meeting in February, and the other two are sitting in the utility room, gently calling to me. I resist. For now.

I’ve realised something this week: I am staying home waaaaay too much. This time last year, I was walking Scout at least twice a day, I was stopping in at a little dog-friendly pub once or twice a week; I was scoping out all the different restaurants and cafes on the Mainland; I was exploring a different beach, or trail, or park, or cliff on at least a weekly basis.

This year? Well, I did blow out my hip, so I have had a dog walker for Scout each morning since mid-October. And November was a bit of settling in here at the cottage. But those are my only excuses. I realised: I haven’t been to a pub or restaurant in weeks (the trip down south at Christmas doesn’t count); the walking excursion on New Year’s Day was the exception, not the rule. I haven’t been to yoga in weeks (maybe months?). I stay in and watch YouTube or Netflix, or I read, or I cook. But that’s about it (maybe a touch of exaggeration for effect, but you get the drift).

That’s it. Starting tomorrow, no excuses. My hip is fine, so Rebecca’s not coming for Scout anymore. There are tons of places I either haven’t seen yet, or have wanted to re-visit: Birsay, the Broch of Gurness, the islands of Rousay and Hoy, Yesnaby, St Margaret’s Hope, the list goes on. And I had been enjoying the church services at St Magnus, why did I stop that?

So this weekend: Yesnaby (weather permitting – it’s a tad wild out there), church, and The Willows park.