I don’t usually do the whole “looking back at last year” kind of thing, but needless to say, this year has been different.

The big pluses of 2022 were: showing off Scotland to one friend; re-connecting with another friend in Yorkshire; getting to know my cousin and her family; the network of friends I’ve developed here in Kirkwall; and, oddly, the flowers of Orkney (I no longer live near The Willows park, but knowing the changing flowers that will be coming each month – I really need to start walking by there at least a couple of times a week from now on).

I’m not normally one for regrets, but I will say the big minuses of 2022 were: still not making it to the northwest highlands (I’ve been trying since 2018); and losing Uncle Ian.

I already know there are big changes ahead in 2023: here’s to an exciting and fun year!

I love outdoor art. It’s why I like Chicago so much, and it was the first of many things I fell in love with in Iceland. I think I’ve mentioned this one little park, just down the road from my new house. The main feature of this park, tucked away behind some wee hills and twisted pathways, is a massive cast metal dragon’s skull. It rests on a mound of soil, the eye sockets have peedie mouse nests in them, and there are spiders climbing up the side of the skull. This is all in metal, and is the work of a local car dealership owner. Now that we live so much closer to this park we go there often.

As well as the one major sculpture, if you keep an eagle eye out, you can also come across a few of the mice, just randomly perched about the park. This mummy & baby mouse, about 2″ high, sit on a huge rock, at about waist height, by one of the pathways. And this month, someone has dressed them up for Christmas. I so look forward to going through Arcadia; I find something new each time.

So today was The Ba’ – normally on Christmas Day & New Year’s Day, but not if they fall on a Sunday. I thought that was a tad puritanical and old-fashioned (even pubs in the highlands open on a Sunday now), but then I realised it starts right outside St Magnus Cathedral, so, fair enough.

I got to the front of the Cathedral just before the Boys’ Ba’ was to start. I really couldn’t see anything, and apart from a bit of raised voices at 10:30 (the posted start time), there was no movement from the crowd for a good twenty minutes – I assumed it hadn’t started. But no, it seems the scrum of boys or men can just stay in one place until finally one group or the other breaks away. After another ten minutes of standing about staring at the tops of peoples’ heads, I gave up and a friend and I went for a walk.

Five hours later we headed out to Tesco for some dog food, and I inadvertently saw the end of the Boys’ Ba’ – The Uppies had won (I forget who they are). Then we turned the corner, just in time to see the Mens’ Ba’ end in the harbour – the Doonies won that.

So, I’ve seen a Ba’.

Well, I spent a very quiet Hogmanay (New Years). I did have a lovely New Year’s Eve dinner, accompanied by one of the bottles of English Sparkling Wine that I bought in Kent last week. Last year I sat up late to see if any of my neighbours would go ‘first footing’, a Scottish New Year’s tradition of going out (walking) at midnight, and stopping by neighbours’ houses for a good-luck-to-the-new-year dram. A few people went by, but as we were dealing with Omicron last year, it wasn’t too busy. I’m in a different neighbourhood now and closer to a main street, and all I could hear after midnight was a few locals who were clearly on their way home from a long haul at the local pub.

Then today, the weather was just beautiful. We went for a long walk in the morning, but it was so nice after lunch I felt we had to go back out again. One of my plans for 2023 is to complete as many of the walking trails as I can in my little guidebook. I realised we hadn’t been out to the Noust of Netherton (really, you can’t make these names up), so into the car and across the island to Stromness we went. Weather is changeable here in Orkney, so even tho it was blindingly sunny in Kirkwall, things looked a tad more ominous at the east end of the Mainland. But the views were still spectacular – this is looking back at the lovely town of Stromness from the Point of Ness. You can see the bright skies in the background from the other side of the island. We had a great walk, and ran into a couple of people we knew.

As they say in Scotland, Lang may yer lum reek!

I am always too hot. Almost always. My idea of a hellish holiday involves a country south of (or really anywhere near) the Tropic of Cancer, with sunshine and beaches.

Orkney is a temperate climate, with the winter temps rarely below 0°. But there are still bone-chilling winds – they just cut right through you, and the moisture in the air means once the cold has entered your bones, it takes forever for you to warm up. So naturally, I dress accordingly. I layer up when going out, and the outer layer is always my waterproof, lined, hooded, jacket. And gloves, and a jaunty scarf. Then we head outside. Only to be passed by school kids in shirt sleeves and shorts.

That wouldn’t be so bad, as that occasionally happens in Milton too, where a teenage boy will be walking to Bishop Reding HS in a hoodie & gym shorts in the middle of a snowstorm. But that’s a lone teenage boy, and you know his parents weren’t home when he left the house. But these kids in Orkney are accompanied by their parents, who are equally lightly dressed. WTF? It’s 2° out, with wind gusts of up to 40 kmh. So there I am, looking like Nanook of the North, and there they are, heading off for a nice family outing.

I swear they do it on purpose.

I know this sounds highly implausible, but it happened. As I was leaving the hotel on our way home that last day, a double rainbow broke out, right over the Scottish/English border. I should be clear here – the ‘border’ is like the Quebec/Ontario border, or the Manitoba/Saskatchewan border: non-existent except for a road sign. Well, that and Hadrian’s Wall, but you can only see that at certain points along the border. But really, there was a massive double rainbow, and the inner rainbow was fully visible, all the way up from the ground, along the arc, and back right to the ground. The outer one had gaps. It was magnificent, it straddled the highway, and as I drove towards it I half expected to hear choirs of angels singing from on high.

The trip home was relatively uneventful: 233 miles of beautiful, sunny Scottish countryside. Except for Glasgow. I’ve come to realize that Glasgow is like Woodstock Ontario – you know how it can be clear and sunny in Milton, and also in London, but there will be white-outs in Woodstock? Well, regardless of the weather elsewhere in Scotland, it always rains in Glasgow, at least anytime I’m driving near it.

And then there’s Dundee. I was taking a slightly different route home this time, taking the 7-hour ferry out of Aberdeen to Kirkwall, as it involves almost three hours less driving than usual. Which meant going through Dundee (the home of marmalade, according to legend). My Dad always hated that part of the trip as there are so many traffic-circles just to get through that one city. Well, he was right. I counted: eleven round-abouts over a ten-mile stretch. I know if you’ve ever used the round-about on Tremaine Rd in Milton, or the one on Wonderland North in London, Ont, you’re probably thinking, “so what, what’s the big deal?”. Well, when you are in the midst of busy traffic, with anywhere from three to six exits coming off a single round-about, or worse, are in a double-barreled figure-8 round-about, and you’re averaging more than one of these per mile, well, you’d be a lot less smug than you are right now.

I had booked a reclining ‘pod’ for myself for the ferry, and Scout stayed in the car – thanks heavens for smooth sailing. It was 11:00pm when we arrived home to my freezing house. But we’d made it.

I had booked us in at an inn/restaurant that had been highlighted on a major restaurant review site for our last night in England. This was meant to be at the end of a day of leisurely driving (all nice easy-peasy motorway), where we’d arrive at 4pm, in time to enjoy the sunset as we went for a walk around the village. Did I mention the flat tyre? The brutal traffic? The endless rain? This was not a day that was going in my favour.

The first clue as to how my day might end came after I left a message at the hotel explaining that I’d had a flat tyre and would be late for my dinner reservation. I’ve had dealings with posh restaurants before – they do not like it when reservations are missed – I know of several in Toronto and in London (England) who will charge your credit card if you miss your time slot. So I was braced when I got a phone call back from the hotel. It was a very concerned receptionist, worried about my safety and telling me not to give another thought to the reservations; they’d have a table waiting whenever I arrived. Okaaay . . .

The drive still took longer than I had anticipated and it was late when we walked in the door. Anna jumped up from her desk, concerned for my wellbeing and happy to see us, took Scout’s leash, and conducted us to our room. She was most apologetic because the room I had been assigned was no longer available (the guests the night before had spilled a cup of coffee all over the rug), so they’d had to put us in a room with a frayed carpet. (The fraying was negligible at best – I wouldn’t have noticed it had they not mentioned it.) To make it up to me (!?!) they had arranged that my breakfast the next morning would be on the house. Okaaay . . .

She advised me that there were still plenty of diners so I wouldn’t be solo and therefore not to feel rushed, and my table was waiting with a water dish for the dog whenever we were ready. My meal was delish: beef tartare, then duck with crab apple gravy, with a lovely wine, and Scout was thoroughly fawned over. The next morning the staff again apologised for the state of the carpet, and the manager had arranged for a sausage for Scout for breakfast. Okaaay . . .

I have absolutely no idea if anyone reading this will ever be travelling through the Cumbria region of England (the Scottish/English border), but if so, stay at The Fleece at Ruleholme. Trust me.

*Oh, and yes, that is a kipper on my breakfast plate.

I TOLD her not to say “it can’t get any worse.” It had been a wonderful visit: my cousin, her hubby, their offspring and significant others had been so fun and so friendly.  Final morning came, and I was ready. I had my two-day trip home from England carefully planned out: I knew exactly when to leave, which petrol stations to stop at, how much extra time to leave in order to be able to explore the peedie village I would be staying at on the first night, and I factored in some last-walk-of -the-day time before my dinner reservation.

Hugged everyone good-bye, shoved the dog onto the backseat, loaded up the car, put the car in gear, and felt the bu-bump, bu-bump of a seriously flat tyre. Dammit.  Fortunately, even though it was clear that there wasn’t a spare in the boot (I had oh-so-carefully packed the trunk (boot) like some sort of a Tetrus cube but that was all ruined in the blink of an eye), my CIL kept digging anyway, and found the most wonderful invention tucked in a corner: a digital tyre inflator that plugs into your cigarette lighter (do they still call them that?) and hooks up to the tyre nozzle.  Moved some of the stuff from front seat back to the boot (trunk), pumped the tyre, drove to the mechanic’s, was taken almost immediately, drove back to get the dog and more good-bye hugs, then back in the car, only 75 minutes later than planned.  But that’s okay, I had factored in enough time – if I shortened the two rest-stops, we could still make it to Irthington by 4:00 (in time to beat the sunset and avoid driving in the dark).

Ah, yes.  Well, someone who has spent her entire adult life within five minutes of the 401 should know better.  Between the traffic, and the rain, and the traffic, it was not a fun drive.  The M25 was a parking lot (that sounds just like a line from a British TV show), and the subsequent three motorways were not much better. Poor Scout got 1 (yes, ONE) pee-stop six hours after being loaded in the car in the morning.

We arrived at the hotel just before 8 o’clock, so my great plan to avoid driving in the dark had failed miserably.

But the hotel! Well, that’s for another time.

Oh, and the first thing I buy when I get home is one of those inflator do-hickeys.  Genius.

Mid-December I noticed that businesses along Albert Street were being boarded up. Massive 2″ x 6″ beams were being bolted across many of the windows and doorways in the centre of town. Why was my hairdresser’s salon under siege? Were the Vikings coming? Did I need to buy a chainmail vest? Fashion a broadsword out of my car’s bumper? Not quite.

A year ago I mentioned that The Ba’ had been scheduled for the first time since COVID, then promptly cancelled due to Omicron. The Ba’ is a series of events that takes place on Christmas Day & New Year’s Day. On each of those days there are two Ba’s: the Boys in the morning and the Men in the afternoon.

The Ba’ is a scrum where dozens of men from Kirkwall and surrounding area (the teams are Uppies, and Doonies, and it has something to do with where you were born, or who you are related to, or how you first arrived in Kirkwall, or something. Beats me.) try to move a ball (the ba’) either up past one of the churches, or down to the harbour. It can last hours. And this shit matters. Check out the newspaper photos of the two teams arriving. These are local farmers, business men, lorry drivers, neighbours, etc in their 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s out to play a game for an afternoon. No wonder the Scots of long ago scared the bejeezus out of opposing English armies, as they came into battle.

And, it seems, The Ba’ can include damage to property – well, with 100+ men pushing and shoving up and down the road, that makes sense. So the local council boards up windows and doorways along the route. These planks are bolted into the cement. Bolted. The above picture on the left is two shops on the high street, and the one on the right is people’s homes. Yep, for the month of December, people in Orkney have to duck under a barrier to enter and leave their houses.

It seems The Ba’ doesn’t make it to my house; but it comes close. Scout & I will be checking out the New Year’s Ba’ – more to come – stay tuned!

I had ordered some Canadian ‘delicacies’ for my cousin’s family to try over the holidays: Lipton Onion Soup Mix for chip dip, SmartFood Cheddar popcorn, and Kraft Dinner.

We took the SmartFood to a friend’s for Boxing Day dinner, and I was surprised at the lukewarm reaction.  I mean, what’s not to love about cheesy, yummy, tasty popcorn?  But popcorn is not a thing over here, and while everyone was pleasant, no one took more  than one handful (infidels). (*Okay, I’ll admit it here now – I really really wanted to take the remainder of the bag of popcorn home with me – I LOVE SmartFood, and knowing it would likely be binned was killing me. But Norma Reid’s daughter knows better than that.)

The chip dip was a hit, as I had anticipated, and I left the second soup mix packet with them for future use.

And then there was the KD.  I hadn’t taken it to impress them with North American mac & cheese; I had been explaining its ubiquity to my cousin and decided she needed to experience it at least once.  (Let’s be clear here  – it’s not exactly in my top 10, or 20, or 100 favourite foods either).  But I had explained that it is something that almost every Canadian toddler and then school child would have on firm rotation, much like the UK baked beans on toast, or Spaghetti-O’s on toast.  And in pre-ramen days, university students lived on it. 

Well they made it for the family to try the day after I left.  As suspected, it didn’t go down especially well (“Interesting” was the comment – how polite).  I had to laugh at one text from my cousin; it seems her daughter had thought adding grated cheddar to the final product might improve it.  I’m struggling to imagine what that would have tasted like; it’s not something I’ve ever tried.  Anyway, it seems they ate it.  I doubt they will be asking for a repeat any time soon.