My cousin and her hubby are transplanted Scots, now living in Kent. They are currently on North Ronaldsay, re-building the sheep’s dry-stane dykes, and later this morning, are arriving in Kirkwall with their four English friends.

Unbelievably, I can sleep seven people in my peedie wee hoose. There’s the master bedroom with a double bed, and the guest room with twins. Because I couldn’t get a double bed the first week I moved in, there is a cheap and cheerful single in the boxroom (I will sleep there) and again, unintentionally, I ended up buying a convertible sofa-bed (it was the cheapest one that still looked good). I did have to buy a little bit more in the way of bedding and linens. Not much, because again, without planning it, I happen to have more towels and sheets than I would normally have needed (okay, they’re the dog’s towel & sheet, but if I don’t tell the guests, they’ll never know. I did wash them.)

I did buy a couple of things this week – 2 pillows (on sale for a ridiculously low price at Lidl), a bath towel (a hideous shade of green which is why, I am assuming, it was so cheap) and even the facecloths at Tesco were four for a pound – perfect. I cleaned the house. I went to all the wee shops on the high street and bought local cheeses, meats, crackers, gin, wine (well, the wine was only local in the sense I picked it up at Tesco). I booked us a table at Oot The Back, a local outdoor patio pub. I cleaned out the car so their luggage would fit, if necessary. I had the washer & dryer on hard rotation for four days, the dog was locked out of several rooms to keep them clean, and by 9am this morning, I was ready.

I should point out, I love doing this stuff. This was not work. I love prepping for company, matching towels to the room’s decor and folding them nicely, preparing charcuterie boards (in this case it was two dinner plates of meat, cheese & crackers, as the only board in the house is a white plastic cutting board with beet stains on it, but you know what I mean). I love planning out activities and booking the perfect pub and finding sites to show off in my town. I love every minute of it. (Also, the car did need to been cleared out.)

So, we’re all ready. I’ve even brushed Scout after our trip to the County Show this morning.

It is 10:55, they are due in 30 minutes and my cousin has just texted to say their flight to Kirkwall from North Ronaldsay has been cancelled due to low ceiling, and the airline hopes to get them out sometime after Monday. Hopes to get them on a flight sometime after Monday.

Well, great. Yes, I realise that all six of them have connections they will be missing. They will have to find accommodation until they can leave. They all have jobs to get back to, and children, and dog sitters, and their holiday is ending on a bad note. But, more to the point, and absolutely worst of all, this is my weekend spoiled. Great. Just great.

Edit: 1:35 pm. I’ve just been advised that the airline has come through and they are arriving in less than an hour. Excellent. Disappointment averted – let the fun begin!

Post Script: My cousins and their English friends may read this, so I want to re-iterate – I LOVED arranging to have them come & stay. I am absolutely NOT complaining about the work involved. My Canadian friends and family know this is true; they know I was in heaven doing all this prepping and organizing. I hope these people come again in the future, because the worst part about having them come this weekend (other than the delayed flight) is the fact that they won’t be here long enough for me to really show them around.

All Orkney has been talking about for the last fortnight is the county shows. It seems this is the first summer in three years that these shows have taken place, so they’re a big deal. There’s a show (think North American County Fair/Agricultural Show) on each of the major islands, plus one in each of the bigger towns here on the mainland.

The Kirkwall show is the biggest and is taking place today on a huge park/fairground near my house. We headed over this morning and wandered the show. I had a Lorne sausage butty for breakfast (Scots are crazy for Lorne sausage which, for reasons I don’t fully understand, is square and flat, and that makes it special – okaaay), and then watched the sheep & cattle judging.

It is basically Farm & Family. Giant farm equipment, massive cattle, pretty sheep, and frisky dogs. There’s rides and concession, and the kids are so excited. Political parties (there was a white board at the Scottish National Party booth where you could vote Leave/Stay for Scottish independence – I’m not sure which way to vote), local shops, volunteer organizations, and lots of food wagons – I’m heading back this afternoon for the beer (and more importantly, gin) tent.

There is an island at the northern tip of the Orkney archipelago called North Ronaldsay, pop. 72.  Sheep pop.: thousands.  The farmers have ringed the fields in the island in a series of dry-stane dykes (stone walls with no mortar).  These walls are not to keep the sheep in, they are to keep the sheep out.  These sheep live their entire lives on the shoreline, grazing on seaweed.  It gives a specific flavour to the meat (and may do something to the wool, I’m not sure what).  It is a fascinating story.

.Every year volunteers come from across the UK and spend several days in August rebuilding the walls the sheep have damaged (sheep love to lean on things: walls, fences, gates), and my cousin & her husband are doing exactly that this week, along with 4 friends.   On their way home, they will have 25 hours in Kirkwall and are coming to stay with me!  Visitors!  Yippee!  Coincidentally, they are arriving on County Show day, so a large of portion of their entertainment is already arranged.  I can’t wait!

Scout & I walked past this cat this morning. He/she/they (we didn’t get into preferred gender pronouns) didn’t move, no matter how close Scout got – until eventually the cat stepped off the pavement and sat down on the street.

Several cars came by and she did not move one inch. Honestly, only her head moved as the cars approached. My response from afar was to take a number of photos as cars worked their way around her. Eventually a lady in a Renault Clio stopped, got out of her car, and shoo’ed the cat off the road.

It was then it occurred to me that instead of standing there taking pictures, maybe I should have hustled the cat to safety. I’m hoping the reason I didn’t do that was because: (a) I have faith in cats’ abilities to look after themselves, and (b) in this small town traffic moves slowly; and it was not because I don’t like cats.

Oh dear, this doesn’t reflect well, does it?

Tucked away on garbage bins, alley walls, curbs, and sign posts in Kirkwall are a series of Banksy-like graffiti. They started a couple of years ago and occasionally a new one will pop up.

I went to my photo library to pull a photo of some sheep (I’ve forgotten why). I typed the word ‘sheep’ into the search bar, and below is what showed up. Nailed some of them; was a tad off on others. I added the green ticks and red x’s.

Obviously Scout’s furry exterior confused Google. What did impress me is that it pulled a photo I had of minimalist nativity scenes (sheep-implicit).

It looks a bit like one of those security checks: Select all the boxes with a train.

Still facing all sorts of possible (but not yet confirmed) change and upheaval, will have to make some significant decisions over the next twelve weeks, am telling everyone I meet (including the clerk in the post office and a the girl who does my mani/pedis) that I’m looking for a new home. It’s overwhelming, it’s daunting, and it’s keeping me up at night.

So I did the only obvious thing I could do: I’ve booked a cruise for later this month.

Part of the reason I’ve chosen the cruise I did is that it leaves out of Edinburgh. So, unlike last time, which involved three planes, four airports, and an overnight stay in a hotel, I can leave Kirkwall at 8:30am, and be onboard the boat by noon.

The itinerary is different: Denmark, Poland, Germany, and Lithuania. Maybe not immediately obvious choices, but I like seeing new places and I’m already practicing saying hello in three new languages (Hej! Witam! and Sveiki!). The cruise is very A.B.C. – tours include castles (nice), churches (interesting), canals (lovely), and a concentration camp (nope).

Moral of the story? When in doubt about major life decisions, do the obvious and run away.

I built this website last July and over the last 13 months have found the software easy to manage, and I think it’s reasonably easy for people to leave comments in my posts. One of the extremely clever features is that the first time someone posts a comment, I have to vet it and approve the contributor; once I have approved them that first time, any subsequent posts from them just show up automatically in the feed.

The only challenge with this is when someone whose name I don’t know posts a comment. Is this the name of someone I’ve been chatting with and mentioned my blog to? I don’t always know the last names of people I’m talking to, here, or when travelling, so that nice lady Jennifer I met on the beach three weeks ago could have an email name like jenjolly, for all I know.

I’ve only had a couple of comments come in from people whose email address I didn’t recognize, and as they were pleasant, positive, normal-sounding remarks, I’ve approved them and replied. That may have been a mistake; one of them may not have been legit, as shortly thereafter (say, 4 to 6 weeks later), the spam arrived. Up to five, ten, even twenty posts a day. They get stopped at the gate, but I did have to go through them individually to cull them. The comments are entertaining (and obvious): things like, “your knowledge of this subject is insightful”, or, “I appreciate reading articles from experts”, or, “can you tell us more about this subject?” That last one was in reference to hot dogs in cans on UK grocery shelves. A popular and important topic on the world stage at the moment.

WordPress (my website software) is great – it only took a few minutes once a day for about three days for me to pretty much eliminate all the spam, and set up future comments to be turned away. It still comes in, but goes straight into the Trash which I empty about once a week.

The user names or comments usually include the words: porn, xxx, vip, and so on, and are immediately filtered out. So just a heads-up to those of you commenting, if you plan on referencing porn or vip’s in your comments, well, they won’t make the cut. Just sayin’.

Have you heard the story about the guy in the flood?

There’s a flood coming and the radio announces that everyone should evacuate the area.  But this one man decides not to go, saying, “God will protect me.”  Soon the water is up to the front door – two men come by in a rowboat and tell the man to hop in and they’ll take him to safety.  But he says, “no, God will protect me.”  The water keeps rising and the man is forced to the roof of his house.  A helicopter hovers overhead and they shout down to him to grab the rope and they’ll pull him to safety.  But the old man says, “no, God will protect me.”  The waters continue to rise and the man is carried away and drowns.

When he gets to heaven, the man says to God, “Why didn’t you protect me?”  And God says, “I sent you a radio message, a rowboat, and a helicopter.  What more did you want?”

So, to recap the story thus far: my landlords in Scotland plan to sell this house sometime this fall and at the same time my tenants in Canada have given notice that they are moving out at almost exactly the same time.  Meanwhile two of my friends are RVing across Canada.  I’ve spent days imagining the various options available to me and worse, all the work and decisions in front of me.  How on earth will I sell all my stuff?  I don’t see yard sales or garage sales here.  Do I sell my car here or down south near my uncle’s?  Do I postpone taking in new tenants in Milton?  Would I buy an RV?  What type – a Class C or Class B?  New or used?  OMG, my head is exploding.   I took all that information in over the last week and agonized and imagined and questioned and doubted. 

Then last night I decided to just not do anything for now and see how it all pans out.  That simple.  I slept much better.

And then, this morning . . . .

And then, this morning, I went online and wasn’t the very first posting I saw on the Orkney FB page a request from someone moving here from the Western Isles in late August who needs to furnish an apartment (they already have the apartment) from start to finish.  They need basic furniture, kitchen supplies, everything except the appliances.  Well, great.  Is this the third message from God?  Is this the universe telling me one year was enough and I might as well move home? Am I just not reading the signs?

More to come – I need to rest.

On the whole, Scout is a relatively timid dog. Cautious might be a better term. Some of my neighbours in Milton have inflatable lawn decorations at Christmas and Hallowe’en and she will go out of her way to pull us to the other side of the street. She’s not crazy about loud noises (although thunder storms and fireworks don’t really seem to freak her out) and when I say, “Google, set timer for four minutes”, she will quietly get up and ask to be let outside, because she knows the beeper will be coming soon.

Pretty much all the gates we come across in Scotland are kissing gates – they are probably the easiest to maintain and manage, as they have no hardware other than the hinge. And unlike Canada, the ground doesn’t freeze and get covered with a thicker and thicker layer of snow and ice, thereby blocking the gate where the ground is worn.

Scout hated them when we first arrived. They creak, they would be pulled into her face then she was expected to squish around them, they were just generally foreign to her. I had to walk from behind her, nudging her bum with my shin to get her to push through.

Well, she is now so comfortable with them that she has actually figured out how to open them (well, at least the ones behind my house). She was off leash and I was walking ahead. I turned to call her and she was gone?!? It seems she had remembered the gate just around the corner from the path, had bee-lined for it, and had worked her way into the football field. (It wasn’t a big deal as the field is fully enclosed.) I called to her and watched in awe as she came up to the gate, pushed her nose around the side of it, backed up, and opened the gate to sidle through.

She can’t catch a ball, she’s afraid of heights, and rolls in dead seal guts, but she managed to open a kissing gate.