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.

OMG, it seems I’m going from one major upheaval to another.  I’ve just been advised by my Milton tenants that their new home will be ready this fall, and they have formally given me notice that they will be moving out of my place in mid-October.  To be fair, I knew this was coming – in fact they had anticipated being gone by early 2022, so every month they stayed beyond then was a bonus.  They’re so nice; I am very happy for their sake that their new place will finally be ready as I know they are keen to get settled. 

At the same time I have people expressing interest in renting.  But how do I in all good conscience rent to someone all the while knowing that I may have to boot them out because I may be booted from Orkney?  But I can’t not rent; I count on the rental income to finance my life here.

Or maybe I don’t move back to the Milton house right away.  Maybe I leave Scotland and buy an RV and travel Canada for a year?  I mean, why not – it is something I have been pondering since I retired – now is the time to do it, while I’m still young enough to deal with managing a house on a truck, and while I still have Scout.  This now begs the question – do I change my Driver’s License to a UK version?  If I do, I have to surrender my Ontario license.  I’ve been told it can take a while to process a new DL in Britain – do I start now even though I don’t know where I’ll be living?

At least I’m not over-reacting.  Over-dramatizing?  Maybe.

Okay, this is weird, I know. But there’s something I don’t understand about British produce (well, apart from the fact that they love to wrap every piece of produce in plastic film). It’s their green (or spring) onions. They’re dirty.

I love spring onions – I cook with them pretty much every day. I like the nice, fragrant, bright green tops that I use in salads and Asian recipes and as garnish, and I like the crispy, flavourful, white parts that I use in recipes. I’d never thought of it until now, but they’re probably my favourite vegetable.

But the ones sold here are filthy. They’re full of dirt. Yes, before anyone feels a need to point out the obvious, I do know that onions grow in dirt. And like any produce should be washed before using. But I don’t mean the exterior of the plants, or the root. I don’t even mean those hinge-y places where one layer grows out of the main stem (altho, in Canada there’s not dirt there either). I mean the inside of the ‘tubes’. They’re open (cut off at the top) and full of grit. That isn’t the case in Canada.

It’s not as if during my entire adult life I’ve been buying hydroponically-grown green onions; I buy regular bunches at all the grocery stores and farmers’ markets and I’ve been growing them in my garden for the last two decades. Both the green onions I buy, and the ones I grow are closed at the top, pointed as they grow. And therefore, grit-free.

I can (and usually do) slice the green tops open and wash the centres of the tube before using them here, but it’s annoying. And odd. How are European onions dirtier than North American ones? Ah, well, the things I lie awake and think about are endless, it seems.

My mind has been racing for the last week.  Some of the thoughts are: I had always said it would be a  12 – 24 month sabbatical, so do I just go home in October – that would be 12 months.  Do I want to stay another year – will it be all that different or just more of the same?  What about all the European travel I had intended? Can I find another place here – I see people on social media all the time looking in vain.  I have so much ‘stuff’ as this is now a fully furnished three-bedroom house.  I was even planning on buying lawn chairs!  And I hate selling things.  Hate it.  I admire people who take the time to post on Kijiji and meet the buyer, and sell each item – God, even thinking about it has me wanting to go and lie down until I feel better. 

What if I can’t find somewhere?  Will I leave early? I know my cousin had been counting on me to bring her dad down to Kent for Christmas – I was looking forward to spending the holidays with them too.  Maybe I stay in the UK an extra two months, travelling around (yes, because Great Britain in November is just delightful).

Or do I look elsewhere in the UK?  I think it has to be the UK, as I have health coverage here – I’m not sure what the implications of moving to France or Germany would be (might not even be an option – stupid Brexiteers).  Maybe not Shetland – that’s just too far.  Are the Hebrides too remote?  Does it have to be an island?  Does is have to Scotland?  Northern Ireland seemed lovely when I was there.  Or what about the Isle of Man?  I loved Yorkshire – maybe a village in the north of England?  Oh dear, too many ideas, too many options.

My head hurts.

Well, it arrived.  The email I’ve been dreading. 

Back when I was moving here, I was warned over and over again by locals on social media that finding a home to rent on Orkney was as ‘rare as hens’ teeth’.  I was turned down twice for places I applied for (I’m assuming it was that the owners were anti-pet – it couldn’t have been me they took against).  In fact, the day I flew out of Toronto I still didn’t have a place.  I arrived in Scotland on Oct 5^th, and it wasn’t until the 13^th that I was approved for this house (I was already halfway up the highlands when that notice arrived – there was dancing in Inverness that day).  In the approval letter the management company mentioned that the owners might be selling the property in one year’s time – was I still interested in renting in spite of that?  Well, I was so desperate to get into a place that I said, not only was I willing to rent, I might even be in the market to buy it from them (not a likely option; by then I had decided the plan was to stay no more than 24 months).  I only said that in order to cement the offer – I would have said anything to get the house.  I took it sight unseen, didn’t care, just wanted a place to live.  And, as it happens, it has all worked out very nicely, thank you very much.

And then it happened.  Last week I opened my inbox to find an email from the owners.  They are considering selling.  Oh dear.  I knew it could happen – I was really really just hoping it would happen later rather than sooner.

Did I want to chat with them about buying?  I said yes, not because I intend to buy a property here, but because I wanted to find out how committed they were to selling.  I even considered offering them a financial incentive to postpone the sale (not sure how ethical that is, or even legal in Scotland).

But, by the end of the conversation it seemed inevitable that at some point in the future, this house will be up for sale.  Landlords in Scotland must give 12 weeks’ notice which means mid-October at the very earliest.

God – this is a lot to take in. A lot to think about.  And I cope with change so well.

More to come, stay tuned to this channel . . .

I thought I’d share what my diet looks like here in Orkney. (This is not what my dining is like when travelling. Then, all bets are off.)

Breakfast is either porridge, an egg, or more often than not, some leftovers. I don’t mind soup for breakfast; in fact, in the winter, I’d pop some leftover soup into the slow cooker while Scout & I went out for our morning walk and I’d have a nice warm bowlful when I got home.

I have lunch at home probably six days a week. They’re either homemade soup – I use that little slow cooker at least once a week – or I’ll make up two or three bento boxes at a time, a couple of times a week. As I’m not a big meat-eater, they’re usually vegetarian and often with an Asian theme (I was so impressed with the range of Asian ingredients available in Orkney: I can get gochujang, miso paste, lemon grass, nori, you name it). I will also make vegetable fritters a lot to use what’s left in the crisper: my favourites are Korean jeon (thin veggie pancakes), but I do Middle Eastern vegetable fritters called ejjeh too.

There are some very good food trucks around Kirkwall & Stromness, so about once a week Scout & I will get in the car and head out for lunch, eating in my parked car while reading a book and admiring the view, then a hike on one of the trails. Food trucks seem to serve mostly meat butties ( bacon or sausage sandwiches – I have no idea why they’re called butties), meat pies, and chips, but there are also a couple that are a tad more exotic. Not the healthiest, but the hike is my excuse to indulge. *I admit to having meat pies about twice a month – they are soooo good. Yesterday I went into town for some thread. We passed my favourite bakery, Argos, so I went in and got a Scotch pie. Then, on the way home we passed my second favourite bakery, Rendall’s, so I went in there and picked up a pastie. Two meat-in-pastry meals in two days, oh dear. (I’m having the Scotch pie tonight for dinner, yum.)

Dinners fall into three categories: homemade, takeaway, or dining out. I cook my own dinner probably five days a week – usually either pasta dishes, or what I would call Reid family food. The former are usually vegetarian or seafood, and the latter tend to be things we grew up with: mince & tatties, a lamb chop, grilled fish, or stews. For takeaway, (about once every one or two weeks), my choices are somewhat limited. I usually end up with Indian or Chinese, because they’re a short walk from my house and the vegetarian choices are really good. I would like to order from the Turkish Kabab House (it smells so good when I walk by), but they don’t seem to have any vegetarian options (other than chips. Everyone serves chips. Everyone.) I haven’t been that impressed with the pizzas I’ve had in Scotland, so I haven’t had that as a takeout choice.

About once every couple of weeks I’ll go out for dinner. I try to go to dog-friendly pubs and restaurants. And I always order locally-sourced meals like lamb, fish, seafood, the local cheeses, etc… At first it seemed like every pub was exactly like every other pub: Grimbister Cheese starter, fish & chips or shepherd’s pie, and so on. But I’ve done my research (eating out a lot and asking friends and neighbours) and now have a bit of a roster of what I can get & where: the duck at The Storehouse is delicious; ditto the fish tacos & the cauliflower bites at Twenty-One.

I would say that overall my diet is relatively healthy: mostly vegetarian, mostly homemade, and mostly locally sourced. If I slip up anywhere, it is those damned meat pies. But I figure, once I’m back in Canada they will be a thing of the past, so enjoy them while I can.