An old friend from high school and university is now living in Oxford.  Earlier this month we met halfway (well, not quite halfway) and spent a few days in the Yorkshire Dales and the city of York.  We started the week glamping in the North Dales.  No wonder James Herriot fell in love with this countryside (All Creatures Great and Small has been one of my favourite books & TV shows for decades).  CB lives less than half an hour from the Cotswolds, considered some of England’s most beautiful regions, and I have the Scottish Highlands and Islands just outside my back door, but we were both blown away by the hills, moors, and dales of Yorkshire. Every curve in the road brought a stunning new vista.

This was an A.B.C. tour with a vengeance; I saw more mediaeval castles that week than I have in my entire lifetime.  Years ago, I was in Belfast with LL and we went to the Game of Thrones exhibit.  I have never seen GOT, have no desire to see it, don’t know any of the characters, and, apart from something called The Red Wedding, couldn’t name a single thing about the series.  But LL is a big GOT fan, and I’ve gotta say, going around the exhibit with someone who was so into it was fun – her enthusiasm and expertise made my experience that much more enjoyable.  

Well, it was exactly the same with CB and British mediaeval history.  I have what might be called a working knowledge of people like Richard III, Henry VII, and so on, but CB’s knowledge of the Plantagenets & the Tudors, the Yorks & the Beauforts, and the Henrys & the Edwards is encyclopaedic. Her passion made places like Middleham Castle and Skipton Castle really really interesting and I appreciated what I was seeing so much more by touring around with her (just don’t get her started on the War of the Roses – seriously, I thought she was going to smack one tour guide upside the head when he mentioned red roses).

By now I am becoming quite the expert on the A9.  This is the motorway (sorry, I have since been advised by locals that it’s not a motorway, it’s a road) that runs from the very north shore of Scotland, all the way south to Stirling.  I have driven it 13 times in the last nine months.  That’s more than many of my Orkney acquaintances have driven it in the last decade.  

There are things I like about it: they have ‘Average Speed Cameras’ that monitor your speed over a 2 or 3 mile stretch, thereby ensuring speeders can’t just brake right before the camera; the views are always spectacular regardless of weather (except that one foggy day in April – I saw nothing but pavement and the tail lights of the truck in front of me); and there are lots of places to pull over, for stretch breaks with the dog. 

There are also challenges: from Thurso (or Gill’s Bay, depending on the ferry du jour) to Central Scotland is a 6+ hours drive (that’s long); I can’t stand night driving on a highway that is that busy & narrow, so in winter I have to break my journey halfway (that’s expensive); and Transport Scotland does not believe in straight lines, so I am constantly anticipating coaches and transport trucks coming at me around every curve (that’s exhausting).

We now have quite a little routine. Once off the ferry, Scout gets a romp either behind an Aldi parking lot or beside an old cemetery (depending on the ferry du jour); then we stop in Golspie for good coffee, clean bathroom, and lovely beach; and then a stop at the House of Bruar for a hike along the burn and lovely washrooms. I can now tell you my favourite petrol station (in Brora), the scariest round-about (Bannockburn Roundabout), the nicest washrooms (Bruar), and which are my favourite hotels (more on that later).

Last week I headed out for yet another trip south to Scotland and England.  I was catching the 7:45 am ferry from St Margaret’s Hope.  It’s about a 25 minute drive (less if you drive like the eejit who overtook me doing 70+ mph on a curve – after all that idiocy he ended up being exactly one car ahead of me as we boarded – way to go, genius), and my drive goes over the Churchill Barriers.  The barriers are straight and narrow with no shoulders, just one car lane each way, massive concrete blocks, then the sea; and the speed limit is 60mph.  Imagine my reaction when an orca jumped straight out of the water just ahead and to the right of my car, before plunging back under the waves. Yes, I shouted, which woke Scout up, but despite all instincts to the contrary, I didn’t swerve and more to the point, I didn’t drive into the sea. 

My first Orcadian Orca.

I’ve stayed at the European hotel chain Ibis many times; they are always clean and inexpensive and, for all that they’re not exactly luxurious, I like the decor. It’s very northern European: clean lines, light colours, functional while still being attractive and welcoming. So for LL’s last two nights in Scotland, I booked us in at the Ibis on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

I chose it for several reasons: it allowed dogs, it was cheap, and it was: near the motorway; near the airport; near shopping; near a train station that would take us into downtown Glasgow; and near The Lang Whang, a road that would take me to my uncle’s after LL left. (the ‘Lang Whang’ is a lovely drive over moorland across Scotland, aka the A70)

Well. When we walked into our room, we were a tad surprised. It was all Ibis: light colours, streamlined, inexpensive. It was also quite barren. And small. Apart from our cabin on our first river cruise, LL & I have never stayed in a room this small. (Even the Class C RV we rented years ago was roomier that this).

And it was also very, um, hospital-like. Pale green walls, a waist-high railing around the room (never did figure that one out – it can’t just have been aesthetics – there was not one single item in that room that wasn’t fully functional and utilitarian), skinny, high beds remarkably like gurneys. There was even a little panel between the two beds at ‘face-level’ – their idea of giving us each some privacy, I guess. The sink was in the room, the toilet had its own teeny, plain, closet-like cabinet, and the shower assumed an intimacy between the guests that was beyond what LL & I are used to (frosted glass door with gaps all around it, opening directly into the bedroom). No tea-maker (tea in the lobby was free), exactly two Dixie-sized plastic cups, no hand-towels, just a bath mat the size of a placemat and two medium-sized towels. This room was smaller and more basic than the room I had in Credit Valley Hospital all those years ago.

The hotel lobby was very busy, very popular, very multi-cultural, and very nice. So in the end, no complaints. Just very surprised to end LL’s visit in the Edinburgh Ibis Hospital.

When I decided to move to an island in the North Sea in October, I was driven by two things: COVID & the feeling that if I could survive short days and a wet, windy winter, I’d be all set. Turns out there was an added benefit.

If I had moved here in the more obvious springtime, as the days were getting longer, it would have been harder to fit in. For the months of October through April, my accent set me apart, and people got to know me and remember me. I stood out. But now, every other person walking down the street or wandering into a shop or pub has a North American accent, and every local I met would have assumed I was a cruise-boat tourist, in Orkney only for one day.

Yesterday, as I was weaving in and out of the crowds on Albert Street (our main drag), I was hailed by a neighbour, and then by a pub owner. This afternoon I was in one of my favourite shops, which also gets a lot of tourist foot traffic. I was trying to get past people, saying, “excuse me; pardon me”, in my polite Canadian accent, sounding, I am sure, exactly like many of them. But when I got to the front of the line to pay, the clerk said, “hiya, did you friend get back home okay?” and the clerk behind him asked, “How’s Scout?” And one of the bus drivers waved to me at the zebra crossing.

(I do know it sounds nuts to keep harping on about being ‘one of them’, but I’m on the other side of the ocean from friends and family, I’m on my own, and, well, anything that makes me feel more a part of a community matters.)

I told LL to come in May, as it is normally the driest month in Scotland. Well, she left in grey skies on June 1st, and it’s been sunny and warm from June 2nd on. Oops.

It’s light now from 4am to 11pm, and that is only getting longer as we get closer to the summer solstice. It’s truly lovely; I actually get out of bed even earlier than usual in the mornings, and sat out yesterday evening ‘sunbathing’ at around 8pm. But it does impact a good night’s sleep. I can close the blinds and the blackout curtains, and close the bedroom door (the front door is frosted glass, so light comes in all down the hall), but that makes the room too warm and stuffy. But if I open the curtains, a combination of sunlight and pre-dawn birdsong wakens both Scout and me. I’ve dug out an eye mask (thank you, Air Canada) and we’ll see how that goes. The mask is for me; not sure how Scout will cope.

Interestingly, the sun is having a another impact on my environment. Unlike most Orcadians I waited until May to turn off my heating; they all shut off their heat on the first of April! I have underfloor heating, which is not very responsive, and because the south wall of my house is two massive picture windows, the living room & kitchen get very warm in the afternoon. So I don’t turn the heat on in the mornings because it won’t make a noticeable difference before about dinnertime. But, it is Orkney in the spring, so the nights are cool. So I start every day quite briskly, and end up melting in the afternoon. Poor LL spent the last week of her visit in thick socks and a sweater while in the house (my Mum always did say not to make guests too comfortable, otherwise they never leave).

Rhododendrons and azaleas were absolutely everywhere when we were down south, and lots of shrubs and trees are starting to flower up here. But I think the flower of the month in June in Orkney is buttercups. I love yellow flowers.

It seems the farther away you get from London, the quieter the celebrations were (that could also be a factor of population density as opposed to distance). Orkney’s festivities included school outings, a parade, a church service, and a community picnic.

I was going to take Scout to the community picnic in front of St Magnus Cathedral (Scout is always a hit at a picnic), and even went so far as to make Coronation Egg Salad Sandwiches (egg, mayo, curry powder, & mango chutney) and pack a bottle of upscale tonic water (mint & cucumber seemed appropriately royal).

It took a while to get to the cathedral, as there were a couple of cruise ships in town, and once we got there the lawn was pretty full of families picnicking. Instead we headed to the harbour, found a bench, and sat in the warm sunshine, admired the view, and said hello to passersby.

This little guy just flew into my patio doors as I was having my morning tea. Scout is sitting watching him recover, doubtless wishing him well. It’s been about 20 minutes now, and he’s moved from stunned, dazed, and splayed on the top step; to stunned, confused, and upright on the middle step; to sore, walking, and cautious on the patio. He’s a blackbird, even though he is brown. I assumed, based on my now vast knowledge that he was a female (female blackbirds are brown) or possibly even a young starling, but The Orkney Book of Birds, Pocket Edition, assures me that he is a juvenile blackbird (turdus merula).

As you can see from my knowledgeable analysis above, I have become a bit of a birdwatcher here. It’s practically impossible not to be. At home I did like watching the birds in my yard and my neighbourhood, and was particularly fond of the great blue heron in our pond, as well as last year’s common tern. But here, well, the skies are just full of them (duh) and as many of them are different from home, it’s hard not to start trying to identify them. I even bought the aforementioned Orkney Book of Birds. Obviously the puffins were a big deal, and LL took to calling the massive rookery at the end of my street the Forest of Doom due to the sheer number of crows (excuse me, rooks and jackdaws as locals have corrected me – but I have made a point of not correcting them when they speak of Canadian Geese – no one likes a know-it-all).

I’m enjoying all my sightings in the back garden, or my walks along the shore, or hiking in the hills. But I will never be a twitcher. There are almost as many twitchers scouring the islands as there are cruise-ship tourists scouring the local shops. But the massive binoculars look heavy, the attire is just not moi, and you will never catch me hunched down in a boggy blind waiting for a sighting of a Bean Goose or a Long-tailed Tit.

*As I am typing this, my little kamikaze buddy has hopped off into the grass and is now hidden up in the leaves of my laburnum tree.

After Skye, we headed across country to Stirling, then south to our last stop, a hotel near the outskirts of Edinburgh (more on that later). I kept telling LL that one of our choices on the way was to stop and see the Falkirk Kelpies, giant metal horse statues. Each time I mentioned them she would shrug and say, “yeah, sure, okay”. Clearly not into going, but as I was driving, she had little choice.

I’d never seen them, but I did have some idea of what to expect, so as we were driving south down the M9 motorway, I caught a glimpse of metal over the trees to the right and said, “I think that’s them.” Just then the trees cleared a bit and LL cried out, “W#@! . . .T%# . . . F*$!” She had just seen the top of the 100′ (yes, one hundred foot) metal horseheads at The Helix park in Falkirk looming over the motorway. It seems when I described them as giant horse statues, she was expecting maybe a 10′ tall bronze statue of a horse, like the Duke of Wellington’s statue in London. So, she was lukewarm at best. Well, that all changed.

Helix Park was amazing. Like so many Scottish monuments, parks, and museums, it’s free. The giant park is full of walkways through the meadows and marshes; there are little canals with narrowboats and unmanned canal locks; and you can wander hectares of woodland and open fields.

And there are the Kelpies. The story and facts behind them are very interesting, but no amount of information or photos can prepare you for actually being there. What an excellent second last day in Scotland for LL.

It came time for LL to leave Orkney – we spent the last few days there exploring Stromness and Kirkwall and I now have at least three new ‘my locals’ to visit with Scout (they’re not all bars; one is a café, to be clear). Tomorrow afternoon I think I’m going to sit in front of the fire at The Storehouse and have the duck starter as a ‘wee treet’ – it was heavenly last week.

So off we headed to the highlands & west islands – areas I have either never been to, or at least not for a long time. Day One: Eilean Donan was beautiful – it’s one of the first images you see when you google ‘Scotland’ and it is in every Scottish calendar. Every year. You can see why.

Then Skye – my last visit here was a bit of a, well, disaster is too harsh a word. 20+ years ago sibling 1 and took the ferry to Skye. We didn’t know quite what to do once we got there, and there were cars behind us, so we just drove. We drove for about 20 minutes until we came to a fork in the road, then pulled over into a lay-by and ate a couple of apples. Then we kept driving, and next thing we knew, 15 minutes later, we’d reached the bridge at the Kyle of Lochalsh, and that was it – we’d done Skye. The 2nd largest island in the U.K. In about 45 minutes.

But this was different – what a beautiful island! Every corner you turn is a different landscape. This time around was still too short a visit, but at least we had fresh oysters and a langoustine dinner at the Oyster Shed, then hiked to the Fairy Pools near Glenbrittle, then drove through Sleat, the ‘Garden of Skye’. I would have like to make it as far north as Edinbane, but next trip, I guess. Finally we watched the sunset from a large glassed-in terrace in Mallaig. Just magical.

*Oh, between Skye and Westray I have learned at least one new lesson: I cannot hike with Scout. Either she’s lunging after birds, or pulling in the wrong direction on a rocky path. All I know is: walks? yes. Hikes? no.