It seems each month has its own flowers. In January, we had snowdrops (okay, in very late January, let’s not split hairs here); in February it was crocuses. In March all the eye could see was daffodils: little pale narcissi, huge yellow & gold trumpets. They are all over my garden, everyone’s gardens, parks, roadside ditches, even little crevices in the pavement have tiny ones flowering. They are still going strong, but it seems primroses are going to be April’s main backdrop. Again, every garden, stone wall, planter, and window box is covered in every colour imaginable. These pale yellows are my favourite.

I can’t wait to see what May brings.

Woke up this morning and the knee that started acting funny on Sunday was still flaring up. At 8:45 I called the doctors’ office with whom I’m registered. Unlike my doctor’s office at home, the conversation with the receptionist was pleasant and productive. She booked me in with a physiotherapist for 10:30. All the G.P.s’ offices in Kirkwall seem to be located in the hospital. I pulled into the hospital parking lot at 10:25, parked for free in the patients’ parking area, walked into the hospital, and was taken at exactly 10:30. The last time anything happened that swiftly for me back home was 28 years ago this week when I found, had diagnosed, and had removed a cancerous tumour – for which I thank Dr Sheppard, OHIP, & Credit Valley Hospital greatly. But back to Orkney. The first words out of his mouth were, “This is a 20 minute consultation.” Which may be why they were running on time, or may just be to stave off chatty patients. Either way, I was in, examined, and out in 16 minutes, and did not feel rushed at all. I don’t know if my experience was typical of the U.K. or was island-specific, but I don’t care – I was most impressed. (No, we still don’t know what the prob is with the knee – it didn’t act up once while I was with the therapist – isn’t that always the way?)

On another note: vacuum cleaners. Remember when vacuum cleaners had bags? And then Mr Dyson or someone came along and said, “No more messy bags; we have canisters!” Well, yuck. For the last 25 years I’ve been waiting for the pendulum to swing back and the industry to re-introduce bags, saying, “No more digging around in canisters, we have nice clean bags!” I don’t care what anyone says, when it was a bag, yes, clamping the new one in took an extra 3 seconds, but the full bag came out of the machine in a nice, contained, easily disposed of sack. Now, after pulling the canister out, I hold it over the garbage can, pop the opening, and watch as a fine layer of dust flies up from the waste that pours out of the canister and settles throughout the recently cleaned room. Then, with the particular cordless stick model I have now, I have to reach in and scrape out any of the clumps of debris that are caught right up against the filter. NO, this way isn’t better, dammit.

But, this week, mine broke. Well, the roller brush stopped spinning. I carefully removed & cleaned it, and tried it again – to no avail. I took it to the shop where I bought it, but customer service isn’t their strong suit, and they basically told me, “yes we’ll take it back and get it fixed, but you might as well phone Hoover first and see if they can help you. ” Lovely.

So I wrote Hoover, who replied promptly. But their solution was that they wanted to send me a new roller brush. But isn’t that like telling the mechanic that your wheels aren’t turning, and having him say, “let’s put on new tires!”. I tried explaining to the person at the help desk that the problem might be more complex than replacing a pop-in, pop-out unit, but he seemed confused. So in spite of fearing that I may be putting the vacuum out of warranty, I got out the screw driver, lifted off the base, saw that a spindle was clogged, cleaned it, replaced the base, and voila! it sucks! (you know what I mean).

All in all, not quite the day I had anticipated.

British houses don’t often have basements, but they do have useable attics. When I was a little girl we visited my grandmother’s house and her bungalow had a sort of second floor, but no staircase. Instead, when my Dad & Uncle Ian wanted to go to bed as little boys, they opened a door in the ceiling and pulled down a hinged angle ladder. This absolutely fascinated my sisters and me.

My little house here in Kirkwall has the same thing – there is a latched door in the ceiling, leading to heaven knows what (some nights I sleep better than others). The loft in the photo is at my uncle’s house – it’s full of old toys and appliances and furniture, as well things that my uncle still uses periodically (Scout’s travel crate is up there too). Uncle Ian will be 90 next month, and he pops up to the loft probably at least once a month. I was there watching him one day – my heart was in my mouth. But no, it seems it’s no problem for him – on and off the ladder without a thought.

Carry on and stay calm.

Those are fulmars, nesting on the cliff face by The Gloup. It seems that if you get too close to a fulmar or its chicks, it will vomit on you. Yes, vomit. Bright orange oil that absolutely reeks. Even odder, it is the chicks who are the most skilled at projectile vomiting and are so dumb they will upchuck on their own parents for the first few weeks of their lives, until the chicks learn to recognize the adults. (This is why one shouldn’t have children)

An acquaintance told me that when she inadvertently got too near a nest, the birds vomited on her running shoes. No amount of airing, washing, or disinfecting would get rid of the stench; after weeks of trying she had to throw the shoes away. Sort of like the skunks of Scotland.

This morning Scout sprained a paw. She was romping with some other dogs, and I think it must be like when a 40+ year old guy joins a bunch of twenty-somethings for a game of hockey, and thinks he can keep up with the youngsters. I, on the other hand, blew out my knee whilst sitting on the sofa this afternoon watching the Great British Sewing Bee (first time I’ve been injured watching other people work). So, I figured we were stuck inside all day, but, as I’ve said before, when it is 13°C and sunny on Orkney, you have to go out. So off we went to the peninsula of Deerness to The Gloup.

This is The Gloup. A gloup, according to Merriam-Webster, is ‘an opening in the roof of a sea cave through which incoming waves may force air to rush upward or water to spout’. We know I’m not exactly Ansel Adams, so let me explain what you are seeing. The thin blue line above the fence is the North Sea and the peedie (small) blue square towards the bottom is an arched opening to the sea. The whole thing is 80 metres long and 25 metres deep.

We limped along beside it (well, I limped – Scout seems to have recovered), and then along the cliff tops towards the Broch of Deerness. We didn’t quite make the broch, as my limp was becoming more pronounced, and a rather aggressive looking bull terrier was off-leash up ahead.

But, I’ve seen a gloup.

A couple of months ago I commented on a short paragraph in the local newspaper about an unexploded bomb. It had been reported on way back on page 7, in a section called In brief . . .

Last week, the Orcadian reported on a body found on a beach. This was also not reported on the front page, or even page 2 – those pages were reserved for high fuel prices (fair enough), and an ongoing discussion about roadworks in the next town over. There it was, tucked away in a tiny corner on page 4, in In brief . . . (that ellipsis seems to diminish it even further.)

I have to think that in Milton this would have been headline news. The Champion most definitely would have led with a dead body, and it would be all over Milton Talks & Milton Mommies FB pages.

Clearly it takes a lot to rattle the Scots.

As soon as you arrive at your hosts’ house, if you are instructed to park in the driveway, back your car into a low brick wall (hopefully no one will see you and you can just say nothing). Next, announce to the world that you found the single lane, winding country roads that were the last 30 minutes of your 8 hour journey much too stressful and force your cousin to do all subsequent driving during the week, including drop-offs and pick-ups at the train station when you take off for the day, leaving your dog in their charge.
This is your next opportunity to be a special guest: let your cousin tour you all over the countryside, while you leave walking your dog every day to her husband, who also is expected to scoop her poop while you’re wandering the gardens of Chartwell, or the beach at Whitstable.
But the best way to show your appreciation of someone’s hospitality is to get sick. Take yourself off to the city for a day of self-indulgence, and then return with a bout of food-poisoning and spend that night lying on their bathroom floor. Once you have commandeered said bathroom, spend the next day lying on their sofa, being handed cups of tea and plates of dry toast.
Now, a truly ideal guest will take it one step further (this next step is not easy, and is really only for the truly dedicated houseguests) – time your ailment slightly later in your stay. This ensures that on the last day, the day you were going to treat the family to dinner, either with your classic homemade beef & beer stew, or by ordering in a Thai dinner, that you are too wan and tired to do either and your host is forced to make tomato soup and sandwiches on your last evening.
As you may have gathered, this week, I was truly An Ideal Guest.

P.S. – Joking aside, our holiday was wonderful. That was for one reason and one reason only – my cousin and her family were the Ideal Hosts. Totally. Thank you to VJ &AJ, FJ & IJ, and to Hector, for making Scout and me feel so very welcome and giving us a delightful week in beautiful (and surprisingly sunny) Kent.

Today I drove in England. Yesterday, I drove to my uncle’s in the Scottish lowlands and picked up my uncle. First thing this morning, he, Scout & I piled into the Corsa, and we headed south to Kent. I was quite nervous about this altho driving the motorways isn’t all that stressful because (a) when you think about it, all traffic is going in the same direction, and (b) I have 30+ years of GTA/401 driving under my belt. But I would be hitting the major ring road around London at rush hour and, I was little worried about my 90 year old uncle sitting in a car for 8+ hours.
It was clear and sunny and the landscape was gorgeous – we stopped at a pretty impressive service centre: Tebay rest stop is so famous there’s been a documentary made about it. But poor Uncle Ian; I was so freaked about getting south that we grabbed 2 coffees, 2 muffins and were back on the road in 15 minutes.
We kept going, crossed the Scottish border, over the Mersey, past the higher traffic cities like Manchester and Birmingham, through Oxfordshire, past Heathrow, and onto the M25 ring road south of London. The traffic was light(ish), the weather was great, and the service stations had pretty good food – on the whole, a much better day than anticipated. More and more of the U.K. is opening up to us!

I just saw the Old Man of Hoy. I’m on the ferry and we’ve just passed Orkney’s most iconic landmark, a 450′ tall sea stack. I’ve lived here five months but every time I’ve been on this ferry, it’s either been nightime, or I’ve been seasick, or in most cases, both. So this is exciting.
I haven’t been to the island of Hoy yet; I’m saving that for when visitors come, so I’m quite pleased about this. (I’m more pleased about not wanting to upchuck my breakfast, to be honest.)
The next sight was surfers. I knew there was good surfing in Cornwall, and the southwest coast of Scotland, but I was surprised to see two surfers riding the waves in Thurso – who knew the North Sea was just like Malibu. Dude.
Then, I was driving through the highlands and suddenly, just like in the movies, I saw a stag outlined against the sky. Now this would never normally happen – when I am driving the roads of Scotland, I am NOT admiring the scenery, my eyes are firmly on the road. But we were at a full stop waiting for construction; I happened to catch some movement out of the corner of my eye – it was a large deer (the antlers weren’t that big – I have no idea what that says about age, gender, time of year). But it was standing on a ridge, outlined by the sky – my first highland stag.