I’m a morning person and am usually up well before 7 o’clock. Recently I’ve gotten into the habit of doing a lot of stuff around the house before heading out for our morning walk (unlike at home, where it was usually: up & dressed, one cup of tea, read the news, then out for a walk). I think I’ve been letting it get later and later due to the lateness of the sunrise (today’s sunrise was 9:03 a.m.).
But clearly I’ve been missing a lot and need to get back to my old habits. This was downtown Kirkwall first thing this morning. Shops were getting ready to open, the only traffic was a couple of vans making deliveries, the only people on the street were dog walkers and shop owners.
It seems ‘plastic’, had I read more closely, is only plastic bottles. Plastic bags and wrap, even if marked as recyclable, do not go in the plastics bin. Only plastic bottles. I haven’t quite figured out what I am to do with the rest of my plastic waste, but the one or two bottles I use up each month (yes, as I don’t drink juice or buy water in bottles, I don’t have much in the way of empty plastic bottles) will go into the 4′ tall recycling bin. And nothing else.
I sent off my registration form for the NHS on December 9th and yesterday a package arrived from them. I assumed it was maybe an ID card like our OHIP cards, or instructions on how to get a card, or just some paperwork and information on what it is to be registered with the National Health Services. Then I saw the words ‘self-test’ and, given what’s going on at the moment, I understandably thought, “Are they sending out COVID self-tests to everyone?”
But no, it was none of those things. Instead, it was a bowel screening self-test asking me to mail in a sample. Unasked for, out of the blue, completely unexpected, just arrived from Public Health Scotland because I am between the ages of 50 and 74. I must say, this is one of the more original welcome packages I have received when joining a new organization. (Vodaphone offered my a free cup of Costa coffee.)
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the importance of catching bowel cancer early – my dad had colorectal cancer, so I know too well the need for early detection. It was just the timing, and the surprise factor, and of course the scatological impact (so to speak) that appealed. And the instructions are quite entertaining too – I particularly like question #3 on the return package – gotta wonder how often something happened before they included that.
Again, sorry if this wasn’t what you signed up for when you started following this blog. 🙂
This intersection near my house fascinates me. The first time we walked past it, I noticed a car had broken down in the intersection, the driver must have gone for help, and people were just driving around the stalled car. After this happened more than once, I realized it was designed this way. The purple arrow is the more ‘major’ Thoms Street, the red arrow shows where St Rognvald St. and the left turn lane from it to Thoms St. are, and the semi-circle that is indicated by the green arrow and encircled by a white curve painted on the road is a parking space. A parking space for two or three cars – and there’s no curb, just the white painted line. That car isn’t in traffic; it’s parked. And everyone just moves around it.
I’m so glad I was on foot the first few times I came by here; I’m not sure what I would have done had I been driving (probably freaked out that there was a car seemingly coming towards me on the wrong side of the street and veered into a wall or something).
Anyway, just another quirk in the British traffic system.
On my second trip “to Scotland” as the locals say – I can’t say I went to the mainland, as the island that Kirkwall is on is called The Mainland by Orcadians (ditto the big island in Shetland), and here they call heading off the island as going to Scotland – I bought Scout a new bed. I hadn’t seen the point in schlepping her old bed across the ocean in its own suitcase, so I waited until we got here, then stopped in a lovely pet shop in Wick and picked up this beauty at the end of October. Not cheap, I might add.
She has used it twice – both times at my encouragement. Instead, she has chosen the thin carpet on the hard floor on the concrete pad in my bedroom. It’s her favorite place in the house, regardless of where I am.
She also won’t lie on the sofa beside me as she did back home – if she does want to be with me in the living room, she prefers to sit on the floor directly in front of me (to give me the best chance to pet her). And no chance to see the TV she is blocking. It’s like she knows the exact spot to cause the most inconvenience. So the soft, fuzzy rug I bought for her to lie on on the sofa was equally wasted. Nice.
I have kept the receipt from the bed and really should call the store and see what their return policy is. But as Wick is a ferry-ride away, I see no point in rushing this. Who knows? She may suddenly change her mind. Uh-huh.
Well, that’s what I get for making plans for Christmas. I take it that instead of a week in the west Highlands, it will be another stay-at-home holiday. Bah, humbug.
So I guess I’d better start planning the menus. These were last year’s; as I don’t have access to the same kitchen appliances, I may have to dial things down a bit. (And, she said in panic mode, I haven’t seen Grand Marnier anywhere on this island. What fresh hell is this?)
When planning any excursion now, first I check the weather for the next day. Then, the times for sunrise & sunset (there’s no point in heading out at 2:00 p.m. for an afternoon of hiking when the sun is going to set in less than 90 minutes), then the tides tables (I feel so at-one with nature).
Our favorite beach is Scapa, and not just because it’s beautiful, which it truly is. It’s also because it’s a 7-minute drive from home, and there’s ample and easy parking – often parking at the cutest beaches involves watching for the 7′ x 9′ patch of grass just off the road at the end of a bridge, and either nosing in, which means you will be backing out into oncoming highway traffic later, or hoping there isn’t a long line of cars behind you as you pull up, so you can stop, reverse, and take 6 or 8 runs at squeezing the back end of the car between a stone pillar and a hedge. Also, it is a beach where there is always some sand to walk along, even at high tide, and, best of all, all the other walkers are very friendly dog-owners with dogs that entertain and exhaust Scout. An all round win, win.
Today was no exception – we had a great time: Scout chased oyster catchers and seagulls, I watched the freighters in Scapa Flow, and we had a good, long walk. The weather was so nice (read: cool, grey, but not teeming down), that we headed down to South Ronaldsay to the Murray Arms in St. Margaret’s Hope, one of the few pubs that welcome dogs (and boy did they welcome her – Scout hasn’t been fawned over like that in ages). I ‘seafooded out’ on brown crab, and scallops in seaweed butter, and Scout posed in front of the ‘Creel Christmas Tree’ in the forecourt.
We then headed off to a new beach at Hoxa, called the Sands of Wright (North American place names pale in comparison). It was gorgeous; we had it all to ourselves; and if it weren’t for the dead seal at the high tide mark, the day would have been perfect. I was able to distract Scout before she found it, but I think we’ll wait a while before going back (I really want to know it’s been swept out to sea before we return).
With one small exception, a really great day!
The Murray Arms, St. Margaret’s Hope and The Sands of Wright, Hoxa, South Ronaldsay
I have walked past these climbing stones in the playground of the local primary school at least twice a day since arriving in Kirkwall. At least. Every time I walked past them, if I gave them any thought at all it was: another commercial cartoon themed playground. Based on the Flintstones, obvs.
I don’t know why, but yesterday it suddenly occurred to me: this has nothing to do with Hanna-Barbera. Here in Orkney they don’t need 1960’s cartoons – they have the real thing in their backyard. These climbing stones, in the local Orkney primary school playground, are based on nearby neolithic standing stones: The Stanes of Stenness. Duh.
As a rule, I don’t like places to be too warm (likely why I chose Orkney over say, the Canaries, or Antigua). So I have been keeping the thermostats at a reasonably cool level (too cold, my niece would say). But unlike central heating at home, where you can feel a difference in temperature within an hour of having adjusted the thermostat, in-floor heating doesn’t work that way. It can take a day or two to notice a change – and where you’re most likely to notice it is in your bare feet. I am loving this radiant heat – even with my preference for not too hot, I can still feel the warmth of the floors as I walk around the house.
Each room has its own thermostat and I’ve been keeping the guest rooms quite cool, with the doors closed, and the rest of the house at a nice, comfortable level. But as the weather grew cooler, the kitchen, with its linoleum flooring, was feeling colder and colder, and I realized I hadn’t seen a thermostat in there. I asked the property manager, who in turn asked the owners, and it seems the kitchen controls are behind the fridge. Behind the refrigerator. Which was why I’d never seen it. Incredibly inconvenient, but I’m guessing that’s the wall it had been on before they renovated the kitchen, and moving it just was too costly. So to adjust the temperature, you have to slide your arm behind the fridge and blindly turn the dial – there is no way to see the controls without pulling the fridge out, which I have no intention of doing. And as I said, you don’t always know right away how much your adjustments are going to impact the temperature in the room, so my first round of adjustments resulted in my walking into the kitchen the next morning and feeling a hot floor beneath my feet – hot enough that the water in Scout’s dish was actually lukewarm. How on earth was I supposed to get this right if I couldn’t see what I was doing?
Figured it out – I slide the phone camera along the wall behind the refrigerator, take a few snaps until I find one actually facing the thermostat and in focus, check the dial, and then slide my arm in and make adjustments. Take a couple more photos to check my progress, and so on and so on. I think we’ve found the sweet spot – the kitchen seems quite comfortable now.
All kitchen fussiness aside, I really do like this form of heating.
