Years ago I worked in a fair-sized branch of the Bank that had lots of paintings and prints up in the offices and hallways. And every single, solitary picture was a bleak winter countryside scene. I never understood that; why in a part of the world where it snows at some point during at least six months of each year, would you choose to hang scenes of cold, white, barren, blustery, snowy fields and streets? It was so depressing.

Over the past seven days I have been shopping for furniture and linens and supplies, and I have noticed a trend: everything I buy is grey. Grey sofa, grey chair (they did have the same one in mustard. I don’t like mustard.), grey shelves, grey lamp (2 of them), grey towels (they were on sale), grey dishes (the only other choice was black), and a grey kettle (the other choice was purple). I have moved to an island where it rains more often than not, where it is cloudy at least 60% of the time, where the clouds are grey, the sky is grey, the houses are grey, and the sea is dark grey; and I have chosen to fill my house with grey items.

Great.

I tried to be as organized as possible when packing to leave Canada.  All the things I thought I wouldn’t need for a while went in the biggest suitcase, things I wouldn’t need until I actually hit Orkney went in the next biggest, and so on and so on with all five pieces of luggage.  Needless to say, the last day or two of packing became more about jamming things into every nook and cranny, and less about an organizational master plan, and there were a few things I had to jettison due to lack of space figuring I could replace them here in Scotland.

Well, with no furniture in the house, I haven’t really unpacked – I’m just living out of various open suitcases and piles on the floor (a dresser is coming next week, along with a coat rack).  Imagine my frustration when I discovered I hadn’t packed any woolen hats.  No toque, no knitted beret.  I did find that I had packed a baseball cap (did you know Brits don’t wear baseball caps?  No one does.) and a sun hat.  A sun hat!  In Orkney!  I left behind the winter wear and packed a sun hat; what was I thinking?  And only one pair of gloves.  Seriously, what an idiot.

So yesterday I went into a shop and looked at locally made woolen hats. Beautiful knitted hats made here on the island.  I won’t tell you how much I paid; suffice it to say, that little brown toque is going to have to last me for years.  But I’ve done my part to support local, and at least my head was warm this morning on our walk.

A P.S. to this post: I dug around in one of the suitcases 30 minutes ago looking for my Dad’s old pen knife and came across: lined woolen mittens, 4 more pairs of gloves, my favourite toque from the Vancouver Aquarium and my favorite woolen beret. 

So I’m still an idiot, just for a different reason.  Sigh.

I know, I know, I keep harping on about not having access to the internet. 

I think my generation is in a very specific place in history: my parents’ generation really did spend their whole lives without being hugely impacted by the internet.  Sure, my Dad used technology to take e-books and audiobooks out of the library, and my friend Shirshee uses FB and Facetime to stay in touch with her grandkids, but really, for them modern technology has been an minor add-on in later life. And my nieces and nephews don’t remember a time when the internet wasn’t integral to everything they do – they simply could not exist without their cell phones or social media.

But for my generation, the first half of our careers was completely without significant modern technology: carbon-paper documents, overhead projectors, and electric typewriters were the only technology for the first 15 or so years of my time at the Bank.  But by the time I retired, I couldn’t have made it through a day without a Blackberry to stay in touch, an iPad to complete documentation, and Word, Excel & Google on my desktop to do everything else.  We really did straddle the techno-boom like no other cohort.

Which is why I am yammering on, yet again, about a lack of internet access.  The issue is not because I am in a remote location (well, not really).  The two big stumbling blocks to being live and in touch with the rest of the world are: I didn’t know what my permanent address would be until I had been in Scotland for 10 days and therefore struggled to convince companies to deal with me and, even though I opened my UK bank account back in the summer, my bank card didn’t get mailed to me until after I had left Canada and had to be cancelled and re-issued (still waiting).  And in the UK no one, absolutely no one, will do anything for you without a bank card.  So, here I sit, waiting for my broadband (wi-fi) to be installed, and waiting to be able to get a UK mobile phone.  (And it seems I have over-used the Roam package I bought through Bell for my first month here, mainly by spending a lot of time on the phone to UK call centres, and by uploading all the photos I’ve been taking.  Hunh.)   I can’t believe how much this matters to my day to day experience!  And I really don’t consider myself a tech-addict – I’m not a huge user of social media, I try to limit my time on Netflix or Britbox (well, I try), and yet somehow, I feel like I am stumbling through each day accomplishing very little. 

Okay, done venting for now – off to the library to use their broadband and upload this whining to my blog.

This is my first homecooked meal since, well, September, I guess.  That I cooked I mean (thank you Sibling 2 and Uncle Ian).  And the first fresh vegetables in a while – I’m always leery of salads out.  Did they really wash the lettuce? So, mac and cheese with Orkney cheddar, some coleslaw, and pickled red onion.  Even their vegetables are different – the cabbage is called Sweetheart cabbage, and is shaped like a cone. 

Oh, and of course, some cava to celebrate my arrival.  I don’t have either a television or wi-fi yet, so my viewing pleasure was thanks to MM, who gave me the full compilation of Criminal Minds and Murphy Brown.  For my first week sleeping on a new bed in a new house in a new town, I don’t think serial killers is the way to go, so Murphy Brown it is.

Today’s the day. I took possession of my house on the weekend, and have slowly been shopping around town, looking at larger items, and stocking up on smaller essentials. It’s a 3-bedroom (well, the smallest will be a boxroom) with a yard and it’s empty.  Apart from large appliances (and some old hangers) it’s empty.  Exciting, for someone starting afresh.  Daunting, for someone who hates shopping.  But I’m checking out of the hotel in an hour, so I have no choice this morning but to buy: a bed, a table or desk, and a chair.  Here’s hoping places deliver on Mondays.

For those who know Scout (or her brother, for that matter), they will know that despite her breeding, Scout is not a water dog. She will never willing go into any body of water, from bathtub to Great Lake. If I throw her favorite ball into the waves, she just runs back and forth excitedly along the shore. Other dogs can be jumping in and out of the pool and she just backs away. A friend once bought a kiddie wading pool and set it up in my backyard. Her dog Winston knew exactly what to do and lolled about in it in great comfort in the 30+ degree weather, but even when we lifted Scout into the cool water, she only turned and stepped back out, preferring to suffer dry in her wooly coat. (I did let her into the air-conditioned house – she wasn’t left out to roast while other dogs chilled)

Yesterday we went on a road trip, driving down to the island of Burray. We crossed the Churchill Barriers and found a deserted beach at Skerry Sound for a good, long walk on a beautiful, sunny afternoon. The tide was quite low, and the sea was a smooth as glass when Scout spied the seagulls bobbing on the water. Without a second thought, she charged straight into the sea, up to her hips, scattering the birds. Once the birds were suitably scattered, she looked about, and instead of freaking out and running back to the beach, she looked quite pleased with herself and waded about for a minute or before turning back to me.

I think 9 years old is an interesting age for a dog to find her sea-legs, and it does mean I will have to keep her on a leash the mornings we walk around the Peedie Sea, but I really think Orkney is going to be good for my wee dug.

I’m here in Orkney – exactly 10 days after arriving in Scotland.  The last 12 hours were definitely the most taxing of my journey north.  Winding roads, aggressive drivers, high winds, driving rain, and the ferry.  I’ve never really been troubled by seasickness in the past, but by the time I’d had a spicy dinner, negotiated the cargo parking, and hit the high seas, the scene was set.  Oh dear.  It turns out that masks make the nausea worse.  In fact, everything makes the nausea worse.  The smell of the food cooking from the restaurant. The earbuds for the podcast that was supposed to distract me.  The scent of the hand soap.  The scent of the hand sanitizer that was supposed to banish the smell of hand soap.  The vestiges of cigarette smoke on the man standing near me.  I was just so thankful to get off the boat – is this going to happen every time I take the ferry?

I thought that was the worst of my journey over.  Wrong.  It was now pitch dark and I had a 30 minute drive through the countryside with a trail of locals wanting to get home following behind.  And they drive fast.  I was doing fine until we got to the road works.  It was on the detour that the guy behind me finally got fed up and raced around me and went on his way.  Oh well.  Stuff happens.  Made it to the hotel, safe, if not quite sound. 

In retrospect, the thing that was most disappointing was that my malaise meant I couldn’t really appreciate the group of musicians who played and sang folk tunes the whole crossing.  Guitars, a fiddle, even a mandolin I think.  It was lovely and should have been such a welcome for me to my new home. 

Now I’m dreading future trips off the island.  Hmm.

But – I did wake up to this view the next morning.

After 9 days of being lulled into a fall sense of comfort by moderate weather and inland locations, Scout & I got our first taste of what the next two years will feel like. We stopped in the Highland coastal village of Golspie to have some lunch (yet another Tesco sandwich – I’ve decided the basic bacon and ketchup is my favorite) and stretch our legs at the beach. Well, we stepped out of the car, the wind came up, the rain came down, and oh my God it was . . . . we’ll say invigorating. My planned 40 minute stroll along the seawall turned into 8 minutes of my begging Scout to hurry up and do her business, followed by a mad dash back to the now slightly steamy car. That’s when we saw the polar bears. No not ursus maritimus, but two ladies in bathing suits running into the sea for a 10-minute swim. Mad.

Our next break was also a beach, and was much better that time: (a) no rain, and (b) I had added 2 layers of clothing from the bottom of a suitcase. The tide was going out at Thurso, so while we waited for the ferry, Scout had the time of her life.

Once the car issue was settled, Scout & I began our road trip north to Orkney.  We’ve taken our time, driving in short bouts, doing some sightseeing, checking into a different hotel every couple of nights.  And, apart from the occasional errors with the SatNav (I could see the computer store, I could get near the computer store, I just couldn’t get into the parking lot of the computer store – at least 10 minutes of driving around a shopping mall parking lot full of roundabouts and dead ends), and a hotel that claims to be pet-friendly on Expedia but not in person, it has been a lovely trip.  We’ve had some rain, some mist, and some overcast skies, but mostly the weather here in Scotland has been pretty nice.

We’ve walked to the Falls of Bruar (beautiful, and the first time Scout has been off-leash since we left Milton – she was ecstatic), been to the Holy Rude Church in Stirling (James VI was coronated there by the Bishop of Orkney while John Knox preached – you don’t get more Scottish than that), and walked along the River Ness, crossing over to the Ness Islands on footbridges built in Victorian times.

The worst thing about British hotels?  The cost.  I had no idea that rooms in smaller cities and towns in Scotland would cost at least $150/night – I had investigated online in August; I had just assumed that by mid-October prices would be much lower. My budget has gone completely sideways.

The best thing about British hotel rooms? Every room has a proper kettle, real tea bags, milk, and even little biscuits.  This is such a nice change after all those years of business travel, making tea in the Mr Coffee maker with water just shy of the boil, and drinking each morning’s cup of tea with that hint o’mocha that I really hadn’t wanted. This is civilized travel.

The past week has been spent trying to buy and insure a car. I simply had no idea how complicated this was going to be. The list of things that went wildly wrong is too long to elaborate on; suffice it to say that between: unfamiliar makes & models, staying in one town with the dealership in the next, a foreign cell phone + roam package, a compromised debit card, online insurance companies, and an international driver’s license, well, my first week in Scotland was not the relaxing yet efficient travel launch point I had hoped for. There were tears.

But the week had its highlights. My mother and father grew up less than 5 miles from the Arnold Clark dealership in Motherwell. I have relatives who speak with a Scottish accent; I watch a lot of UK TV; and I have a pretty good ear for accents. But the nice young man who sold me my car – well, dear God, I struggled to follow our conversations. I truly only understood about 1 word in 3 and did my best to glean the rest from context and guesswork. I asked him to repeat himself so often he must have thought I was deaf. It was like those videos of a Scotsman getting in a voice-activated elevator. Nevertheless, we got there in the end, and I think I drove off the lot with the car he intended for me to have.

The other highlight was finalising my car insurance – as I said, it would take too long to explain why I was having the issues I was, I just was. When it finally came down to the last few details and no one would accept a Canadian credit card, I remembered a friend living in Oxford. For the last 20 years, we have seen each other exactly only once a year (COVID excepted) when she came to Ontario for Christmas. And yet, this friend, whom I met in 1973 and stayed friends with ever since, stepped in and paid for my insurance, no questions asked; calling the call centre, offering her financial details, and sitting on the phone for 20 minutes while a sales rep read her the small print of the contract. (All in the clear understanding that I will pay her back, of course. The cheque is in the mail.) Old friends truly are the best friends.

Was it worth all the grief? Well here is the car, with all my worldly possessions awaiting loading. Yes, they all fit, and yes, Scout has the entire back seat to stretch out in. A peppy little Vauxhall Corsa – easy to handle, easy to park. Now I just need to figure out all the buttons, bells, and whistles on the dashboard.