A Trip to the Moon And some knitting.

A couple of weeks ago we went to see the moon. This was not the real moon that hangs in the sky, obviously, but the Skyran Moon which is a replica, possibly 3-d printed,  and made of some sort of fabric-y, plastic-y stuff. No, I never did GCSE Resistant Materials. That was well after my time. Otherwise I might have known. 

The Skyran moon has been touring Britain apparently and was in Stromness, hung up in the Academy for about a week and about a third of the population of Orkney went to see it, which is quite impressive, I think. 

It was tricky to take photos, although I did my best and although I might sound less than thrilled actually it was very interesting, because of course we got to see what the Dark Side is like. If I were more into astronomy I'd have got more out of the whole experience but it was something fun and different. Also they were selling homebakes for the school fund, and they were generally cheap and delicious.  

There you go. The Dark Side. And my favourite feature, if only on account of its name - The Sea of Crises.

The moon didn't delay us long but it was a beautiful day so we went for a walk, from our new walks book. We started off near Warebeth Cemetery where George Mackay Brown is buried, though I'm blessed if we could find his grave. That didn't really matter as I am rather fond of the occasional wander round a graveyard looking at the names and other information you get on headstones. This being Stromness there were a lot of master Mariners and more than a few chandlers, but the thing that really caught my eye was a headstone for a late Victorian lady who rejoiced in the name of Hughina. 

Once we had given up on finding GMB we slipped out of the graveyard onto the path that leads from the cemetery to the Ness battery and walked along it a considerable way. More pics ....

the cemetery

a really interesting rock formation, not very clear here, looked like something out of a painting

a handy seat put up in memory of someone whose name now escapes me

this is me trying to be arty crafty with my camera

a view in the other direction

The Ness Battery, rather a long way away. It's a WW2 relic. 

The problem with taking photographs on Orkney is that there is always always far too much sky! although I do my best to get round that. 

And a propos of nothing at all except that I have decided I really must post knitting pics as soon as stuff is finished , so as to avoid long catch up posts,  here are my latest two projects. 

a pair of socks for me - the OH was secretly hoping they would be too big and he would get them, but alas.....!

and a lace wrap, which is currently blocking. It is huge, but rather beautiful; however, knitting it confirmed my feelings about knitting lace,   which is that it is not something that suits my temperament. At All.