St Mary's and Seals

We weren't sure where to go for our walk yesterday as it has been so wet recently that it's necessary to stick to roads unless we want to get literally bogged down. There were also heavy showers forecast and it was very very cold. We decided on a short walk in St Mary's village which is in the parish of Holm (pronounced Ham), about half way between Burray and Kirkwall.  It has to be said that quite a lot of people, ourselves included when we're not thinking properly, tend to call the village Holm but it's not, it's St Mary's. 

I wore a v -necked jacket with the new cowl underneath it, and very warm and cosy it was too. Which was just as well, given the weather. 

In the event we walked rather further than we had planned, but that was a good thing. Despite the strong wind we ventured along to the end of the pier, which we've never done before and that felt like a bit of an adventure, since it would have been no fun being blown into the sea. 

We were rewarded by seeing a whole group of seals, about a dozen of them although, as per usual, in the photograph all you can see of them is small heads bobbing over the waves. 

Looking back at the village from the end of the pier. We were impressed by the harbour wall, which of course we had never seen before as it's not visible from the road at any point! 

There honestly are seals in this photograph, about eight of them.

This is an old storehouse which once belonged to a large Orkney  estate, and it is chiefly famous for being briefly captured by Pirate Gow, a local bad boy who took unsuccessfully to piracy and came to a Bad End. He was apparently part of the inspiration  for Walter Scott's novel The Pirate, but readers who have been with me long enough to remember my reports of having to read The Talisman will not be surprised to learn that I have never read The Pirate.