Hooray! We've Been Away!

With the easing of many restrictions on travel here in Scotland, including the buying of ferry tickets, the OH and I were at last able to get off-island, for the first time since January. 

Bits of it were weird. Wearing masks on the ferry. Looking around and seeing other people wearing masks on the ferry. Seeing how few people there were on the ferry. But that meant nothing when compared to the sheer joy of just being on the ferry and going somewhere else. 

The somewhere else was only Glasgow. I had told Son no 2 that the moment we were allowed to we'd be down there to see him properly, and give him a big hug, and that's exactly what we did. Down on Friday, back yesterday (Sunday). 

I can't say I wasn't a bit apprehensive but we soon relaxed - enough to order takeaway pizza on Friday night. I'd planned to go to The Yarn Cake on Saturday, which re-opened, just for wool sales, on 1st July, and pick up a skein of wool I need to finish a sweater, but having checked with them, they were out of stock so there was no point. The OH was a bit miffed that we had jumped the gun because if we had waited until next weekend the shopping centres would have been re-opened and he could have gone to the Lego shop. So that was bad timing, but the Lego shop will still be there next time we go. 

Given that the Yarn Cake was a no-no, we took ourselves off to see the Falkirk Wheel. It wasn't going so we couldn't spend a small fortune taking a boat ride on it, but I'd never actually seen it before and we had a nice walk along the canal bank, although rather discombobulated by the number of cyclists who whizzed past. I'm all for cycle paths and walker paths but I'm not so keen on the two combined, because the advantage is all with the people on wheels. Possibly I'd feel differently were I cycling. 

Anyway here's the Falkirk wheel (just to be clear, it's a boat lift )

We drove back to the ferry a different way, going up the left side of the country and then across the Great Glen. It was beautiful and it was also a lovely sunny day so we enjoyed it. We'd go that way more often if we thought we could do it in a timely fashion for catching the ferry. But it includes various tourist hot spots that in a normal July would be packed with traffic. Even with C-19 Glencoe was very busy. As a result of most of the lay-bys in scenic spots being crammed full of cars we didn't get to take too many photos, but we stopped for a scratch picnic lunch by Loch Lochy - far from the most beautiful place we passed - and managed to snap a couple of pictures. 

We might do this again but it will have to be in either spring or autumn, between the high tourist  season and the bad weather; also remembering always to check the status of the A82, because like Junction Road in Kirkwall it is closed almost as often as it is open. 

Book Buying Two Ways

I get a lot of stick from people I know on social media (not all of them obvs) for using Amazon. I can explain until I am blue in the face the gaps in the local shopping landscape that Amazon plugs, how difficult some things are to source when you live on an island, how depressing it is to be faced with an almost total lack of choice for some sorts of merchandise, yet still I am held to account for generally selling out to the Evil Empire and helping Jeff Bezos take over the world. 

And I know that Amazon is not a leading light in the field of workers rights and I deplore that as much as the next person, but there are very few high street retailers, of the sort I am apparently helping to put out of business, even though  they do not, and never would have, a branch here (thereby creating my problem) and from whom I therefore could not buy even if I wanted to, who would stand up to much scrutiny in the field of human/workers rights.  Which is why we have tragedies like the Bangladesh garment factory fire in 2012. 

I'm not looking for an argument here. The world is a bad place for most of those who live here, I do what I can to mitigate that and that helps me not have sleepless nights over swelling the coffers of Mr Bezos. Whether I think he should enjoy a good night's sleep is another matter. I'm sure he does. Sadly. 

But during lockdown when I had real fears for the local economy here I decided that from now on  I would not buy any more books from Amazon, but would buy them from our local bookshops. We have two independent bookshops; one in Kirkwall and one in Stromness. And while it would be more expensive to buy from them and not from Amazon, and many would need to be ordered rather than be found on the shelves, it was a small step I could take to help local business. I'm never in urgent need of a book and I don't buy so many physical books these days, so that neither my pocket nor my comfort was going to be greatly inconvenienced,  and it was therefore, although only a Small Thing,  a Small Thing that I could do.

We went into town last Monday when non-essential shops were allowed to open again in Scotland and I duly presented myself to the bookshop with details of the two books I wanted to order. The first was quite new, had just been reviewed in The Guardian and sounded like an excellent choice for a birthday present for our elder grandson. It was also, as it transpired, out of stock at the wholesaler and  would have to be ordered especially by them and this would take about two weeks. Well his birthday isn't until November so that's not a problem. The other one was a little more obscure; a poetry collection from 2015 but I had checked and it was still in print. The person serving me could not find it to start with. She went and talked to a colleague. The colleague pointed her elsewhere, where she did find it. She then had to ring up the suppliers to ask if it could be ordered since it was on their 'extended catalogue'. It could, but they needed my name before they would take the order from her (why? what possible difference could it make to them, I wasn't buying it from them directly!). And naturally it would take 'about two weeks'. 

So here's the thing. I was in that shop trying to order two books for about 20 minutes. There was uncertainty about whether one of them could be sourced for me and I am having to wait two weeks to get my hot sweaty mitts on them. What I could have done was buy them both from Amazon, where both were in stock, with three clicks of a mouse, which would have taken about a minute  and by now I would have had them for several days. 

Is it any wonder that Amazon is successful? 

Horticulture Notes (3)

Having harvested the beans the OH was pleased to see the coffee plant in glorious flower once again.

And here is the annual photo of the mountain strawberry plant that we won in the Marengo Centre raffle several years ago. Still, to my amazement,  going strong, and in fact a lot more flowers appeared in the weeks after I took this photograph. 

 We could not make our annual visit to the local nursery on South Ronaldsay this year for obvious reasons, and so missed the chance to choose new bedding plants for our troughs and pots while scoffing home bakes and donating to the local lifeboat. It was a loss. That said they did put their plants on-line and offered a delivery service so the OH ordered a pile of plants and potted them up when they were delivered. I thought I had lots of photos of these, but it seems I was wrong. 

Here however is a very cheerful scarlet geranium which we bought when the garden centre in town was allowed to re-open. We expected there to be ravening hordes, but in fact it was pretty quiet. We've not made a habit of buying  bedding plants here because usually by the  time we remember and get there all the good stuff is long gone to the homes of proper gardeners who are much more on the ball about when to go and get stuff, but this time they place had loads of plants  and they were all healthy and sturdy looking.  Having splurged our budget on the home delivery from the other place sadly we had to restrain ourselves here, but then again  the other place had been very deficient in the geranium department so we splashed out  on this. I do like a nice bright red geranium. 

Fathers Day Fancies

The local hotel/restaurant/pub recently offered a choice of Fathers Day boxes for people to order; scones, puddings or fancies (fancies being small cakes/tray bakes of the sort you have with a High Tea, or morning coffee etc) 

In the spirit of supporting a devastated local economy (not to mention the thought of a selection of cakes I wouldn't have had to bake myself) I ordered a box of fancies for the OH and sent him off to pick it up yesterday.

And here it is

Since it has now been in the house for something over twenty four hours I have to say that it is no longer quite such a full box! Special shout out for the chocolate cupcakes wich were delicious and definitely my favourite so far. 

Beachcombing Treasures

Well not treasures exactly but a couple of unusual things.

I have a small collection of shells picked up from the beaches around here but I tend not to add to it, since there seems no point in taking things away from the beach, however pretty,  that are more or less exactly the same as the ones I already have. But a recent trip to the 3rd Barrier beach turned up some more unusual ones

First up a very small portion of shell; bright red with small white spots. The spots aren't raised and I have no idea what this might be from. I did wonder if it was a discarded false finger nail at first  but when we picked it up it was definitely a piece of shell. 

And then a large piece of sea urchin shell. This was half buried and we dug around it very carefully in case it was a real and intact urchin but it turned out to be just a partial shell. It's beautiful though; the photo doesn't do the colours justice. I wish I had some wool dyed to match as it would make a lovely subtle shawl. 

I Made A Card!

I see from the blog that the last time I made a card was in January 2019, although I was full of good intentions then about making more. Intentions which needless to say weren't fulfilled. 

I needed to make a card to send to someone and yesterday I just happened to fall over, metaphorically speaking,  the leftovers of a card making kit that have been lying about on a shelf on my desk for a long time and I thought 'I could probably do something with those if I put my mind to it. 

So I did. I took the card and the textured paper, added a bit of shiny card, some paper flowers and a small fabric butterfly and called it done. It's not amazingly ambitious but I was pleased with how it turned out.

I did realise while looking for some little flowers to put on it that really I have a lot of bits for cards that I will never use and when I've finished my latest clearing crusade (the selves in the back hall)  I must turn my attention to thinning out supplies. I'm sure there must be local schools/playgroups or something that could use the stuff.  

Baking Subscription May

Since they sent the shopping list for the fresh ingredients for the June box earlier this week I thought it was probably time I buckled down and did May's baking. This month it was the cumbersomely named Carrot Cake Whoopie Pies . ( No, me neither ). Basically they were small carrot  cookies sandwiched together with cinnamon flavoured buttercream. They looked like this 

or at least that one did. And yes, that is the fancy pants new china we finally got around to unwrapping  few weeks ago and yes I have managed to find somewhere to put the old stuff and make myself room on the kitchen bench to actually bake again. 

So I am no longer a cake piping virgin since you had to pipe the mixture onto cake trays to bake the cookies. It was fine; they are twice as big as they are supposed to be, but the way I see it that's a  good thing, because you can have one and feel virtuous, whereas if they were half the size you'd need two and then you'd feel guilty about having seconds. I was not quite so carried away by enthusiasm for this new found skill (although to call it a skill with reference to my attempts is over egging the pudding more than somewhat) that I did the second lot which was piping the butter cream into the cookies to sandwich them together. No-one was going to see it and the weight of the top cookie was going to flatten it anyway. I reverted to a teaspoon and my trusty palette knife for that. I did my own chocolate drizzling rather than get the OH to do it for me like he did last time chocolate drizzling was required. I regret to note that I am not nearly as good at drizzling chocolate as he is, and that fact might well have something to do with the fact that you're getting a picture of one, rather than the whole batch. 

After all that, they aren't  really to our taste, although we like them enough to eat them all I daresay. I thought I might make some nice fruit scones tomorrow though.