We Went Out ...

 ... and not to a coffee morning!

That's me on the left near the back in the yellow jacket and the OH is right beside me in a not very flattering raspberry coloured  sweatshirt. 

This was an Orkney Archaeology Society talk last Tuesday. We've been life members of the OAS for about 3 decades and the OH was on the committee and for some of that time  Membership Secretary for a good few years as well, but as time wore on we got a bit tired of it all. Archaeologists can be as snippy and argumentative as any other type of academic and lay people who are interested in archaeology can sometimes be very tedious. And I think when he gave up the committee and we got all the related paraphernalia out of the house we were so relieved we just withdrew for a bit. We hadn't stopped altogether, but it took something special to get us out of the house and turn up - especially in the evenings  at this time of the year. 

There again this talk was about something special. During the summer a dig was going on in the parish of Holm which is the nearest part of mainland Orkney to us. I'm not saying it was all cloak and dagger but nobody really knew why they were digging where they were or what they were looking for and certainly nobody outside the circle of diggers and supervisors knew what they had found. A press release a couple of weeks ago however had everyone getting very excited; they had found what they were looking for, a neolithic chambered tomb and despite the fact that part of it had been robbed out ( i.e. stone taken away to build a house) in the 1800s the bits that were left were crammed with articulated skeletons. 

This is exciting on many different levels; the fact that it was known about and then forgotten again, , the number of bodies, the fact that the skeletons were carefully placed in unnatural positions and that they were articulated, plus the chance that there may be  a nearby settlement to dig- the list goes on. The talk will be up on the OAS You Tube channel shortly for anyone interested.

Obviously while there we bought raffle tickets, And obviously once again we didn't win. 

Cawdor Castle

 I know, it's been ages. I'm not sick, I'm just not doing much. However I was reminded the other day that I never blogged about our visit to Cawdor Castle way back in June so I thought I might do that. 

It was on my journey back from Paris. You may recall vaguely that I had caught a train to Inverness and been met by the OH and the next day  we had had lunch with some friends and visited Inverness Botanic Gardens (which by coincidence I heard a couple of women discussing when we were at the Celina Rupp cafe for hot chocolate and cake last week - on the way home from the dentists!) The next day we were booked on the evening ferry to Orkney so we had time to 'do' something and the something we decide to 'do' was Cawdor Castle.  

It was lovely. It helped that the day was very warm and sunny which meant we could spend a lot of time  in the gardens. There was also a very nice cafe where we had elevenses/early lunch. The inside of the castle is quirky, full of unexpected corners and the room commentaries contain some very tart and witty asides which I certainly appreciated. There was also some very nice contemporary art hung beside older pictures; sadly although details were given of the older ones there was nothing to tell you who had painted some of the modern ones, which was a shame as I would have visited websites and who knows? perhaps bought a print or two. If I had a grumble, and it was a very small one, the woman serving in the Gift Shop was apparently unacquainted with the art of smiling, or indeed of greeting people as they walked in, even when they were her only customers, or of making any sort of pleasant small talk while relieving them of their money. I must say though that everyone else we encountered on the staff were very pleasant and friendly indeed.  

Pictures? Need you ask? A small selection

No idea why they have a Minotaur, although that may be a nascent maze/labyrinth he's in? 

Bird feeder - we watched it for ages, amazed at the number of different species that visited. 

And who knows - maybe I'll do something interesting in the next week and then get to blog about it. 

Socks and Sample Cakes

 So back in February I blogged here about buying some wool and I'm pleased to report that with the finishing yesterday of these 

the Glasgow purchases have all been used. These are for me. The wool didn't knit up quite as anticipated but it's still a nice effect. I did the shadow wrap heel but I cannot comment on whether it really is a huge improvement fit wise over a heel flap and gusset as I haven't actually tried them on yet! I have leftovers from all three balls and doubtless they will get used up somehow someday, but meanwhile I can tick them off as basically used. In fact of the five lots in that post the only ones unknitted are the two orange/rust/cream ones from Madeira and the reason I haven't used those is that I can't decide whether to use them for fingerless mitts or socks. The blue/purple ones made lovely socks but I love the colours of the other set so much I'm loth to make something from them that will never be seen. 

I know there hasn't been much knitting content here recently but that's down to two things. One is the time it is taking to make the OH's Finnish jumper, although that edges ever onwards. I am now about half way up the yoke and the decrease rounds have started so the end is in sight, although I'm not looking forward to the underarm grafting. However it does look lovely even if I say so myself. I have also knitted four other things which I cannot put on the blog until after Christmas as they are for presents/ advent swaps and therefore under blog wraps so no surprises are spoilt. 

The sample cakes we bought the other day have proved a deep disappointment being dry and a bit crumbly so we'll be reverting to Tesco for our Christmas cake again this year. Next year I may even go back to  making my own  but we'll see. 

Happy to report that we got to the coffee morning in aid of Papyrus UK yesterday,   despite the best efforts of the weather and the coffee was good and there was some nice cake. We bought raffle tickets, of course - this is Orkney! - and didn't win a prize, but that's OK as winning a prize isn't the point really. We also delivered a birthday present to a friend for today, as the car went to  the car hospital this morning  and the weather forecast was definitely saying that today would not be a day for walking to a friend's to deliver anything.  

Talking of hospitals The Cat Lorenzo had an emergency trip to the vet last week and we honestly thought he wasn't going to be coming back with us, but he did and a change in his medication has made all the difference. We're still awaiting one set of blood results but he's so much improved we're hoping that's more of a formality than anything else. 

It's beginning to look a lot like Chr....shhh!

So, I've blogged before about the  Christmas department that our local independent grocer has every year, and I've probably also commented in the last couple of years about how disappointing it has been. Partly Covid supply issues I suspect, partly post Brexit issues and to a certain extent us not going there particularly promptly after opening.

Well this year's opened today. I could moan about how, not only have we not got past Bonfire Night, we haven't actually got past Halloween, but I won't ... because we went and it was lovely and we even bought stuff. A birthday present, two half Christmas presents, some stuff for Son no 2's Christmas sock, a Christmas biscuit icing set,  and two small sample cakes to see if we want to by either as a full size Christmas cake. The displays were really good and we enjoyed ourselves very much.  And to add to the excitement we're going to be 'out' two days in a row, since tomorrow we're off to another charity coffee morning (weather permitting) Report in due course,  meanwhile, pictures of today's 'outing'. 

The Joys of Island Life

 

We had a storm last week. We weren't alone in that, most of Britain seemed to be suffering with Storm Babet, but most of Britain isn't dependent on sea crossings for grocery supplies. We are. 

There were no ferries for days. Then on Friday a ferry arrived. So we ventured to the supermarket (which would have been a waste of time for several days before that) thinking we could buy some food. 

And that there is a photograph of the fruit and veg aisle in Tesco when we arrived. Whatever had been on the ferry it obviously hadn't included a supermarket delivery vehicle. One bag of apples, half a dozen aged and wizened pumpkins and a bag of garlic cloves. 

If I was ever cut out for island life, I am no longer! 

This is more like it

 

This is the jigsaw puzzle I bought in Yorkshire. I did it last week and it was so much fun to do, a great improvement on the awful Paris cafe scene which has now been added to the stock in our local library.l 

This one is called Dinner with Monet. There are several more in the same series; Dinner with Dali, Matisse and, annoyingly, Frida rather than Kahlo.  I daresay they will find their way into the house over time. 

For anyone interested, that's Monet on the left, the woman at the front is Berthe Morisot and the man walking in with an easel under his arm is Van Gogh. At the table are Degas with a teeny ballerina n his shoulder and Manet in the brown suit. In the adjoining room is Monet's second wife, Alice. 

The Last of Yorkshire (in a manner of speaking)

 

On Friday we had the great pleasure of lunching with two of my fellow alumni from the Leeds Trinity Victorian Studies M.A.; and that's going back a long way. We went to Piccolino's in Ilkley where I met up with them a couple of years ago, when I made my first post Covid trip to Yorkshire. I have to say the food and service was not as good this time as last, but we were all there for the company and so we didn't complain. A friendly waiter offered to take a photo of us all, and we must have been enjoying ourselves as we were the last to leave from the lunch service. 

While we were away we had had a cry for help from son no. 2 as the handle on the front door of the Glasgow flat had given up the ghost and he didn't know how to fix it. So we had to rejig our plans for Saturday somewhat, and set off really early. This was so that, as previously arranged, we could see my cousin who lives on the coast in Northumberland, take a side trip to Glasgow to fix the door handle and still get to our Inverness hotel at a reasonable hour.

It was therefore a packed day ( and an expensive one as, in addition to buying a hack saw and a handle it turned out we needed a drill as well). I say we, but you know, I never go near a power tool, it was all down to the OH. It was lovely to see my cousin and her husband, last encountered at my mother's funeral in 2004, and honestly it was like it had only been yesterday. The handle got replaced, I got some time with son no 2, and we got to Inverness in good time.

The following day we'd arranged to have lunch in Dornoch with a friend from the M Litt I did at UHI, which is more recent than the Victorian Studies MA but still a while ago. She has just started a new job as head of humanities at a large secondary school near her home and some of the stories she had to tell about school life made my hair curl. She was looking well on it though and it was, as always, a delight to see her. 

And after lunch we made our leisurely way up to the north coast and caught a ferry back to Orkney. We'll be here now until the first week of December, and I'm already crossing my fingers very very hard that we will get away because the weather has  caused huge disruption to the ferry services over the past few weeks and we're only just into autumn. Both companies have been cancelling services left right and centre; today is Thursday and they're already saying there will be no service from today until at least Saturday and the weekend is looking doubtful...maybe the end of  November will be dead calm?