Rainbows!

I LOVE rainbows! These appeared on Sunday evening when clouds started to fill the blue sky and showers rained down on a very cross Button (the cat)! (You can just make out a double rainbow) Did I mention I live next door to a lighthouse? ;-)

Here's a boat that has just sailed right past the "crock of gold" which legend has it, is at the end of the rainbow!

Sunny Sunday

In the small hours of this morning we had thunder and lightning heard above the roaring wind. Now it's gale force winds and hail. I was planning to go over to the Orkney Mainland to do some shopping, but have decided, due to weather, to stay warm and cosy and work instead! Our wee ferry is still running but I don't fancy braving the dash up and down the pier with shopping.... Winds are due to calm down later in week for a short respite so I'll go "to town" then. Welcome to Winter in Orkney!  However, despite it being Tuesday, thought I'd share some photos taken on a lovely autumnal Sunday, which was gloriously sunny with blue skies! Above is Graemsay - the grey hills in the background are on the island of Hoy.

Below - seaweed building up along the shore. Excellent fertilizer for the garden!

Some of the many old ruined buildings that are on Graemsay (and many other of the Orkney islands). This building had a forge on the end nearest the shore. But it's slowly slipping into the sea now.

The shell beach - and here are the buildings from the shore side....

The black bird in the middle is a Shag - it's a seabird but doesn't have oiled feathers like other seabirds so has to stands with wings outstretched to dry! If you click on the picture to make it larger, you may be able to make out 3 wind turbines on the horizon of the Orkney Mainland. Part of Orkney's renewable energy programme.

Here are some Oystercatchers also enjoying the Sunday sunshine! (They don't catch oysters as far as I know so not sure why they are called that!).

Here are H and E enjoying a paddle in the sea. They live on a neighbouring farm and were exploring and looking for shells.

The hens and the cockerel hopeful of some scraps from me I think!  The numbers of chickens have been reduced in my absence. Some of the adolescent cockerels have been "dispatched".  Still lots of hens left though so need to find new homes for some of them!

The beautiful flame coloured flower of Monbretia (also known as crocosmia). This grows well in Orkney and I have several clumps in the garden.

Empty field

I returned from "south" to find the kye (cattle) had been moved from my field to new pasture. They'd managed to eat all the grass in the field in just over a week! 

This was the kye in the field before I went away

I took a walk around the field as it was such a lovely day yesterday.  Below is a photo of the well (covered to ensure no puss-cats fall down it like the ill-fated puss in the nursery rhyme "Ding, Dong, Dell, Puss is in the well"!), and so that no other animals can come to any harm. The base next to it is where there used to be an engine which would pump the water to the byres and up to a tank outside the house. The house was only connected to mains water during the renovations in 2000. Prior to that well water had been used. Some houses on the island still use well water or water from their own small reservoirs on the island.

Home again (again!)

Did you miss me?! I returned Friday evening from a work trip to the North of England, but due to the beautiful weather this weekend I've been making the most of "outdoors" and walking on the beach etc. so have only just got back to my computer.

As I say, last week I was in the North of England, York to be precise. It's a beautiful city with lots of history, but my reason for visiting is because I work for the University of York as a researcher. So I get to visit every now and again. This visit was a short one, so apologies to those of you in York that I didn't get to visit! But it really was work, work, work!  Well OK, I also got a visit to Betty's Tea Room. A trip to York is incomplete without a visit to "Betty's"! I love the traditional English Afternoon Tea, served on a three tier cake stand, with sandwiches at the bottom, scones, cream and jam on the middle tier place, and "fancies" (small luxurious cakes) on the top tier, all with proper tea served in a silver tea pot with a tea strainer (none of your tea-bag rubbish here!).  Oooh I remember it well.......

As I say, I've been to York many times, so have done the "tourist" bits, and this time just had time for dinner out with colleagues, the aforementioned Betty's tea, and a visit to the cinema (or "the pictures" as we call it!) to see the new Woody Allen film "Midnight in Paris" - which I thoroughly enjoyed, in part because of the stunning views of Paris!

The journey to York can get a bit epic. I start with the ferry from the island to the Orkney Mainland, drive through to the airport in Kirkwall, plane to Edinburgh, airport bus to Edinburgh railway station, and a 2.5hr train journey down to York.  But I love train journeys so I don't mind that part!  But it does take most of the day from home to hotel!

My hotel window looked out onto Clifford's Tower (photo at the top of this blog post). I loved watching the sun rise behind the trees.  The tower is the Keep of a former castle and seems to have rather a bloody history, but I didn't dwell on that!


The street outside my window had some lovely traditional buildings and I loved looking at the trees just beginning to turn autumnal colours.

I took some photos on the train journey back from Berwick-on-Tweed through to Edinburgh. The rail line follows the east coast much of the way

If you look *very* carefully in the photo below you can just see a lighthouse! 

Lovely traditional "Scottish" buildings

The soil is so rich and red!

I had a great view of the city of Edinburgh on the bus from the train station to the airport. Below is the famous Edinburgh Castle. Looking a little gloomy on a grey day.

 I love looking up at the architecture.

I also had a chance to see part of the construction of the controversial tram system. The construction is way behind schedule and over budget, and very unpopular with Edinburgh folk! See more details of the controversy here

So... that's me home for a while now. Ready to hunker down for the winter!

Slipping from Autumn to Winter

Autumn is a season that doesn't last long in Orkney! No autumnal colours on trees, just blasting gales that turn the leaves black and tear them from the branches. My poor trees are looking somewhat battered now......

This week the weather has been "changeable" - even on the island. Sunny one end, rain the other! This picture and the one above were taken from the ferry on my visit to the town on Thursday.

You can see the blackened leaves on the elder tree - and this is in the protected walled garden!

But there is still blue sky amid the clouds - we get our pleasures where we can in winter!

Shipping of livestock

I didn't need to go to the pier today at cargo boat time, but the activity of tractors and trailers up and down the road in front of my house was enough to tell me that one of the farmers was shipping sheep. Our boat is a lift-on-lift-off type, so anything that can't be done by hand is hauled on and off by the crane on the boat. And yes this includes sheep and cattle. Depending on the tide the sheep can be run down a wooden run onto the deck of the boat, otherwise several are put into the cattle box and winched on an off and then are released into pens on the boat. Cattle are always loaded into the metal box individually, usually. The photo above was taken a couple of years ago before our ferry was lengthened but the principle is the same.

We can also get groceries and other supplies sent over from shops on the Orkney mainland. These are on the top deck of the pier ready to be handed across to those of us waiting to collect them. I find this a great way to get most of my shopping in the winter. I generally get a weekly supply of milk, general groceries, sometimes bread (though I make more of my own in winter) and of course cat food!

Our ferry still has "technical problems" and is waiting for one engine to be replaced, so it's running a little slower than usual. But apart from the late afternoon and Friday "late boat" (9.30pm) service being cancelled, the timetable is as usual. Although all services are probably a little more weather dependent than normal.

But let's not forget how things used to be done in the past! Below is a photo taken in the 1950s of the Graemsay Coo (cow) boat!  The cattle would be loaded onto this low boat on Graemsay,  and then towed behind another boat with an engine and taken over to Stromness, where the animals would be sold at the town's livestock market!  I love the women in their headscarves - they are Florence Wilson of Quoys, Violet Mowat of Ramray and the man at the end is George Ritch of Windywalls (all crofters from the island).  It's one of my favourites!

Another October Day...

Today we have had some respite from the wind and rain, but as I type I can hear the wind getting up again. That is the nature of Autumn and Winter in Orkney (and indeed Spring and Summer sometimes!).  Our ferry is still having technical problems and some sailings are cancelled. The high winds don't help either! There are some days in Winter when the ferry can't get out to us, but the Hoy Sound is more sheltered than other stretches of water in Orkney, so generally the boat sails. Though it can depend on wind direction, state of tide etc. and some days you really would not want to be sailing on it! Generally if the weather is bad I'll check first to make sure that not only can I leave the island but that I can get home again too!  If it's thought the weather will be particularly bad, the parents of the children will be advised not to send them into school. I think most of the children have relatives on the Orkney Mainland so in an emergency they can stay with them if the were to get stranded.

Above you can see a neighbour's cattle enjoying some Autumn sunshine in my field behind the house. OK the sky is grey but the sun was coming in and out, honest! They certainly seem to appreciate the grass in the field!

Meanwhile the mother hen is still clucking around her new brood.  I know this floor doesn't look that clean and I've dumped some oatmeal for them, but she will insist on keeping them there so what can I do! I moved her last week,with some help, to a more cosier base and she promptly removed them! So I shall leave her well alone now!

Meanwhile poor Charlie the barn cat has to be fed above ground level so that the 40 or so chickens don't bully him into letting them eat his food!

Button, of course, is not that happy about the wind and rain as it curtails her outdoor adventures. I've started putting the underfloor heating on so she has taken to napping under a chair where the carpet is warm. Her pose below makes me smile.  I suppose some days are tougher than others!!

And in this photo you can see why she was called "Buttons" by her former owners. Her eyes look like two bright green buttons!