For those of you in the UK...

Tomorrow on BBC2 at pm is the programme A History of Ancient Britain. This episode features the Ness of Brodgar dig in Orkney which has been underway for the last two years and has revealed some fascinating things!  Sorry - but I think it's only viewable in the UK.....  But I'll try and post some photos of the dig and info this week for those of you outside Orkney.....

Hogmanay

Today is Hogmanay, the last day of the year and a time Scots know how to celebrate well! There will be a party on the island tonight to see in the New Year, and then "first footing" around the island over the next few days.

In recent years we've struggled through snow, ice and gale to see in the New Year, but the weather seems very benign just now. Let's hope it stays that way for a few days. I'm tired of storm force winds!

Above - you can see we had a smattering of "snow on high ground" with the Hoy Hills lightly covered as if with dusting sugar.  Make me think of cakes....so I baked one! A hazelnut and cinnamon cake....Yum!

I went for a brief walk along the shore today, and fed the birds on my way. I saw a small raptor in the garden - either a merlin or kestrel - I'm not very good on bird identification!

The neeps (swede) are doing well in my neighbour's field.

I love this decaying old boat with the old creels (once used for catching crabs).

And this is a mark on the front of the house - put there by the Ordnance Survey as a benchmark for height above sea level. I think this one denotes 10 feet.

And there was some excitement when I heard a helicopter landing in the field. It was the Northern Lighthouse Board helicopter with an engineer to do some emergency repair.

So, it's just left now for me to wish you all a very Happy New Year (for those of you who celebrate such things).  May 2012 bring all that we need......

Eddie Reader singing Auld Lang Syne

The Versatile Blogger

Some weeks (oh dear, maybe months) ago one of my blog readers, Perpetually In Transit very kindly nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award. I was thrilled to bits. One of the conditions was I had to say five quirky things about myself, and nominate five other blogs. The tricky bit is coming up with 5 quirky things. Oh calamity - I am in despair at being so "normal"! I like to think of myself as SO eccentric, when in reality I am so NOT! Anyway here we go with the 5 quirky things

1. (OK cheating here) - I choose to live on a remote Scottish island far from shopping malls and 24-hour supermarkets, traffic jams and the chaos that was my life when I lived in Kent.

2. I'm very faddy about food - bordering on the weird rather than quirky. I don't like yellow food (bananas are white not yellow), and will eat red fruit but not red veg, and please don't mix my food together unless you stick it in a blender......oh I could go on.....

3. I dance and sing with wild abandon to anything from the 1960's

4. I love flying in a glider plane. Only had the chance once and it was absolutely brilliant! I felt like a bird. It was a magical experience. And no it didn't worry me that the plane had no engine......

5. I'm hooked on detective fiction. When I'm stressed or anxious, hand me a (non-gory version) detective thriller and I'll calm down immediately. My audio book of choice for sleepless nights is anything by Dorothy L Sayers from the "Lord Peter Wimsey" series.

So onto the nominations part. This is equally difficult. I follow many blogs for different reasons. But I've decided to nominate five SCOTTISH blogs so that you, dear reader, get to see a bit more of this wonderful country. This of course completely leaves out all the other blogs I thoroughly enjoy, some on my blog list here and others not. Many written by friends who became bloggers and some by bloggers who have become friends.  Anyway here is my list of five (in no particular order).

1. The Wind and the Wellies - another Orkney blog, this one by "Orkney Flowers" who loves all plants, cooking, and recycling and reusing stuff.  Also wears wonderful stripey socks! Now *she* won't have a problem with five quirky things - tee hee.

2. Dancing Beastie - insights into living in a castle in the Scottish Highlands

3. A Kilchoan Diary - a remote crofting village on the west of the Ardnamurchan pennisula

4. The Barefoot Crofter- stories of family life on a croft on the island of Lewis. I'm newly acquainted with this blog and loving every post.

5. Occasional Scotland - "From Edinburgh to Shetland and all points in between" - lovely landscape photos.

There..... now if your blog isn't named PLEASE don't be offended....sigh.... and thank you again to Perpetually in Transit for the award!

"About Graemsay"

I've added a page (see in the right column under "Home") which, hopefully, gives folk a bit of info about the island. If you have any questions you'd like answered go ahead and ask!

Christmas traditions....

There are religious and non-religious traditions that go towards making Christmas, well, Christmas. One tradition in Kirkwall, Orkney on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas, with a name from the dim and distant past) is the "Ba". There are two games, the boys Ba and the Men's Ba held later in the day. These are games of street football, though there aren't really any rules!

There are two teams - the Uppies and the Doonies, and the Ba (ball, traditionally and lovingly made especially for the event) is thrown into the heaving mass of humanity that makes up the two teams, waiting impatiently by the Kirk Green and St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall.  The "goal" is at each end of the town. For the "Doonies" this is in the sea in the Kirkwall Basin. The Uppies goal is up in the town.  This year the Doonies won and you can see some excerpt from the Men's game below.  I can't begin to explain it really so take a look at some more info here. No there are no obvious signs of which team the men are in - but everyone will *know* who is in their team! And yes there was a women's ba, but it is no more - rumour had it the women played too roughly ;-)    The game goes on for hours, and yes it carried on, followed by a large crowd, in the pouring rain and wind...... deeply bonkers but rather wonderful!

All the buildings in the town have stout wooden bars put across all windows and doors to stand against the crush of the crowd as the Ba moves up or down the town. I remember on my first winter visit to Kirkwall thinking - gosh they must have a lot of trouble around here on New Year as all the shops are being boarded up.  Little did I know it was an "amicable" game of street football.......

SunRISE!

This was the view from the house up towards Windbreck this morning as the sun rose (Sunrise 09.04 and sunset 15.18). The "hydro poles" (electricity poles) rather appropriately silhouetted against the rising sun. I was still anxiously awaiting the return of electricity at this point!

The electric came back on about 11.30. Apparently  some houses in Stenness and Orphir, across the water on Orkney Mainland, were also without power. The island of Shapinsay had a power cut this morning too. It seems that hydro poles were catching fire around the county due to the high winds. (Shetland recorded winds of 101 mph last night! Not heard what our highest recorded wind speed was here).

Let's hope the power remains on now - more high winds are forecast for later in the week and it's still a bit breezy out there - gusting to about 50-60 mph.

I have plenty of food (and if the power goes off for any length of time I may need to eat it all pretty quickly!) and can keep cosy under blankets and with hot-water bottles (Hotties) if need be, but it does get a little boring. Fortunately I have a battery radio for company, but it's been so cloudy that it was very dull and dark indoors and not easy to see to do things without carrying a lantern around.

I was thinking of the families who had lived in the house in the 19th Century, with just candles and Tilley Lamps (oil lamps) for light. And the light of a real fire too of course - which I no longer have.

As it was the gas ran out while I was cooking my Christmas dinner yesterday! There is no "mains" gas in Orkney, so everyone uses bottled gas. I have two cylinders outside so when one runs out I just need to turn a switch to put the next one on. However, it always runs out when it's dark and wet!  But fortunately the wind had died down a bit so it wasn't too bad going out to sort it out. Though I did manage to skin my knuckles trying to turn the rather stiff switch. But all was well and I got Christmas dinner!  But poor Button managed to get shut out for about half an hour in the wind. I didn't hear her yelling and it was only when I sat down and wondered where she was that I missed her. She was jolly glad to be let in and told me off in no uncertain terms - she has a mouth like a fish-wife ;-)  She was still sulking during the night and didn't come up to bed at all. Mind you, given another half an hour I'm sure she would have moved the bricks blocking up the cat flap and fought her way in!!

No power!

Power off since 9.30 last night (yes Christmas Day!). Thank goodness for battery operated radio!  Battery on laptop low, so next time you hear from me we'll have power.  Thankfully weather is mild so house shouldn't cool down too quickly. Also although it's windy, nowhere near as bad as yesterday. Have fun people.....