After the storm

I love the calm after a storm. Today the sun was out.  There were some rain showers, but the wind dropped and the sun shone so I barely noticed them. Especially as I was working indoors most of the day! Though I did take a brief walk along the shore with Button at lunch time...

The seaweed is banked up after the North Westerly wind....

The sun shone on the Stromness Golf Course too

And all was calm on the beach

I love how the sun breaks through dark clouds..... kind of symbolic....

Halloween on Graemsay

Witches, vampires and ghosts were abroad on Graemsay on Friday night.  But they all got scared off by the Graemsay folk in fancy dress for the annual Halloween Party!

There were traditional games to be played (organised by head witch, Irene Mathieson)

Dookin' for apples

Eating donuts without using your hands!

The eye and spoon race

The "Mummy" Race (wrapping up Daddies!)

Of course there was plenty of food, as ever. A new perspective on "finger food".... Our furry friend didn't seem too keen on those...

Then it was time for the children to do their party piece, tell a joke, sing a song, or dance...

Some needed help from Granny Witch

And a chance for young witches to strut their stuff to some spooky sounds.....

This witch made sure she was home well before Midnight - just in case things got a little too wild!!

Wet and windy Sunday....

There has been torrential rain overnight and reports around Orkney of flooded roads, fields, and even some houses. Ponies and sheep have had to be rescued from fields in one or two places.  Fortunately, apart from water under the back door (forced by the wind), I seem to be OK.  Haven't heard of any bad reports from Graemsay folk, though I've been no further than to feed the hens and Charlie the barn cat. Extra rations for both!

And indoors I have one very bored cat..... staring disconsolately out of the window, stomping around indoors meowing (I think I'm being held responsible, naturally)... and baleful looks from her day bed....

I keep telling her she's supposed to be a rufty tufty Orkney island cat and should be out braving the elements. Fortunately Google can't translate what she said - there were bound to be several swearwords in it....

Meanwhile I've amused myself with baking some bread  (a light herby loaf)

And some cookies....blueberry cookies..... blueberries are considered one of our "five a day" of fruit/veg.... hmmm I suspect the large quantity of butter and sugar negates any healthy benefits of THESE chaps!!

So hatches remained battened for the rest of the day.....

Note:  Sybil was commenting on how far North we are because of our short winter days and long summer ones. We are 59 degrees North, that's a wee bit further north than Juneau in Alaska,  and on a par with Stockholm.  But because of the Gulf Stream we get mild, wet and windy winters rather than very cold snowy ones....

November in Orkney = Winter....

The clocks have gone back an hour and sunset was at 4.18 today!  Dark by five...sigh..... But I'm slowly getting in gear for Winter. Orkney has two seasons, summer and winter, and they are not always governed by months of the calendar either! Tee hee!

Today I filled the henny feed bins with extra food, made sure torches had new batteries, renewed batteries in the non-electric radio, and sorted through the freezer, making a list of "Things to Get" next week when I'm in town. The cupboard of "staples" is already well stocked with pasta, pulses, and of course, tea bags!

Time to wind down a bit, and snuggle in the evening on the sofa with Button, while watching some catch-up TV, listening to the radio and reading, of course. Reading is A Very Important Activity for me, particularly in the winter months.  And more baking...... lots of new recipes to try out.....  So winter strategies sorted......

Dark outside - time for a cuppa (tea) and putting my feet up for the evening I think.....

Wellyfest.....

Wellyfest - I may need to translate for non-UK readers - wellies is short for Wellingtons, a popular name for rubber boots.  These were needed recently in large numbers at a friend's wedding.  The lovely Mrs Orkney Flowers married her Rock God in a beautiful wood on a rainy day in October.  She's given me permission to tell you all about it!  First there was the beautiful bride - above.  Looking radiant and un-spattered in mud. Note the stunning red wellies.  Mrs Orkney Flowers is a horticulturist extraordinare and part-time Womble (she's heavily into recycling and living frugally), so not seeing earth covering her hands or in her hair is something of a novelty.  She was truly a radiant bride ......

She and "Mr Flowers" have been together for many years, but had decided to "get wed" in Birnam Wood - yes THE Birnam Wood - the one in McBeth (Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him.Wm Shakespeare, Macbeth 4.1). Anyway, I digress...... both bride and groom had happy childhood, and more recent memories of Birnam wood, hence the choice for a wedding wellie fest.

Now, I mentioned frugal living, recycling etc.  So, of course, these principals were applied to the wedding. Other clever horticulturalists had grown or acquired magnificant foilage for the bouquets and floral displays - all in Autumn colours of course.

I'd turned up on the morning of the wedding to offer assistance as a gofer (go fer this, go fer that) to the clever flower people and was handed a large bundle of banana leaves with the words "Find somewhere to wash these please Sian"....

I'd never handled banana leaves before - ooooh they have a lovely waxy feel.....  Meanwhile the bride's bouquet was made..... dried flowers, autumn leaves, with some lovely fair trade red roses for good measure.

And more floral displays of autumn colour...

And table decorations.....

Meanwhile, in the background of the photo above, you can see the Rock God's band tuning up.......

Soon it was time to head back to the hotel to get dressed in our finery, including wellington boots, grab umbrella's (it had rained all weekend) and head to the woods!  "Head for a bench" we were told.... ah we're here then....

Um... the babbling brook was more a raging river....

Once everyone was assembled.....

And woodland fairies had handed out the dried flowers for confetti....

And scrolls with the words to the wedding hymn (Let's get married by the Proclaimers - what else - accompanied by the Rock God and his Arch Angels)....

It was time for the ceremony.  Conducted by a Humanist celebrant, it was a lovely service, very Mrs & Mrs Flowers, with some humour thrown in too....

And of course all members of the family were present........

Haggis and Peedie

There was a lovely selection of footwear on display (I can reveal Mr Flowers is wearing odd socks! This is as a token of love to his new bride, who firmly believes life is too short to worry about matching socks).....

Then it was time for family photos to be taken, and umbrellas to be raised again (it had miraculously stopped during the wedding bit).  And a slight surreal moment as several canoeists arrived to paddle further down the river... not sure which was more surreal really, a wedding in wellies in a wood in the wain, sorry, rain, or canoeists appearing out of the trees to hurl themselves into the river.....

It was time to wend our way back through the wood and head off to the wedding feast.  And my, what a feast!  Nothing frugal about THAT! Much of it was from the windy isles (Orkney), home grown, or home sourced and put together by Mrs Flowers' wonderful Auntie C together with all her kitchen slaves (I kept WELL away from that - I don't do mass catering.... even if cake might be available!!).  Did I mention cake??  There was a fruit option too for those who wanted to be healthy - plenty of cake for me though!!

This was by no means a "traditional" wedding so, as the bride doesn't like cake (how did I become friends with someone who doesn't like CAKE?), there was a magnificent raspberry pavlova made by Auntie C with a vast number of Orkney eggs.....

And it was time for the dancing to begin.....

As ever at such events, men gathered at the bar to blether (chat).... A fine display of tartan there.... (nice legs too....).

 Mrs Flowers had exchanged her lovely ruby red wellies for a pair of satin slippers....

And the - er - Rock God had changed into his zebra striped lycra trousers, red cape with flames on, and strutted his stuff (no that's his real hair....heee heee....no not really....). I think the guitarist to the right is asking "Who IS this guy?".....

But soon they were - er - in the swing of things.....

 To be joined on stage by ....um..... Ozzie Osbourne????

And there I think I should draw a veil over proceedings!!!

But it was so lovely to be part of Mr & Mrs Flowers special day. It's an event that will live long in the minds of any who attended, for the fun, the originality, the laughs, the wonderful words exchanged, and the obvious love that the newlyweds have for each other.....ahhhhhh  May Mrs & Mrs Flowers (not their real name, obviously) have many many happy years together.

Sanday Seal-cam

One of the island Rangers on Sanday, one of the more Northerly of the Orkney islands, has again set up a seal cam this year. You can watch in real-time grey seals pupping on the shore.  Just remember it's real time as in UK time!  Oh and the clocks go back tonight as we finally leave "British Summer Time" behind us....sigh....


Link to Seal Cam    (and sorry to those who don't have broadband capacity to watch this!).

First Responder training....

The month of October gallops on.  I've been away South, to a wedding (more of that soon), plus it's been a difficult week. So for some distraction therapy thought I'd better get back to blogging. A couple of weeks ago we had some more First Responder Training. I've blogged about this before - see here.....and here......

While many other islands in Orkney have a resident nurse or doctor, we have no medical personnel on the island. Although we are just across the water from Stromness, what seems like a small stretch when all is going well becomes a vast ocean when it's not - particularly in stormy weather.  We are lucky to have the Stromness lifeboat ready to come to our aid with medical people, and the air ambulance too. But while waiting for professional help (which with the air ambulance can be some time) we want to be able to do what we can for any patient.  Hence becoming first responders - about a dozen of us on the island!  Consequently we have to keep our training up to date, hence the recent two-day training course.

We all had a go at doing CPR and using the bag valve mask, as well as defibrillator, oxygen and some other equipment.

Lyndon from the local Ambulance station came along to give us the training. He's great at helping increase our confidence in dealing with potential life-threatening situations.  He's a good trainer who works with humour too so that helps us all, as we tend to get a bit nervous - especially when the words "written test" is mentioned!  However we all passed so we must be doing something right....

Sadly we only get reflective jackets to wear - no blue flashing lights or "nee-naw" horns to go with our arrival......

That's us "up to date" for a while. We've had to deal with a few call-outs since we were first trained, and I think all of us are glad that we are "in this together"!