Musings in the dust

The possessions of my life fit into less than half of my Mother's back room. This always has me thinking, should I have more? As I push towards 40 shouldn't I have more to show for myself? Of course they say moving home is stressful, because it forces you to confront all the dusty corners you've been happy to leave under the bed. 

After a full day of sorting, labeling and valuing, my things are itemized into a list which I will present to Canadian customs next time I head over. It includes a great deal of knitwear produced by the hands of my family. I also have a large collection of fabric that I've gathered from all over the place, with no final use in mind. I somewhat think that fabric is a bit like my life. A series of wonderful experiences, each with their own colour, texture and attraction that don't all hang together into anything other than a nice collection of memories. And I don't mind that. They are all a moment when I really enjoyed being alive.

I have thought about making a quilt of them all. I had a book when I was small, at least, I think I owned it and I didn't just imagine it. Every night the girl climbs into bed and each patch of her quilt becomes a story which she tumbles into as she dreams. Perhaps when I'm home again, I'll make one. Home is a fuzzy concept right now. Sometimes its Canada, sometimes it's Scotland. After ten days traveling around my own homeland I know that I am no longer recognized as one of its own. People constantly ask me where I am from, and they don't mean which part of Scotland. That's ok. It makes me feel like I have a secret, that my roots are hidden but solid and I'm free to adapt to wherever I'm am above ground.

The last two times I've been back I've gone to view houses in Johnshaven which is a lovely, quirky, artist, ome-time-fishing village south of Stonehaven. I'd love to have a bolt hold there.  I know, deep down, I am testing myself, and my commitment to moving continents. I could afford to do it, but, I wouldn't then have the money to do the coffee shop. I love the idea of having a place here that I can visit and friends can use, but I also know that this is really me wanting a security blanket. As I don't have cash for both, I'll keep forging forward and maybe one day I'll no longer feel a need, or want to have a place in Scotland at all. Or maybe I'll be successful and lucky enough to have both!  It's not that these ventures are enter into without fear, but I have a greater fear of living with not having tried. Scotland is not going anywhere and there is no rule that says I can't ship everything back again.

I was smiling to myself when I got to my hiking boots. I am taking my rucksack, bike panniers and outdoor gear back with me on the plane so I can enjoy the Newfoundland summer. As I loaded up the tent, sleeping bag, mat, stove etc, the adrenaline started rising. Pure anticipation of good times ahead. I've not been camping for at least a year. I was actually happy to realise I still have the desire to go!

It's easy to get wrapped up in all the nostalgia and memories. There is a large box of old letters I've kept, though it is rarely added to now with everything being online. Right on top there was one sheet of  a letter from a hand I know longer recognise. It was a lovely thank you note, about friendship and wishing me all the joys in life and I thought, how can it be that I cannot recall who this person is, this person who valued our friendship enough at one time to write to say thank you.

I'm lucky because I've moved my stuff 3 times after selling up and I've been whittling it away. I think I threw out 1 book this last time, and some clothes the mice got. The bare essentials would be the hiking boots and travel diaries, but allowing myself the indulgence of stuff, I'm content enough with what I have to show for myself. They are the tangible pieces that keep me connected to everyone and every place that's been important for me. And I'll also be happy when I have a home again to put it all in.

And guess what the surviving toys from childhood are? A moose, polar bear and Siberian husky wearing an Iditarod vest - didn't I know early I was heading north. And, I have Snoopy's bird friend Woodstock, who is described in Wikipedia as scrappy, resourceful and  flitters around in an erratic manner. Hmmmm, also sounds familiar!!

A note from Newfoundland

April. How did that happen?! I can’t quite believe I let a quarter of the year slip by without so much as a hello. I apologise.

I’m not entirely sure what cycle or season my life runs to at the moment. I dropped John back at the airport this morning after his ten days home. Perhaps my cycle would be time with, time without John, except the time without so outweighs the time with, he’s more like a holiday season.

This cycle is simply my first quarter year in a new home and it is closing up as I make a trip back to Scotland next week.

So John left on 2nd January to finish up for 3 weeks in Gabon. Ha ha ha ha. I was full of the optimism of a new year, new start, new place, new house and in his absence painted it from top to bottom, every piece of it, except the downstairs loo which retains the 15 year old pink gloss that once covered everything.

Sobaka (and me!)

Of course John didn’t make it back for the end of January, or even the end of February, but I still renovated at a speed to make it a surprise for him, just in case he did drop in at any moment. Thankfully John is very happy with all my efforts because I wasn’t going to offer to cover them all up again.

The January and February DIY blitz were offset with finishing work for Shell, shovelling large quantities of snow on a regular basis and getting set up for life here; register with the bank, social security, medical care, buy a car, pay the shocking fee to insure it. As a foreigner they treated me as a brand new, never been on the road before, 16 year old and insured me as such. Let’s just say my car insurance could have bought me 2 flights home and I hadn’t budgeted for it at all.  I do have a great number plate though. It starts HOH. I’m waiting for the day I’m parked next to the one starting HUM.

I have to admit winter driving in St John’s in winter is a bit of an adventure, even after all the cross-State hauls I did for Trent in that clapped out excuse of a van called Clifford. Perhaps they are right about the insurance. Between the barely there road markings, pot holes, ice, bizarre junctions, disappearing lanes, incomprehensible signage and hills to challenge even the seasoned ‘hill start in a manual’ driver, it does at times feel not too far removed from Kampala except I’ve not yet had a goat walk out in front of me.

St John's

Once I got done with Shell I took a week and went ‘around the bay’ to the cabins for some country living and to get inspired to write the content for John’s website. I’ve been having great difficulty concentrating and getting anything done that needs more than 5 minutes mental effort and thought the change of scene might help. I’d assumed I’d burnt out on paint fumes, and while the scene change did kick start the writing, my immigration medical turned up I’m a bit anaemic which made more sense of the fact I’ve been feeling too of my energy has gone to kicking my own butt into gear over the last few months. At least it is super easy to deal with. Otherwise I’m all extremely well and with 6 vials of blood, pee tests and X-rays between the immigration medical and the screening I got for signing up with a new doctor, all maladies, potential and apparent should have been uncovered by now. I love my new doctor. He’s from Congo, has a great smile and a lovely singing French African lilt.

I find snow helps in meeting new people and making friends as the neighbourhood is out with shovels and snowblowers and we all struggle to get a footing on the uncleared pavements. I had a reminder of how small the world is when I called in a furniture order and heard a familiar accent. “You sound like you are from my part of the world”. And so we narrowed it down; Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Auchenblae, Drumtochty Glen, next door neighbours for 4 years. She lived in the house at the end of the road through my isolated valley. We drove past each other every day, knew each other’s dogs and houses, had even met a few times in the woods and here we both are living in St John’s for the long haul. It’s good to have someone around who has already made all the same goofy mistakes and shares the same gripes about Canada.

I also had a reminder of how to behave in small communities. Some of you may recall I wrote a blog about a maniac middle aged instructor I had in a spin class here last year. Well I went to a Bruce Springsteen tribute concert with my neighbours and the spin instructor was one of our group. Her husband is a motorbiking buddy and old friend of the neighbours. I asked her if there are any cycling clubs in town and she replied “I don’t do clubs”. What can I say? She’s from Quebec.

Climbing Signal Hill in St John's - where Marconi's first radio transmission was received

My neighbours have been so good to me I joked I’d better start paying them rent I spend so much time over at their house. Their oldest son is finishing his Masters in Music which is a highly competitive course to get into here;  they only accept 12 people a year. He is phenomenal. I’ve watched him play in chamber orchestras to rock bands now. I said I’m a fully paid up Gregory groupie I’ve been to watch him so many times. Most memorable by far though was a concert in the back room of a stunning old downtown home. It was an improv band and they played everything from looping snippets of radio recordings, to didgeridoo, to bass saxophone in a psychedelic surfer style . I felt pretty spaced out. I probably wouldn’t have listened to 2 minutes if it had been on CD but watching it live, and watching them make it all up in front of you, and just play with sound and noise and rhythm and let each other cruise in and out of centre stage was really awesome dude.  It is hard to put across how important and how everywhere music is in this place. To be good here, is to be really good.

My first trip back around the bay reconfirmed for me that this is a good place for me. I explored miles of trails and longed for skis, snowmachine and dogs, in any combination! The ponds were all frozen solid and so one Wednesday morning, which for months had been my weekly call into a project for Shell, listening into progress reports from around the world, I found myself instead huddled behind a quad bike, listening to tall tales while 3 old boys of the village caught sprats through the ice. The juxtaposition in my mind was really stark and I could only smile that there are all sorts of clever and all sorts of experienced and all sorts of education out there. I was trying to tell them where I’d been walking to, which I found to be pretty difficult without a map and without any knowledge of what the local landmarks are called and so I ended up providing all kinds of comedy as I attempted to describe which tree, bend, rock and bit of ice I meant versus any other. I had to get back to St John’s though because however many hours I was walking was not compensating for Frances amazing baking and generous portions.

Good thought - The Battery, St John's

Cafe plans are still very much alive. John and I went back again just last week. We have run aground momentarily, because the application for the land was rejected. We fall outside of the planned “infill/development” zone for the municipality. A very serious young woman told us these planning regulations are in place to prevent urban sprawl. John and I stayed silence lest we set each other off. ‘Around the bay’ anywhere in Newfoundland is as rural as it gets. Most areas didn’t get electricity or running water until the 60s and everything was pretty much made, grown or bartered. Alberta, Halifax and St John’s have claimed nearly all the younger people so the villages are dying and rural areas depopulating fast. The chances of urban sprawl in a region where you can buy a 3 bedroom house in good living order for less than $60,000 is pretty remote at this moment. However, the policy is the policy so we went back around the bay to see if we could figure out where else it could sit. The trouble is, the designated planning zone is pretty much a half mile band around the hamlet. The land is either vertical hill or already owned. Many families had 9, 10, 11 children all of whom inherited a plot. As one local said, cut down one tree and you’ll soon see people lining up to claim the land, so crown land is really our only option.

All is far from lost though. Newfoundland is so big and there are so few planners that really they haven’t much of a clue what’s on the ground locally. They’d initially rejected the land for John’s cabins because the area was listed as a municipal dump on their maps. Hadn’t been in use for over 60 years but the maps had never caught up. Likewise, the town boundaries for Tickle Cove were reworked 10 years ago and the sign post for the boundary moved a mile up the road, so our land now sits inside the town limits. We’ve put in a request that the infill zone be changed to reflect the ‘new’ boundary. I’ll let you know, but if this site doesn’t work, we’ll probably build it on the beach in front of John’s boat shed, on his land and take the red tape out of the process.

The coast at King's Cove lighthouse

It seems that nearly everywhere Spring is being experienced as wildly fluctuating temperatures, but not here. St John’s has been consistently below zero throughout! The snow has thawed and we were down to grass and mushy leftovers, but supplies of the white stuff were restocked on Saturday when we got a late dump of 36cm. There has been plenty of sunshine though and I got my warmth as I made a trip to catch up with my parents who were in Washington DC for a week.

I had an very early flight and the first signal of how the day would go was that my taxi didn’t turn up. When he did get to my door, I had an adventure getting to the car. The predicted freezing rain had just started, coating everything in black ice and making it literally impossible to walk. Eventually I was forced to walk in my socks to get enough traction to move forward to the car. It was hilarious. The taxi driver and I were in giggles sliding about trying to put my case in the trunk.  

My early start turned into a long day. I was 8 hours in St John’s airport watching the windows glaze over with ice that only thickened and thickened until nothing could be seen from them at all. At last I was actually in an igloo in Newfoundland. I read my entire trashy travel novel before leaving the departure lounge and was acutely aware the whole time that my bed was a mere 15 minutes away. Of course I long missed my connection in Toronto but luckily hand luggage only let me scoot onto the last flight by the skin of my teeth and by nightfall I was watching the waves of Virginia Beach from the warm balcony of my hotel room.

Still winter

Washington DC was spectacular. We were incredibly lucky. Not only was it unusually warm, but we got there at the height of the cherry blossom, and on the 100^th anniversary year of the Japanese give to the people of America. It was a surreal few days in among the suits and tourists and greenery, but Washington looked absolutely at its best.

Unsurprisingly, it was snowing when I got back to St John’s. “Where to?” asked the taxi driver. “Kilbride, Sinnott Place”. “Ah yes” he said “where the house burnt down”.  Oh god, I thought, what did I leave on?

In the few days I was gone, the house 2 doors up burned right to the ground and as the flames went out the gossip got hotter. The long and short of it is the house was supposedly undergoing renovations, but has been for years and they bred Shiatsu dogs. I never heard, or saw, dogs or people because the owners were living elsewhere and the dogs were never walked so the house must have been a mess. The fire department said there was so much debris inside the house they couldn’t get in to fight the fire. 12 dogs died in the blaze. People are asking whether the puppy farm was legal and if the fire was an insurance job among other tattle about the owners. About as much left of the house as their reputation anyway.

While we don’t have sunshine or spring bulbs, we do have spectacle. When we caught sight of the sea driving up to Bonavista John said “look at the ice”. I saw this startling shimmer on the horizon and told him it was just a fog bank, which was kinda dumb, given I don’t live here and he does. As we turned again I saw it was indeed a massive ice floe. I just hadn’t anticipated the scale of it at all, miles of it, filling the entire horizon of the sea, the pack from Labrador drifting south and cooling what would have been our spring back to winter.

Labrador ice floe moving in

The early icebergs are already settling onto the western coastlines and we had a great day just travelling between villages spotting them. I also tried to fall into a root cellar in the ‘root cellar capital of the world’ in Elliston, but that’s another story.

Elliston - root cellar capital of the world

Sometimes you see tiny spots of black, seals on the ice. Frances said there was a polar bear came ashore about 10 miles from the cabins one year and she wouldn’t be surprised if one wandered by her kitchen window sometime. It’s like a bizarre Canadian postcode lottery – which town gets the mad, hungry polar bear this year?! I’m not kidding. One man woke up to a Ursus maritimus in his kitchen last week.

John, Sobaka and my first Newfoundland iceberg!

The icebergs are so beautiful and as inexplicably mesmerising to view as cloud watching.  The silent visitors constantly morph as your aspect to them changes and they hold such intense colours that you feel they have carried the very sunshine and secrets of Labrador inside them.

Ice floe just south of entrance to St John's harbour

We took advantage of some blue skies to watch the new dog along the coast. Sobaka, which is Russian, for dog, is now 4 months old and gaining confident, agility and some training. He loves to walk the shorelines which is just as well as there will be lots of days of it ahead for him.

Sobaka watching a squall coming over Elliston

By sheer coincidence, as my John was raised in Nova Scotia, he shares exactly the same name as the first governor of Newfoundland - John Martin Guy. So we went to Cupids where Mr Guy landed from after his voyage from Bristol and climbed the headland and took photos of John standing under his statute and tributes and streets named after him. I think he rather liked the idea of his own statute.

John Guy Place & monument

So that’s about all my news. I’ve got a roast chicken I need to get out the oven soon but I’ve been enjoying the dietary changes Newfoundland has to offer. Lobster and eggs for breakfast, moose sausages for lunch, salted cod hash for tea. Not every night, but all of the above have been consumed in the last week and enjoyed most thoroughly.

See some of you next week!

Not just windmills and cheese

I have decided I must be the only woman in Europe who wants to buy a jumper (sweater) with full sleeves that doesn’t reach my knees. What a struggle I had finding one!

Among the embassies

It is my last couple of weeks in Holland so I’m trying to enjoy it, but truthfully I am really looking forward to heading out of here. There is nothing I can say against the Netherlands, other than it lacks the wildness, melancholy and atmosphere of my more familiar wild shores. Everything, especially in the Hague is neatly held together. It is exemplified in the perfectly knitted brickwork of the pavements and terraces, with pretty canopies hanging over windows and fairy tale bridges over the canals. Swans glide under weeping willows and I feel entirely safe cycling around at any time of day or night. It is gentile, immensely civilised and so, for me, just a little bit boring.

Down town Hague

That is not to say the famous Dutch liberalism doesn’t offer its wilder side. The Dutch are up front so if its sex and drugs you need, you don’t even have to secret off to buy them. Rent lights are lit above the tram route to work and an area of dimly lit cafes with names as diverse as ‘Happiness’ to ‘Sticky Fingers’ give off a certain scent as I cycle home. And don’t flick through channels after 11pm when the adult channel come to life whether you want them to or not. In truth I find all that seedy stuff very hard to reconcile with the Dutch people I know who seem far more interested in wholesome things like long bike rides and baking gingerbread.

Twee but effective

A couple of weeks ago I joined a few people going to a kind of restaurant meets cabaret meets night club in Amsterdam. This is my once-in-a-decade attempt at urban cool. I was a bit scared about what to expect. The website said ‘anything’ goes, which in Amsterdam is a frightening prospect. When my friend made the reservation she was asked if we wanted a table or bed! Turned out the most risque parts of the evening, thankfully, were the unisex toilets (never a pleasure), a girl playing a sparkly hot pink electric violin, and that we were given surgical gloves before our first course. That was because we didn't get cutlery. I just washed my hands and ate with my fingers anyway. Why pay good money to have all your food taste of latex?!

It was a pretty surreal evening,. We had to ring a bell in a back alley to get in the place. The door was covered in brass tags with people's names on but no explanation why, whether they are regulars or what. A balding man wearing a lilac nightie, well gown thing that looked just like the ones I used to see in the Nigerian markets, ticked us off the reservation list and gave us a tiny dutch flag on a cocktail stick with our bed number on it. Twin waitresses wore electric blue leggings, with matching electric blue glitter lipstick that was also smeared all over their eyes, and black wigs. Everything was painted white, and the main focal point was a giant while umbrella with white ribbon draped all over it to look like a jellyfish. We had to take our shoes off at the door to climb a staircase that would never pass any health and safety test in the UK to the 'bed' which was just a long strip of wide padded seats with tiny tables sitting on them so we could lounge around like Arabian princesses. To be honest, I was jealous of the people who sat at the tables, far more comfortable than trying to juggle red wine on white bed linen and eating while sinking into foam mattresses.

It's amazing what constitutes cool I have to say. My choice I'd have spent the same money on a theatre ticket and a great meal out where I could both enjoy the food without giving my stomach a work out trying to sit right, hear why my friends are saying to me instead of a backdrop of inane trance music and enjoyed a proper theatre experience - as opposed to the glittery pink electric guitar and a girl in a showgirl costume miming to Liza Minneli 'cabaret' while sticking various sharp objects up her nose and through her skin.

 We made up for it this weekend by heading to Hotel Des Indes for High Tea. We started with a cognac cocktail and went on into the 4 course high tea. The 35 Euro each for the tea was every bit worth it. We were in there for 3.5 hours, eating perfect miniature courses until we couldn’t finish any more and had to wrap up the last tiny portions of cake and chocolate. It felt perfect for Christmas. And we followed it by going on to the local panto being presented by the ex-pat drama group. It had just the right balance of surprising home grown talent and genuine amateur dramatics, like the set falling down, to be really great fun.

Hotel Des Indes, by the Escher Museum

Yesterday I decided to take a last cycle around the Hague and just photograph some corners and explore some pockets I’ve meant to reach. There is a very beautiful mausoleum in the ‘posh’ area among all the embassies, heading out to the beach and near the Peace Palace. I’ve just past it. It is almost on a hill. At least it is as high a point as I can find in the Hague, looking down Bankstraat to the towers that indicate Den Haag Centraal Station. I wandered between the headstones for at least an hour. I was struck that the Dutch are respectful enough that people could leave tiny trinkets on gravestones and they remained untouched. One for a lady had 3 china tea cups and saucers lain out. I’d love to know the story behind it. Lots of wind chimes and little sculptures that would all be broken and graffitied at home, set within a beautiful walled garden. It didn’t feel in the least morbid or sad, just restful.

Beautiful place of rest

Occasionally on my way to work I see 4 parakeets flying. They have a range of a few miles, and never more than 4 of them so they must be escapees. I like that the signatures of other worlds is forever available, in The Hague especially I think, which has the International Court, Europol, European Patent Agency, Shell and several other large multinational companies and agencies so a massive ex-pat/immigrant community. I sit in my office with people from Russia, Germany, USA, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Trinidad, and Holland of course, but that is not Shell, that is The Hague. Even the street names reflect a historic and global past. Our office sits on Sir Winston Churchill Laan, I cycle past Durbanstraat, and live near President Kennedy Laan. My road turns into Javastraat, which bisects Nassauplein, Suriname Straat, and Balistraat. The Hague is almost like a giant Monopoly board – world edition.  Paris is 2.5 hours from Rotterdam on TVG trains. Germany and Belgium even less. So there is plenty to like.

View down Bankstraat 'hill'

Today is December 5^th, which is Sinterklaas Eve, the big day for children in Holland for presents. Our office is full of sweets and they held a big party for families a couple of Saturdays ago.  He is the origin for Santa Claus. And in Holland (and elsewhere) he is accompanied by Svarte Piet which coming from the land where gollywogs are both banned and a bad word with deep overtones, is a surprise.  My coloured friend said she felt a ‘uncomfortable ‘ when the shops started filling with Zwarte Piets, and they are everywhere, climbing ladders, holding swag bags (taking away the naughty children) and decorating everything, but as most coloured or black people here didn’t seemed bother, she’s decided to go with it. It is odd to see it though. I’ll let wiki explain:

Zwarte Piet is today commonly depicted as a black person in the colorful pantaloons, feathered cap and ruffles of a Renaissance European page, a tradition that started based on a single illustration in a book published in 1850.

Zwarte Pieten are often portrayed as mischievous but rarely mean-spirited characters. The character is believed to have been derived from pagan traditions of evil spirits. Also told for decades is a story that the Zwarte Pieten are black because of chimney soot and/or in mockery of the darker Spanish occupiers of the Low Countries in centuries past. {My friend asked, if it is just soot why have they all got afros?!)

During recent years the role of Zwarte Pieten has become part of a recurring debate in the Netherlands. Controversial practices include holiday revellers blackening their faces, wearing afro wigs, gold jewellery and bright red lipstick,^[9] and walking the streets throwing candy to passers-by.

Foreign tourists, particularly Americans, often experience culture shock upon encountering the character (to dress in blackface is a gross taboo in America). Since the last decade of the 20th century there have been several attempts to introduce a new kind of Zwarte Piet to the Dutch population, where the Zwarte Pieten replaced their traditional black make-up with all sorts of colours.^[10] In 2006 the NPS (en: Dutch Programme Foundation) as an experiment replaced the black Pieten by rainbow-coloured Pieten, but in 2007 reverted to the traditional all-black Pieten.^[11

Giant Zwarte Piet in the department store

Back to safer terrain. It is triple party week – 2 staff parties and my birthday! We’re taking an evening canal cruise in Amsterdam with a little music and a lovely meal. It should be very sparkling! But perhaps I'll sign off to a final note to the quirky dangers of Holland that sit between it's ornamental charm. Aside from the canals everywhere which could be a constant hazard, I have never seen petrol stations on a pavement anywhere else! Let's hope no cyclists drop a cigarette as they go by!

Pavement side petrol pumps, between the cycle lane and road!

Urgently require implementation of new business idea

House of Female Sanity is offering a brand new training course -  Housework for Men.

Core Elements:
Laundry Bin Recognition & Target Practice
Hanging Up and Folding Exercises
Dirty Dish Intervention Tactics

Advanced:
Mechanical Training in Iron, Washing Machine and Dusters.

Duration:
Lifetime

Pre-requisites:
Must have tendancy to still believe in cave dwellings

Method of Assessment:
Practical test set by one assessor  - the long suffering other half.

A Grieve adventure leading to Wullie o' Woo, bucketloads of plink and a grass widower.

I've had a hectic couple of weeks, though none more so than most of you who might be reading this!
Up at 3.45am to get out to Aberdeen Airport for the red eye across to Amsterdam and an interview at Shell near The Hague at 11am. Despite being all done by lunchtime, I was on the very last flight home and got back to the house well after 11pm, mostly packed for a wedding in Inverness and a week in Orkney. It is so brilliant when everything comes together, especially four old friends under the sunshine of the Moray Firth to watch one of us get married.

Bunchrew House - photo http://www.la-photography.co.uk/blog/author/admin/page/18/

The day after the ceremony and dancing we gathered on the very civilised lawn at Bunchrew House, to catch up over lots of pots of tea and coffee while the tangy sea breeze caught in the trees. Our happy mood was rocked however by the horrific front pages on all the Sunday papers of the tragedy that had unfolded in Norway which the wedding celebrations had kept us entirely ignorant of. As a bunch of reunited school and university friends, all now catching up on the progress of our lives and enjoying the bringing in of husbands, wives and children into our circle, the shock of knowing those young people and their families would forever be denied the simple happiness we had just shared gave the weekend an added poignancy.

But under the pretext that the 3 year old needed a boat experience and contact with some real life dinosaurs, we went monster hunting on Loch Ness. We sighted nothing but beautiful views and drank yet more tea, but the whole weekend was a signal for the upcoming week of fine hospitality, renewing kinship, the best of kitchen table comforts and exploring Scottish stories.

On Loch Ness - anything in the waters? Thanks for the photo Bekkie!

Perhaps it is the bloodlines, but I think Orkney is just a magnificent place with wonderful people.

I loved the tiny bolt of yellow in this vast hillside

After dropping of friends from the wedding weekend at Inverness Airport, I collected Mum and we drove north into the smirm of a Caithness summer evening. The first sign that this was going to be a good trip was the perfect crossing over the Pentland Firth in the Pentalina. This catamaran ferry link is in itself an incredible story of local entrepreneurialship, grit and facing down the entangled and illogical red tape of local and European politics. His book, Pentland Hero, is well worth a read for anyone interested in not putting up with crap and a lesson in how to change things:

With a tiny team of trusted colleagues and without a penny of public funds, Andrew Banks, a quietly spoken Orkney farmer's son, built terminals and started operating a new frequent, cheap, short route between Orkney and the Scottish mainland - all in the face of a concerted and sustained campaign to undermine his enterprise  

For me the new service is a godsend as it follows the older and much more logical route between the various isles, meaning we are subjected to the open swells and tides of the Pentaland for only a few minutes at a time. Having suffered my hours on the other crossing, at one time called the roly poly ola - the boat was called St Ola and was said to roll on wet grass she was so awful to be a passenger in - I am enormously grateful for the efforts of the pioneering business man who has a new commercial service across the Firth of Forth in his sights next.

WW2 battlements at every junction of water. Orkney's population tripled at least during the wars.

These are dangerous waters with ripping tides, not least the Swilkie Whirlpool off the north end of Stroma, reputed by Viking legend, to have been cause by the sea King Mysing as he continues, from the bottom of the sea, to turn the magical quern he stole from King Frode, to grind salt and keep the seas salty. There are at least 60 shipwrecks around Stroma alone, an island that is only 3.5km long and 1.5km wide. In all, there are 70 or so islands in the Orkney group, each with a depth of history that stretches far past the era of pyramids and metals and right into neolithic man. Orkney is a UNESCO World Heritage site and for me, as soon as you step on its shores the full stretch of man's history is there to see in the juxaposition of 5000 year old stone villages and sunken WW2 ships.

Sailing between the islands

Our drive from the southern tip of South Ronaldsay island, to the family who live in the north western parish of Birsay, was made more poignant as all the orkney flags were flying. The Orkney flag recognises its Scandinavian and Scottish history by combining the Norway flag with scottish saltire blue and brought sharply to mind the devastation in Norway.

The Orkney Flag http://thetravelapprentice.com/orkney.shtml

I guess people think that nothing happens in these far flung northern islands. I would think most wouldbe extremely surprised to learn that the first civilian killed in an air raid on Britain was not in London or Manchester or Southampton, but on Orkney. On March 16, 1940, a bomb fell near the Bridge of Waith, killing 27 year old James Isbister.

And the infamous marching song, Run Rabbit Run, hails from Shetland. On November 13, 1939, a Heinkle bomber attacked resulting only in a large bomb crater and one dead rabbit. I'm sure many in the UK have just been reawakend to the existance of Shetland, with the arrest of an 18 year old Jake Davis, aka Topiary, allegedly second in command of a cyberhacking group that attacked Nintento, PBS Network and even the CIA. Apparently the photo of him carrying the book Free Radicals: The secret anarchy of science boosted sales up 2,627 places up the Amazon bestseller list to 182 within 48 hours.

A deceptive rush hour. Life is not so quiet on these islands.

In WW1 Scapa Flow became the home base for the British Atlantic Fleet. 74 German vessels were also interned. Following the defeat of Germany,  their commander, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter ordered the scuttling of all 74 right there in Scapa, rather than let them fall into British hands, creating what is now a wreck divers paradise.

It all happened again in WW2. On 14 October 1939 tragedy struck the allied side when a German U-boat broke the defences into Scapa and torpedoed the Royal Oak. 833 of the 1,400 man crew were lost. That wreck is now a protected war grave.

But even in war there are unintended, hapy consquences. To prevent another attack, Winston Churchill ordered that a series of causeways be built between the small islands to block the eastern approaches into Scapa. These Churchill Barriers, constructed by Italian prisoners of war were what was allowing us to drive from our arrival point on the island of South Ronaldsay, over the smaller islands of Lamb Holm and Glimps Holm, and onto the Mainland - which is the name of the largest island in the Orkney group.

At the Italian Chapel

Aside from this long lived logistical advantage and the mammoth effort that probably only war would have made happen, the prisoners too left a remarkable legacy turning two Nissan huts stuck end to end into an amazing chapel. Leftover materials were gathered from the barriers and melting down bully beef tins to create a wonderful testimony to faith.

What faith, talent and optimism can do with a Nissan hut

Lead artist, Chiocchetti from Monea, even stayed on after the war ended to finish his work and returned in the 1960s to help with its restoration. I visit every time I visit the Orkneys because it is such a strong symbol of friendship even within difficult times. The prisoners had a theatre, recreation hut and snooker table, while use was made of their incredible skills including two Ferarri mechanics and gifted cement workers. Chiocchetti filled his paintings with symbols of peace and friendship.

Old beef bully tins

 The family farm sites between two remarkable periods; Skara Brae at Bay of Skaill, a perfectly preserved neolithic village from 3500BC, and another war grave at Marwick Head where Kitchener, the one who famously points from the poster declaring, Your Country Needs You! drowned along with another 642 of the 655 crew onboard HMS Hampshire when they struck a mine during a storm while enroute to Russia.

Skara Brae at Bay of Skaill. 3500BC neolithic village

Living room Flintstone style

Taken all together these events show that far flung places remain connected and influencial and always have done. All the neolithic villages of Orkney contain artefacts of materials from far distant shores. There is native Greenlandic blood in Orkney from whaling times and who knows which other sailors landed on its shores in different eras.

It brings to mind the opening lines of a long favourite poem of mine by Hugh MacDiarmid written in 1939 called The Shetland Isles.

I am no further from the 'centre of things'

In the Shetland Isles here than in London, New York or Tokyo

Much copied, mimicked, parodied and still powerful even for a generation who have no idea
who the man pointing the finger is.

Meals were full of conversation over an ever groaning table kept loaded under Jean's wonderful cooking and hospitality. I refuse to weigh myself for at least a month, but it was worth every mouthful.

Among the many reasons to be in Orkney this time, one was to have a look at where the family had sprung from and off too. The family tree shows that Aberdeen is just the start of it. Older generations made it to Egypt, Canada, Far East, wherever ships could carry them and there is a gorgeous tale of a shipwrecked Norwegian princess who came ashore lashed to a spar as sole survivor of the storm crying 'moar', marrying into the family and perhaps starting a whole other lineage as Moar is a rare surname.

But Granny's parents (Mum's Mum) originate from the island of Rousay. I've heard so many stories I was keen to make the 40 minute sailing and have a look around. We had the idea of taking a photo of the old farmhouse if it was still standing and findable, but ended up with an altogether bigger result.

Rousay, home to many more archaelogical sites and my Grandmother's parents

From whence I came, at least 12.5% of me! Great grandparents

It started as we bought the tickets and over the chit chat it came out we were doing some family digging. Surnames are few on an island the size of Rousay so she quickly connected us to the boat captain, who it turns out, is Mum's first cousin once removed. But the captain's wife, was also related, through the other side, so when we pulled into harbour, he called her over and we went to have our first unexpected cup of tea overlooking the bay and getting engrossed in old records in the Rousay Roots book. Her mother was illegitmate, by my Great-Grandfather, so we had just learned that Granny, who was always the only daughter among a gaggle of sons, had a half sister, sadly no longer living. We had arrived not longer after 11am and were still there when the captain came home for his lunch. They then suggested we go and talk to the boat captain's father, now 92 who's memory naturally stretches much further back. We found Wullie in extraordinary health and living in the remarkably named Woo, pronouced Ooo, hence he is known as Wullie a Woo.

Wullie o' Woo is Ninety Two!

Wullie had even more news for us. More unknown half sisters and rumours of sons and all kinds of carrying on that very much challenges the 'in our time' levels of behaviour each generation is made to feel they are not living up to. Copies of birth certificates confirm rumours and hints that Granny had heard many years back that were never pursued and redrew the impressions of both my Great Grandparents. It seems extremely likely that Granny's oldest brother was not by her father but another farmhand. I was beginning to see all those jokes the Ugandan's made about their having large families because they hda no electricity had a great deal of sensibility about them!

I warned Mum, "you better come out with it all now because it will all spill out anyway one day" !!

Even more wonderfully though, Wullie was able to tell us that Granny's bridesmaid, her first cousin Kathleen was still alive, aged 93 and living on the island. He sprang out of his chair to ring her and say we were on our way. We were astonished he didn't used glasses to read the phonebook and sat down on a low stool to use the phone as comfortably as any twenty year old.

Woo's neighbouring farm. Is there a better house name? The flagstone roofing is very traditional.

So, having expected to take a photo of the farm, which we did too as it was right above Wullie's house, we were on our way to a third cup of tea in a stranger-but- somehow related person's house and finding someone from Granny's long past when she has believed for a while she was the last one standing of her generation. Kathleen is struggling with her memory, but had an aura of great intellect and fun and her niece, also somehow a relation, was able to fill in the blanks. I took a photo to be able to show Granny.

Kathleen, my Granny's bridesmaid, refound after many decades.

I wonder, when there is 70 years between me and meeting those friends I was reunited with at the Inverness wedding, what life and world events will have happened by then and whether we will still know each other. Granny knew Kathleen when she saw the photo. Between them they saw mechanisation and the arrival of electricity, plumbed water, telephones, the disruption and loss of war, the revolution for women, the possibility of easy travel, the internet and so on.

Granny's strong feeling is the best invention for women was the washing machine after raising 4 children hand washing nappies with water drawn and carried from a well and warmed over the stove fuelled by hand cut peats. I feel keenly for those that do not have the stories of their elders for I find so much comfort in them and take great strength from their strength.

I've been recording some of Granny's stories. Here's a transcription of one which shows nothing really changes in life.

G: Plink.

 J: Now how would I be spelling that?

 G: P.L.I.N.K. And it used to be. We used to have 2 newspapers, well, we still have now as well, but there was a newspaper, The Orcadian, and there was the Orkney Herald and this fella wrote in the Orkney Herald. And he wrote about a fictitious Parish in Orkney, Stenaquoy. And you see, they had a football team and all the tricks they got up to win matches and the cheating, you know, it was quite funny. And Janet Cup was the name of the postmistress and she couldna make tea, and that wis what it was called, plink. Just very weak tea, just badly made tea, probably the water wasn’t boiling. Plink, that’s plink. Very tasteless.

 J: So was that a word that he made up?

 G: I never heard anyone else every using it.  But he moved out, came down here to Aberdeen and eventually the other newspapers, collapsed. I liked it better than the Orcadian.  There was a bit in it called Grains o’ Bere and that was little bits of gossip.

 J: Oh bere like as in beremeal (a kind of barley)?

 G: Aye. Little grains o’ bere. There was never mention of any name, just bits and pieces of, we ken what you’ve been up to sort of thing. It was quite funny, well, until they wrote about the Minister. I was working for the Minister at the time, at the Manse, and we’d 5 lodgers, men lodgers and our neighbour lost some sheep in the loch, and he took them out and buried them. The Minister asked if he could have the sheep and he dug them up. There was nothing wrong with the sheep.  They weren’t diseased or anything. Well he dug them up and he cooked them for his lodgers and this was mentioned in the Grains o' Bere.

J: Well that’s a ripe story for that I would think.

G: I know but it was a nasty story.

J: Oh

G: Him (the minister) and his wife were parted and he had a four year old daughter, he kept the daughter and he was married to a Russian called Anna Olya. He was insanely jealous, but

J: A typical Minister, doing something other than he was preaching

G: Yes, his Beadle, I think supplied this information and I can mind the wording of the bit, you know, he wasn’t even mentioned, but anyone that knew him, you know, knew it was him because it was about a grass widower.

J: Grass widower, what does that mean?

G: That means he’s not a widower, he’s a grass widower, his wife’s left him. I don’t know where that comes in but this story in the paper was about a grass widower who dug up this sheep and you should hear the folk that came and asked me about this, is this true? I said, I don’t know. Your not going  to go and kleip on a Minister,  I’ll not kleip on anybody. I should have said to them, why don’t you go and ask the Minister? Don’t ask the servant.

But the Minister and this man, the Beadle didn’t get on. The Minister had goats and the Beadle was employed by the Manse, you know Church of Scotland, the bit of land, and looked after the...well what did he do? He looked after the, he had the kirk key. I don’t know what he, but he was just the Beadle, whatever a Beadle does.

J: So that’s just like a Groundsman then,  he was just like a caretaker?

G: Yes, a sort of caretaker. My Mother was the Kirk cleaner, he didn’t actually clean the kirk but I don’t know what he did.

 J: Made up jobs maybe so the Reverent really didn’t have to do anything, mow the lawn and..

 G: I think the Manse ground, the bit of ground you know that went with the Kirk was called the Grebe. It wouldn’t have kept anybody in work, they’d have had to have another job anyway, but the Manse had a gate on it. Like anywhere, if you have a gate, folk comes to house and find the  gate shut, but when they don’t bother shutting it the goats used to get out and they used to go into the ground and they came back one day galloping, they’d been chased and they had a tally tied round the neck, ‘please keep this goats home’. And I think, what a cheek.

J: Exactly, go and speak to them first, direct.

G: Yes. And then this thing came in the paper about the grass widower. And nasty.  Anybody could put in this anonymous thing, it was supposed to be anonymous, the paper, but the Minister took it further. He was determined to know who had put in that and it was Willie. So, he got thrown out and he built a little farm, not very far away, still within the Parish of Birsay.

J: What’s a Beadle?

G: Well, that’s what I can’t remember.

Mum and I made trips all over the island, which included a brief visit to the Brough of Birsay, which amazingly was on her doorstep her entire childhood yet she had never stepped foot on it. The brough is a small island, accessible by foot at low water by a connecting causeway with yet more neolithic heritage. Unfortunately we had lingered in Birsay Church finding headstones of old relatives and discovering photos of Mum and her siblings in the tiny archive room, so by the time we had fossil hunted along the shore, we only had 20 minutes on the island, which meant Mum's first trip was practically a run past the ancient settlement and up to the still working lighthouse. On the way down she stepped in a monumental rabbit hole which swallowed her shoe so it took the full length of her arm and alot of wiggling to retrieve it. It was very funny viewing though!

Fossil spotting Brough of Birsay

The causeway at low water

Still in use to haul lobster boats

Just like our family history, Orkney is only just uncovering its full history. We went to visit the latest archaeological finds at the Ness of Brodgar and were there the second they discovered the Boy of Brodgar and duly banned from taking any photos ahead of their official press release, now available on their website.

Brodgar boy http://www.orkneyjar.com/archaeology/2011/08/02/about-a-brodgar-boy/

The Ness of Brodgar site covers a massive 2.5 acre site with several buildings, paved walkways and even more significantly uncovered the first evidence of painted stonework. The remains of a large stone wall appears to traverse the entire peninsula the site is on which as it lies between the Ring of Brodgar and Standing Stones of Stenness as is surrounded by water seems so loaded with symbolism one can only imagine what culture they held 5000 years ago.

This summer's excavations

For me no trip to Orkney is complete without paying homage to the wild cliffs of Yesnaby even though we were blessed with rare still waters. In the far distance, the Old Man of Hoy stands tall at 449feet (137m) but is dwarfed by St John's Head, one of Europe's highest sea cliff at 1,150feet (350m). The island of Hoy is named from the Nordic word Haey, meaning high island.

So Orkney is a culture far removed from the tartan and monsters and highlander Gaelic of Inverness that I had spent my weekend in. Orkney was annexed to Scotland from Norway in 1468 as part of a negotiation about a bridal dowry and unpaid rent. It's hertitage then is Scandinavian with Norse place names and its own Saga stories and viking legends.

Yesnaby. Old Man of Hoy in far distance below the imposing St John's Head.

So Orkney too is no further from the centre of things than London and in fact the depth of heritage, so well preserved in the tiny area makes it feel more truly like it is the centre of things than busy London.

Hugh MacDiarmid was a pseudonym and though he was born in 1892 in Dumfriesshire, south west Scotland, and died in Biggar, he also lived a few years on a island within the Shetland and in Montrose, a town very near my own hometown. MacDiarmid's birthname was infact Christopher Murray Grieve.

Guess what the family surname was that we were chasing all over Orkney?

The world is really a remarkably small place and wonderfull alive with univeral stories.

Stone walls at Skaill

The true survivors of the planet - biting bugs!

Family gatherings 2000AD style.