Military relics

The benign, agricultural Orcadian landscape of today still has reminders of its recent, violent past, when it was a strategic location in terms of warfare. Scapa Flow, one of the world's most sheltered, natural, harbours had been used to support trade, travel and conflict since prehistoric times and during the two world wars, control of the waters between the Atlantic and North Sea was essential to protect the British fleet. Visiting the Lyness museum on Hoy and the derelict airfield at Twatt was a salient reminder of what we owe to those who gave so much to protect future generations

Bucket List

We've been very lucky this summer in crossing two items off our bucket list: firstly, we visited St Kilda and then this weekend we walked to the cliff tops close to the Old Man of Hoy. An amazing example of coastal erosion, the impressive sea stack stands 449ft tall and although 250 years old, faces an uncertain future as the waves continue to assault the friable, red sandstone. Called the "Old Man", the stack once had two legs and apparently looks like a human when viewed from certain angles but we were clearly in the wrong location to visualise that! 

Somewhere over the rainbow

As we sailed to Stromness from Scrabster on the MV Hamnavoe , we were lucky enough to witness a double rainbow arc-ing over the Old Man of Hoy. The light glinted off the layers of red sandstone that make up the spectacular cliff scenery creating a truly beautiful sight. Apparently, it was such a rare occurence, several crew members came out to photograph it too.

 As we were about to scurry back inside out of the rain shower, the setting sun made its appearance in the west, turning the sky a pale gold. Nature was really at her very best 

Andy and Alex: The Tw*tts!

Yesterday, I wasted over an hour of my life driving round the North West of Orkney Mainland looking for a road sign to a place called Twatt! Ever since Alex and Andy discovered that a visit to the unfortunately named village was within reach during our weekend away, a road trip was on the agenda! We found the disused Twatt Airfield and church without difficulty but road signs were very thin on the ground; apparently they keep being stolen.  Just as we were about to give up, Andy directed us to a junction and there it was - The Holy Grail!

Monty!

We've adopted a dog! Monty the Airedale has come to join us from Orkney where our friends Angela and Kieran are no longer able to keep him. He's a great, loveable giant who will need to settle into our pack, but with Molly already putting him straight over a few things, and Mr Glis (aka Dr Dolittle)  exercising his canine magic, hopefully it won't take him too long to adjust to life in the South. At 3 years old, he is still a young dog so we're looking forward to sharing many exciting adventures with him in the coming years 

New Flooring At Last

At long last, we have new flooring in our living room. For a number of reasons: incontinent cat, my asthma, muddy paws (and that’s just Andy, never mind the dog) we decided against carpet and have gone for limestone flags.  As they are differing sized rectangles, light in colour and have a matt finish, they don’t look and feel like tiles in a hospital waiting area.  They should also be easy to clean with a damp mop or cloth so that animal hairs and dander should be less of an issue than with carpet. We’re really pleased with the look!

Lasting legacy of friendship

Unexpected pleasures are always welcome and on recently discovering that I was meeting a colleague in Chorley at the same time as another school friend from Kent was visiting her aged parents in Lytham St Annes, it took but a moment for a gathering to be planned with our other friends still living in the area! We spent a lovely couple of hours reminiscing over a cuppa, catching up on the gossip. Those friendships forged in our school days had clearly been important to us all for a variety of different reasons and it’s delightful that they still live on!

Breathless.....and not in a good way!

Living with well controlled asthma means I can normally pinpoint when circumstances cause it to begin spiralling out of control. Recently, however, I’ve been struggling with mysterious attacks of breathlessness at random times and situations where I’ve never had problems before. It’s been somewhat alarming, causing me to actually take Andy’s advice and contact the surgery! During a telephone consultation in advance of an appointment, I was advised to take anti-histamines and up the dosage of both my preventative and reliever inhalers. So far, this appears to be working, although I still have some symptoms when cycling. To be continued……

A weekend respite

With being so busy at work, August seems to have flown by in a blur of car journeys to Newcastle, intermittent windscreen wiper days, occasional geocache finds and low level outings at the weekend with Molly on account of my unexplained attacks of breathlessness. We’ve seen little of our friends, who have also had extensive commitments and apart from Grandma’s birthday, where I acted as special envoy for Mr K, little of our wider family too. So it’s with great enthusiasm that I’m looking forward to an impromptu weekend in Orkney. It’s a long way North but it’ll be enjoyable!

An evening with Lilian!

Andy and I enjoyed a wonderful evening at the Old Fire Station with Sunny Ormonde and her alter-ego, Lilian Bellamy of The Archers.  Sunny entertained us with gossip from Ambridge as well as a glimpse into her childhood and life as an actress.  A Question and Answer session gave Archers Addicts an opportunity to enjoy some friendly banter on all things Archers and although the evening was full of laughter, there were occasional surprises when Sunny provided an insight into her serious side though readings of favourite pieces of prose from Dylan Thomas and Shakespeare. It was a resounding success!

Sir Tom Jones- Yeah!

Yeah! 

Sir Tom Jones was simply amazing at his Carlisle gig a couple of weeks ago.  With natural stage presence and an extensive back catalogue, he didn’t disappoint, delivering old classics such as “It’s not unusual”, “Sex-bomb” and “Delilah” in his unmistakable rich voice as well as introducing us to some newer, gospel influenced material too. I’d expected the customary flinging of recently purchased M and S pants onto the stage, so was unsurprised at the amount of lingerie in flight!  What was more astonishing was the extent of 75 year old Sir Tom’s vocal range – that was simply incredible