I’m heading up to Orkney in a little over a week – a place I worked as an archaeologist for a couple of months, a place that’s in my blood enough to wish I’d been born there.
It’s a place where spectacles creep up on you.
(No, the other kind).
Every day is a different palette.
But archaeology is terribly hard work.
LOL Really lovely now, but is it not eternally dark in winter? I hear Shetland is, anyway. So, enjoy, but I wanna see some winter shots say by February?
No, not eternally dark – but eternally changeable, even in summer.
And I’d love to be up there in winter.
But the thought of crossing the Pentland Firth (here are some of my thoughts on that subject) gives me the collywobbles at the best of times – let alone during winter.
Good lord, was my hair really that short?
– she asks, oblivious of the arresting natural beauty of Orkney…
Well to be more Orkney-minded, a suitable alternative to “short” may be “sheep-like”.
Your photos are beautiful.
Meh, now I want to go back there again… last time was in winter actually; I spent the New Year holiday on Westray with my good friend Popeye (a real person with a nickname, not my imaginary cartoon friend — that’s Invader Zim, an altogether different sort of chap).
It was dark a lot. I liked it.
Mike, you must come to New England. No rush — I have funding for three more years — but you must come. Choose your season. And I must write a proper email to you, for I have been Negligent. Again.
Yup, according to my photos you had a mass of tight curls in the Julius Caesar / Clash of the Titans style – pretty much how my hair looked between ’93 and ’95 (before it fell out).
I liked the dark too. Peaceful, welcoming, and excitingly oblivious to all the little bipeds scurrying around inside it – not dangerous, but encouraging wariness. Orkney rewards a sense of adventure, but has little sympathy for fools. (No safety nets for idiots who don’t deserve them. I like that a lot about Orkney).
I will indeed come to New England.
But I want to hear you sell it to me.
Go on.
I love the smell of large gadid in the evening… it smells like – victory.
Ahh – that evening that the Harcuses invited us in for amazingly welcome fresh fish at midnight. Deeply rose-tinted memory.
…but the smell of large gadid takes a different form in the mind when you were recruited to haul enormous sacks of dirt smelling of fish.
I’m just sayin’.
You were an archeologist? Totally cool and such a gorgeous area. I really need to travel more!
Indeed I was. (Briefly).
Orkney is a special, special part of this corner of the world. It’s…special. I’m struggling for words. I’ll stick with special, but put a line under it, like this – SPECIAL.
I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been gently bewitched by the place…