Stromness, United Kingdom
Bleak cold day, coldest so far. Breakfasted and packed the car.
10am we met up with John, our guide, across the street under the ferry terminal clock, and Bernard a retired Manchester school principal. As we set off a squall came thru, nasty, John strode on, I whimpered that we could not afford to get wet, he was generous enough to shelter us against a wall.
Our hour long walk thru “Strum-ness” as we were emphatically told to pronounce it - that wasn’t the only thing we were emphatically told either, was worth every penny of the £7ea we paid.
We really did enjoy his commentary, he was extremely direct and had his most definite opinion - and don’t you question it either. “Watch where you’re walking Judith, you have sunglasses on, it wasn’t a warning - more a critism, but we smiled. He was very passionate about Stromness AND WE DISCOVERED HE WAS IRISH!!!
He’d stop and wave his hand for us to fall in behind off the road, I stood on his left, “on my right please Judith”, me: “I have a deaf left”. He told us lots of history and lots of tales of famous & some infamous locals.
Promoted the local business - don’t buy in one shop, share it around.
He quoted poetry and said hello to everyone - they all knew him.
12ish we drove over to Kirkwall, suddenly realising that we had some legal business we had to do. Find somewhere that would print off some papers which we had to sign, have them scanned and email them back.
Explained our position at a Bank in Kirkwall, the young girl (due to have her 1st baby in 6weeks) was brilliant. "Email it to me, I’ll print it off, you fill it in and sign it, then I’ll email it to who every you like." Done in about 20mins.
Back to Stromness to catch the 4.45pm ferry across to the mainland of Scotland.
Now in a bnb in Brough, about 10km from the Castle of Mey, the Queen mother’s home for the last 50+yrs of her life. Going there tomorrow.
This is a fabulously explicit article about Stromness: https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/stromness/stromness/index.html
Jasha
2018-09-12
You would have warmed up after that walk. Different experience each day. How exciting. You both must be very fit by now.
Marilyn & Noel
2018-09-12
Gosh you two are visiting some really interesting places, also the information that goes with the pictures. We have looked up to see where the places you have been on the map.