A nocturnall upon St Lucie's Day (well, more or less)

Lots of excitement chez nous. The roof is finished. We have a beautiful new front door, one that closes without slamming and, better still, lets in light. And we have a floor-to-ceiling window with a glazed back door filling the south-facing livingroom wall, giving us a superb view of the island and the Scottish coast away in the distance. The house is - finally - warm. They have also replaced the manky strand of wire that marked the garden boundaries with a proper wooden fence that makes the garden look like the little house on the prairie and hopefully will enable us to grow something next year. (Whatever thrives on the Siberian tundra.)

My first civic appointment this past week! I was asked to coach the little girls who were St Lucy and her attendants as part of the tree-lighting ceremony, a major production number with visitors from the Norwegian town that donates the Kirkwall tree, numerous musicians, a choir of tinies and assorted civic dignitories. All went well. St Lucy looked suitably angelic and spoke up as instructed, the fainter failed to pass out (my main concern) and the rain held off till after it was all over. Bill and I decided to stay the night in Kirkwall so we could go to church the next morning, me because I wanted to and Bill because he wanted to liaise with the vicar re: the wedding, but even he was impressed by the sight of The Bishop in full fig standing outside the church to greet the congregation. He looked most impressive and gave a good sermon, although Bishop Bob is a less than dignified name, I feel.

The problem with staying overnight, apart from the vast expense (we could have had a weekend in Paris for less) is that you can't get home till Sunday night, but the weather wasn't too grim, so after a nostalgic tour of Woolies, we drove to Skara Brae, where Historic Scotland was holding a free drink+end of season sale in the visitor centre and we were able to tour the oldest settlement in Europe on our own.

Only a few more days to go till we break up - can't come soon enough. I'm shattered. Christmas in Londinium - hooray! If I don't get back to the computer before then, hope you all (although I fear my readership is now down to 2) have a great Christmas. Finally, Lorraine's joke:

Did you hear about the dyslexic devil-worshipper? He sold his soul to Santa.

Puff C. v. OIC

Above: seals in Flotta harbour

A quiet month. Settling down in domestic bliss on Flotta is wonderful from a personal point of view, but lacks the drama and conflict necessary for literature, even at this bottom-of-the-pond level. However, turning Bill's bachelor tip into a 'cosy wee home' - with the emphasis on the 'wee': it's minute -has been a joy for both of us. We now have a lovely new livingroom carpet, a freshly painted kitchen,bathroom and livingroom and new flooring in the hall, porch and bathroom. That's our own work and expense. But it's a council house and the council, in its wisdom, has decided that all their houses on Flotta need renovating. I'd have done this during a period when the days were longer and the weather less inclement. But the Council clearly thought that November was just dandy for re-roofing, so the house has been covered in scaffolding for the past fortnight and occasionally the weather permits the workmen to hang a few more tiles before they have to retreat to their hut or else are blown into the sea by another storm. We are also to get a new front door - the present flimsy plywood effort blows open in the night when the weather is really bad - as well as a French door into the garden. This will not only enable us to see the glorious view when we are sitting down instead of the present sheet of plywood (maybe someone on the council had shares in the company) but will also mean that, in the event of fire, we would have a chance to escape. These one-door houses would be illegal in England. Just thought I'd add that patriotic health-and-safety point.

My new working arrangements are not ideal. My timetable on Hoy has been changed so I can no longer take advantage of leaving early on Tuesdays. I leave the house at 6.40am and catch the launch provided by Talisman for their oil terminal workers to the mainland. Mondays and Wednesdays I then drive to the airport for my day on Stronsay. The plane gets back about 3.30pm, so I then have to fill in a couple of hours before driving back to to catch the launch at 6.15, arriving home at 6.40. If the flight's been particularly awful, I fall asleep somewhere. The Hoy trip is less tedious, but more frustrating, because I can actually see Flotta but can't get there until - you guessed it - 6.40. 12-hour days consisting largely of travelling and hanging around are taking it out of me. Still, beats working in Dartford hands down.

The journey to work last Wednesday week was awful. The sea was so rough that I was actually thrown out of my seat on the launch. I couldn't believe the plane was going to go, but, sadly, it did. We flew higher than usual, presumably to allow room for the sudden vertical drops we kept experiencing. Apparently it got worse after I got off at Stronsay. At the next stop, Eday, the plane dropped like a stone and bounced off the tarmac. (Maybe he should have done what he did on Stronsay and landed in a field.) The wind was worse coming back and we were all a little green as we staggered off the plane.

I don't know if there's a pattern to this, but the plane flight this last Wednesday was just as frightening. I sat at the back and I confess I took a slightly sadistic pleasure in watching my new colleague's head bashing against the roof of the plane, as he had been somewhar smug about the ease of the job and how very simple being an itinerant was compared with whatever it was he did before embarking on a teaching career.

I only got as far as the mainland last Friday. Radio Orkney announced that the only school closing would be the one on Hoy, so I got back on the launch and straight back to bed. Bliss! It snowed in the night and Saturday we had sort of blizzardettes. I've put a couple of photos up - it reminds me of a trip I made once to northern Norway. Yes, dear reader: I have actually chosen to live here. I remember thinking, as the train whizzed through various isolated settlements on that Arctic trip, 'how could anyone live here?' Well, now I know.

How I lost my hat

No photos this week. I am trying to avoid carrying anything superfluous. The weather has been somewhat inclement. Coming off the ferry Saturday, the wind was so strong I felt myself being lifted off my feet and had to hook my arm over the jetty rail, so it was my woolly hat that got blown into the sea and not me. I dunno - I bought that hat in Kathmandu 19 years ago and it's survived the Himalayas but it didn't survive Flotta.
Yesterday's plane ride back to Kirkwall was frightening - horizon 20 degrees off vertical. Looked like one of those Second World War films (you know, the point just before our hero is gunned down by the Luftwaffe.) The boat home was, by comparison, a piece of cake, so I read a short story as we bounced over Scapa Flow. However, I abandoned Jack London halfway through, as it turned out to be a tale of man freezing to death in the icy wastes of Northern Canada and the subject-matter seemed a little too close to home for comfort. The Hudson Bay Company used to recruit in Orkney right up to the 1950s. They preferred Orcadians, presumably because they found the bracing climate of the Arctic just like home.
Today, a blizzard came on just as I was setting off down the jetty to the ferry, so I arrived in the passenger lounge completely covered in snow. A man said 'I see Christmas has come early.' One of my colleagues suggested taking my photo and using it as part of the Council's recruitment drive for itinerant teachers. We arrived at school just in time to see the kids being sent home. I was back home by 11.30am. Hooray!

The Scottish Midge, a horror story

So, back again. Weather lovely, Great Outdoors out of bounds, due to The Midge, a miniscule insect that abounds in vast clouds and sinks its microscopic jaws into any available part of one's anatomy, though preference is given to eyelids and bits normally covered by underwear.

We had a wonderful summer and were on our way back up the east coast of Scotland, healthy and relaxed, when flood warnings on our intended route sent us over to the west coast. Now the west coast of Scotland is deservedly famous - hauntingly beautiful, steeped in history - but a night's camping in Glencoe resulted in Bill being bitten so badly that I thought I'd have to take him to A&E. Face almost unrecognisable, eyelids swollen nearly shut, high temperature. The journey home was a bit of a nightmare and he's not really been well since.

Anyway, to happier memories. We were away for about 5 weeks, commencing with a journey through the Highlands, the highlight of which was our visit to Culloden. It was very moving, particularly for Bill, who had ancestors killed there. We also went to Edinburgh Castle, Bill in his kilt. He now features on the snapshots of dozens of Japanese tourists. We spent much of the holiday in England - a few days in Hastings and a few days in Cornwall, both courtesy of dear friends, bookending a long stay in a very sunny London. Great to see lots of old friends and a privilege to be at baby Annabels' welcome to the world. Clothes were purchased at Petticoat Lane and Bluewater (of course!), theatre was Kneehigh's brilliant production of Brief Encounter at the Haymarket Cinema and we went to the first Folk Prom, wonderful, apart from the Bartok, which bored me senseless and sent Bill for an early trip to the bar. Perhaps our best night out was Deep Purple at the Motor Show on a gorgeous warm evening with a beautiful sunset to drive home in.

We also took a day trip to France. We got to Folkestone and I drove into a carpark and asked if it was the right place for the ferry to Boulogne. 'You're too late,' the attendant told me. 'About 8 years too late.' Apparently there no longer ferries from Folkestone, so we went to Calais instead. I got very confused at the terminal in Dover. Looking for a place to park, I accidentally started driving onto the ferry, without a ticket, so they sent me through a tunnel where I was stopped by customs. 'Stop!' I threw my hands in the air. 'They're not armed,' Bill said gently. I think I've been watching too many American films. It was hard to convey what I'd done wrong - they thought we were returning from a booze cruise. Calais has really changed from the last time I was there, nearly 30 years ago. Then, it looked like the war had only just ended; it's all smart now.

The first few weeks back were difficult for me: I was homesick and found it hard to get back into life here. But am now happily settled into my new home with Bill on Flotta and my new timetable and classes. The teaching is going well; I feel better organised, for one thing. The nice little Drama job one day a week has been axed because of funding cuts, so money is tighter, but working 4 days a week is very pleasant! A new timetable on Hoy has meant that I am now timetabled for one afternoon's Drama a week and I'm pleased to say they're rising to the challenge. (Pause for quick preen.) I did a whole day of Drama on Stronsay last week, when several classes were off on trips, so I had the whole of Primary 7 and Secondary 1 (sounds impressive, but there were only 17 of them) together for a day of acting out Scottish folk tales, which was great fun. Not so many funny things to report this year, perhaps because the kids and I are more used to each other, but I struggled, as usual, to teach iambic pentameter. 'It's called iambic pentameter because each line has 5 ti-tums, called 5 feet. What do you think each individual ti-tum is called?' 'A toe?' How much more sensible than a foot, eh?

Bill took the better photos, but I haven't yet sorted out how to get them on this blog. Above are: Bill, a redcoat and a Jacobite at Edinburgh Castle, a scene from the War and Peace Show in Kent (I also have a video clip of a Spitfire that suddenly appeared overhead and rather stole the thunder from the parade of tanks), a roadside scene in the Highlands of Glen something-in-Gaelic-I-can't-spell, and a random Italian tourist with a stag that turned up at a tea van near Inverness .

Midsummer

Apologies to all of you who are kind enough to urge me on - sorry it's bin another lengthy gap between blogs. Problem is, my year of underwork has caught up with me and I've been discovering all sorts of things I should have been doing and didn't know about. I'm not trained in the Scottish education system and there's an assumption that I can intuit various things that are required of a Scottish English teacher. I do sometimes miss being part of a department (not often admittedly, but just occasionally.) Apart from apologising, I'd just like to send out a couple of messages: Simon - your French email address doesn't work. I tried and tried! Kushal: how lovely to hear from you. How's it going? Now back to the blog...

The big event of the past few weeks, workwise, was the trip to Shetland with the Hoy kids. The entire secondary school, bar one who had to attend a funeral, spent 4 days on a trip organised by Alaric, another itinerant teacher and all-round Outdoor Man. I was the obligatory female teacher. I had mixed feelings about this trip, not least because the Head rang me to say that she wasn't happy about Alaric's cavalier attitude to health and safety, and I was having visions of fishing kids out of the sea. As it turned out, though, he was a brilliant leader, just allergic to filling in all those quadruplicate forms.

We took the overnight ferry. I had the cabin between that of the boys and the girls, while Alaric had to sleep in a chair, having only booked one staff cabin - WHAT?! - but the Head informed him that that arrangement was unacceptable, so I didn't have the embarrassment of telling him so myself. The girls, who were absolutely brilliant all week, went straight off to sleep and the boys didn't. I eventually fell asleep and woke in the morning to find 4 of the little sods had kept the others up all night, so the first day was marred by the fact that those who needed their kip were really quite unwell. This meant that my trip to the fantastic brand-new museum in Lerwick was curtailed by having to look after vomiting children and I missed some of the best stuff.

Shetland is wonderful. It's much more like Norway than Orkney, despite the Orcadians insistence that they're not really British. The weather was fantastic , which meant that we were able to wear the kids out with lots of outdoor activities, so we didn't have any repetitions of the night on the boat. Selected highlights: Mousa Broch, the most complete of all the weird milk churn-shaped dry stone towers unique to the North of Scotland. The Norway Bus Museum, dedicated to the Shetlanders who risked their lives sailing to Norway during the war to rescue Resistance workers in tiny fishing boats while the Luftwaffe rained bombs on them. North Atlantic Fisheries College, where mariners are trained and scientific research is carried out into all aspects of marine life. (One thing I was particularly pleased about was that Graeme announced after we'd been there about an hour that this was where he wants to study: that boy has grown up so much over the past year - brilliant.) They've got a sort of zoo where you can see - and handle - some of the weird creatures that live in the seas round here. Visiting another Junior High School, where Sam blew their kids out of the water with his accordion playing. Dressing up as Vikings to tour a reconstructed settlement. Touring Jarlshof and seeing how fascinated kids can be by archaelogy if it's presented in an imaginative way. Donald on the phone to his mum every night for an hour - " We had mince and tatties tonight. Aye, it was aal reet" - and proudly showing me the little gifts he'd bought for his brand-new baby brother at every gift shop. Going round the Aith lifeboat and, when the coxswain asked them if they'd lost any relatives in the Longhope lifeboat disaster, the sensible way they conversed with him about it. (I was astonished how many relatives of the kids had died. A grandfather, several uncles...)

All in all, they were brilliant. Even on the boat going home, we found an Estonian young woman who was to play in the Orkney Folk Festival - which I missed, as it coincided with the trip and I was too tired after to catch the last couple of gigs - and she and Iona sat for an hour and played fiddle together.

We had chartered a boat to take them from Stromness to a jetty at the top of Hoy, which the skipper agreed to do as long as we could dump the kids and go, so we got back at 11.50pm only to find no parents, as the letter had been sent out with the wrong time, so there was a hairy half-hour in which Alaric and I feared we'd be abandoned in the most desolate place you could imagine. Eventually parents started arriving and, of course, no one, apart from Iona's mum, bothered to thank us or even say 'good evening' - par for the course I've always found on school trips.

Other events of the past weeks have included a weekend in Dundee, home of the Beano and the Dandy, which included two beautiful drives through the Highlands - the Cairngorms still had a lot of snow on them - and me driving at 90 mph along the John o' Groats road to try to catch the ferry, only to find that they'd given us the wrong time and we were 2 hours early. Clearly the good folk at Northlink Ferries haven't quite grasped the 24-hour clock. 7 o' clock is NOT 1700 hours, ducky.

I've enjoyed 2 terms of teaching Drama on Thursdays, but the Council has axed the funding for that post, so next term I look forward to a 4-day week and incipient poverty. However, we break up for the summer hols next week and we're enjoying White Nights at present, so there are plenty of Reasons to be Cheerful.

Gainful employment

Greetings, gentle readers. I apologise for my long absence from Blogland. Thank you to everyone who was kind enough to notice/complain. I have been able to see a fair few you in the flesh during my e-silence, so you know pretty much what I've been up to. The main problem for me with blogging is the photograph business. I'm sure this is not the correct way to do it, but every time I want to shove a few piccies on the blog, I have to download all 350+ that are on my camera. This takes forever and I usually end up going to bed because I have to get up so early. (The other thing is, of course, that I am now spending so much time with Bill the Broadbandless Boyfriend that I am not at home to make use of my over-priced internet access. Still, I'm not complaining, obviously.)

Rather than plod through everything of the past few months, here are a few random details. We've had a lot of weather. One day that particularly springs to mind was my final trip back from Stronsay before we broke up for the Easter hols. The flight out was rather like a fairground ride, the sort that leaves you with a sprained coccyx. The pilot appeared to be unconcernedly writing in his log, which comforted me, until I started wondering whether it was actually a farewell note to his wife. The weather worsened during the day and we were amazed to see the plane at all, only half an hour late. It looked like a badly constructed paper aeroplane, now at a 45 degree angle to left, then ditto to the right. The flight home was ghastly: Lorraine next to me was doing impressions of a cat scrabbling to be let out of its box, while I was clinging to her arm and praying. The pilot (the one who does the full safety check every time) was chatting away to the bloke sitting next him as if this 'bandits at 2 o'clock' routine was nothing out of the ordinary. (He has now left us again to return to flying in the Antarctic, so I guess he was just cheered by the excitement of all that lurching and swooping.) On the dashboard of the plane, a notice reads 'Aerobatics are forbidden.'

We were still at school when it was Easter. Had to work Good Friday. Boo! Not only that but we had the dress rehearsal for 'Joseph' and I had to stay overnight on Hoy because the local Gable End Theatre had asked us to repeat the one-act play. The weather was dire - the wind was so strong you could scarcely stand up. By the time I had spent a day and an evening on that godforsaken island I was so chilled I couldn't think. Luckily the cast were used to having a less-than-dynamic director and essentially did everything themselves. The theatre was sold out - it was lovely. I spent the night with my colleague, Jill, in her beautiful house, a converted mill down by the water's edge, i.e. the shore of Scapa Flow. What a place to live! Even in that snow-storm I managed to be envious.

The Easter break was lovely: the schools were closed because of snow, so we got the Tuesday off in addition to the scheduled Easter Monday. I spent Saturday on Flotta, trying to regain body temperature and then Easter Day Bill and I got the 6am launch to the mainland and went to church. This entailed a hair-raising drive into Kirkwall on a completely untreated road, the only main road in the island, in fact. Arriving in Kirkwall, every single little lane had been scraped and gritted. Orkney Islands Council gets their priorities right again. Easter Monday saw a succession of blizzards on Flotta, which was exciting from the right side of the double-glazing, and then the bonus Tuesday was bright and glorious and we went for a lovely walk and saw the first spring lambs. They call this 'lambing winter': you had to pity the poor shivery little things.

The Tuesday off meant the cancellation of one performance of 'Joseph' (shame) but they did it Wednesday when I was in Stronsay. Then they decided that I mustn't miss it, seeing as I'd directed it, so they did it on the Thursday night and I had to spend another night on bloody Hoy. Actually, I'm pleased I saw it: it went really well and the kids were just lovely. The icing on the bannock was that after the show I saw the Northern Lights for the first time - not the incredible psychedelic spectacle, admittedly, but an impressive weird green light, like the first gleams of dawn only at 11pm.

Two days later I was flying down to London, a subject for another time, seeing as it's already very late.

But before I go, why the title? Just to let yo'll know that I was interviewed for my (currently temporary) post last week and and I got the job. So I now have a permanent job up here. As Lorraine said, 'You're now DOOMED!'

Photos: farewell to Ian, the safety-obsessed Loganair pilot, who's off to Anarctica; a partly-built igloo on Flotta (presumably built by Inuits blown in on the gale); 'lambing winter'; some of the shortest and most enthusiastic cast members of 'Joseph.'

'Break a leg'

An eventful few days. In brief, the play I have been directing opened the one-act play festival - and failed to win. I do not care about this: the adjudicator was, in my opinion, fair and his ideas were good. He praised my direction, which was most encouraging, seeing as it's the first play I've directed (apart from a group of teachers in the SATs scenes from 'Romeo and Juliet' a few years ago in Wembley, something that had the happy outcome of introducing Andrew (Romeo) to Charmaine (Juliet) and bringing about a romance that has, for all I know, ended in marriage.) Unfortunately, one of my cast of two is, in her own words 'highly competitive' and I doubt whether she will ever speak to me again. It was good, but the other plays were better. We did, however, receive high praise for the 'Ecuadorian fertility figure' - our best prop - and I hope to embarrass yo'all with a photo of it very soon.

The morning of the play I slipped on the highly polished lino of Kirkwall airport and have sprained my ankle. I was in shock, methinks, which led me to attempt to get to work notwithstanding (literally - I had to be pushed down to the plane in a wheelchair) I had to get off at Sanday to let off another teacher, so I told the airstrip chap - imagine elderly Orcadian Viking-type - that I needed his arm because I had fallen over. He glared at my shoes (as chosen by Mrs Martin, stylish yet sensible) and said "This wouldna have happened if ye'd been wearing rrrubber boots!"

I got to Stronsay, whereupon Mae, the Head, packed me off to the doctor, who decided he'd like to put acupuncture needles in my foot. "Can you feel that?" I could feel nothing, as between the sub-zero of the plane and equal chill of his surgery, my feet were numb with cold. I then went home on the ferry, took a cab to get my car from the airport and went to bed for the rest of the day. Thus not going to work took 5 hours and cost me 14 quid.

Today I hirpled to Hoy (yes, they actually say 'hirple' here - I thought it only existed in the novels of Sir Walter Scott) to endure several hours of Andrew Lloyd Webber. The kids were great - I explained that I had hurt my ankle and was therefore in pain and in a foul temper and they ran round fetching me chairs for my foot and fresh ice-packs and being good, bless 'em.

I have taken no photos since last week, but the photo above is for Doctor Mom. (It's just the alternative route to Stronsay, Viva.)

Stranded in Sanday, Afloat in Flotta

Bloggable - my new word. I have had a lovely fortnight, but unless this turns into the online equivalent of a newspaper's 'Nature Notes', not a great deal that is bloggable, as a lot of the pleasure has been in seeing amazing skies and being aware of rapidly lengthening days, so that a trip to Hoy was in the dark on a Tuesday and in the dawn by the Friday.

There is no half-term holiday for teachers this term: the kids had two days off while staff had to attend in-service training, but as I am only contracted to teach 0.8 of a timetable, I had to go to only the first day and thus was able to spend three blissful days on Flotta.

Last week brought the only fly in the proverbial ointment, when the short flight home turned into five hours of frozen misery, as Kirkwall airport was fog-bound and we flew, first to Sanday, where we hung around for over an hour while my body temperature plummetted, and next to Westray, where we waited for a ferry for even longer and I was approaching hyperthermia by the time the ferry arrived. It is, however, a large ferry, and served hot food. I'm not fond of bacon butties, but mine tasted like manna from heaven.

On Thursday I did my first day of my new job teaching Drama here there and everywhere. I was sent to Dounby and earned a day's pay for two hours work. I stayed in the afternoon to see the little ones enact an Orkney wedding as part of their work on 'festivals.' It was very sweet: the bride and groom, only three feet tall, took their vows very seriously in the 'kirk' and then there was a reception in the hall, with traditional food and Scottish dancing and even a real wedding cake. The 'brither o' the bride' made a speech, in which he declared he'd be 'glad tae see the back of her cos she used to break ma peedie tractors. No, but seriously, she's no sae bad and bakes the best floory bannocks in Orkney.'

Fridays I now teach two gifted primary school children for an hour before my own class. It was a stunningly beautiful, very still and frosty day, so I took them outside with notebooks and they just listened and wrote down everything they experienced, then went back in and wrote poems. Mary, in particular, is very creative with language. I pointed out that the sheep were silent but that in a few weeks the fields would be full of baaing and bleating, once the lambs wwre born, as all the ewes were pregnant. 'It's field hospital,' said Mary thoughtfully. A flock of starlings descended on the roof of the school and started showing off: 'The starlings are seeking stardom, ' she wrote.

It has taken me several days to get this to publish, as the broadband connexion keeps failing, so refs. to 'a fortnight' have stretched into two and a half weeks. Photographic offerings are of dawn over Scapa Flow, the first from the road in a gale and the second from the ferry to Flotta on a beautiful morning, while the other two feature the penguins of Flotta and the spectacular aerobatics of the Coast Guard helicopter. (He bought me a box of Milk Tray.)

The North wind doth blow and we shall have...

a day off school. Thank you, Orkney Islands Council.

The O.I.C.

is turning me

into a lounge lizard

as on Friday

they decided

there'd be a blizzard.

There wasn't, I'm pleased to say

but I had a duvet day

and Saturday brought snow

to make Kirkwall almost pretty,

which sadly has all melted

as down the rain has pelted

so I must return to work, which is a pity.

(Blame Mrs Martin for this nonsense. She requested poems.)

Yes, it's been a week of serious laziness. I worked Monday, the usual half-day Tuesday and that afternoon flew to Inverness. I cannot comment on the beauties or otherwise of Inverness as it was dark when I arrived and was raining so hard throughout my stay that I formed no opinion of it. It does have a lovely river running through it, though. I stayed in a B&B run by a very camp elderly Hebridean (quite a bizarre combination) and attended a course at a posh hotel the next day. The course turned out to be completely inappropriate for me, as they informed me when I arrived (a bit late for that) but I dutifully took notes and enjoyed a fantastic lunch (which more than made up for the curling sandwiches offered by OIC on my two previous lots of in-service training.) I just had time to hit the shops, stock up on Marks and Sparks knickers and a fresh supply of thick tights and bought a £320 suit in Debenhams sale for 80 quid. Result!

On Thursday, I was meant to be in Hoy, but my new boss, the performing arts co-ordinator - had forgotten to make the necessary arrangements. I offered to go anyway, but he said that the weather was too risky and I might not get back (a night on Hoy - horrors!) so we went together to a primary school to discuss the drama I'll do there, as I will be covering his work every Thursday. I got paid a day's wage for this brief jaunt. Afterwards, I drove him to Stromness to pick up his car from the mechanic: now, that was hairy. There was a hailstorm on the way, with jagged hailstones like shards of glass, and a wind so strong I was quite concerned the car might be blown off the road and I'd be viewing Harray Loch from under the surface.

The promised worse weather never arrived, but Saturday morning it snowed a bit, then it snowed a lot. Very pretty. Emma and her mates went tobogganing. They didn't want to fork out for sledges, so she nicked some aerobic steps from the gym at Kirkwall Grammar School. She later went out to watch England lose the rugby (by that I mean they lost, not that she hoped they would, quite the reverse) which was great as (a) she shouts at the telly and (b) it meant I could watch 3 hours of David Attenborough's The Blue Planet uninterrupted. One of the things I failed to do failed to do when young enough, along with dyeing my hair green, was drop acid (other than in the more conventional sense of ruining my science overall) but an hour of the strange luminous creatures in the deep ocean made me feel as if I'd the experience without any unpleasant side-effects.

Photos are of our front garden, the Earl's Palace in Kirkwall, St Magnus Cathedral and A Cat ( for cat-lovers out there - you know who you are.)

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face...

This past week has been devoted to Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns, one of Literature's finest poets, though sadly incomprehensible, even to his fellow-countrymen. Certainly to his Orcadian fellow-countrymen, if last Friday's lesson was anything to go by.

"What do we know about Robert Burns?" "He was a womanising nymphomaniac," announced Graeme.

Burns wrote hundreds of excellent poems, collected thousands of songs, farmed, worked as an Exciseman, toured Scotland, drank a lot and fathered a remarkable number of illegitimate children. Put in this context, his early death seems more inevitable than tragic.

I can't say that Burns' love-songs were a great hit with the kids on Hoy (they're a little young) and poor Iona, bless her, was struggling with 'To a haggis' -

Is there that owre his French ragout

Or olio that wad staw a sow,

Or fricasee wad mak her spew

Wi' perfect sconner,

Looks down wi' sneering, scorfu' view

On sic a dinner?

But anyone that makes fun of the French snobbery about food is a pal o' mine, so Burns get ma vote!

Tam o'Shanter was a great success though and we spent a happy day deconstructing it, illustrating it and planning a film of it. I gave Donald a drawing of Burns' byre to colour in: "What breed of kye is that? What's that wee beastie on the stall?" It was a stoat, which I was foolish enough to tell him was the same colour as my hair, so the beastie is now labelled 'Ms Hainsworth.'

The weather had turned truly dreadful. Housemate Emma had a friend from Hartlepool staying for a couple of days who was due to leave Friday as he had to go to a wedding on Saturday. Every ferry was cancelled and he finally left at midday today. He should have docked by one but the last I heard he was still at sea at half past two. So it was with some trepidation that 10 of us set off for Flotta for their Burns Night Supper. I organised this little jolly, and I was terrified it was going to be awful, as, once we set off at 7.20p.m., there was no possibility of leaving till 2a.m. And, given the weather, there was a serious risk of being stuck there for many hours more. I don't have a vast circle of friends here and I thought it was about to be reduced by 9! But it was a real laugh. Flotta is a small island halfway between Mainland and Hoy. It has a population of 100 and a school with 6 kids in it. Its main claim to fame is that it is a major employer, as is it an oil terminal. It was the workers' boat, a brand-new catamaran called the Flotta Lass that took us across. It went to Hoy first, where Mabel (Scottish dancing teacher extraordinaire and now an accomplished performer of Tam o' Shanter thanks to me: it was because of Mabel that the lesson went so well) Graeme and his grandpa got on. Granpa abandoned Graeme as soon as he arrived, so he sat with us all evening and led us clueless idiots in the dancing. What a star! I feel this auspicious event deserves a little poem:

We set off for Flotta

To celebrate the poet

I was invited by a bloke on the ferry who failed to turn up

(Wouldn't you know it)

So I never got to see him

In his kilt and his sporran

But I ate three helpings of haggis

And got severe indigestion.

After enough haggis and clapshot

To make a girl sink,

They powdered the floor till it was like an ice-rink.

Like Burns' witches and warlocks

We lapped and we flang

And we slipped in the powder

And got the moves wrong.

We dashed the White Sergeant

Wi' Graeme, aged 13 and a quarter

(Ma date fer the neet

On the island of Flotta.)

When we were not dancing (or, in my case, groaning, as I ate far too much - but it was worth it) Graeme entertained us with scurrilous gossip about just about everyone in the room. He also told us that the guys who were running the bar (cheap beer! another first for Orkney!) had made a 'tourist' video about Flotta and put it on YouTube. It's quite funny - just type 'Flotta' into the YouTube search thingy. Anyway, a good time was had by all and the whole thing cost six quid. You might also like the following website:
http://www.wallydug.demon.co.uk/haggis/leaflet.html

Health & Safety

I remember, back in Dartford days, when everyone would be saying around this time "I've been back a week and I don't feel as if I'd had a holiday at all." (Actually, one hadn't really HAD a holiday, seeing as the run-up to Christmas consisted of marking A-level coursework and one started the 2 inch thick pile of GCSE marking on Boxing Day.) Thus I can gloat: I've been back a week and scarcely feel as if I've done any work. I do, however, feel pretty ropey and, as 'news' is generally 'bad news' this at least gives me something to write about, seeing as it's dark here mainly, and days are grey and cold.

A most pleasant holiday in the company of those I care for, nearly all of whom managed to be ill, or have been ill, or were about to be ill. But not me! she shouted, Lennie-like, something I put down to being under-worked.

I flew down and back, just as well, as the ferries were cancelled and roads very dangerous. You only realise what that means when you come back several days after New Year and find the supermarkets devoid of fresh food. Somerfields had one Savoy cabbage that appeared to have crawled in there to die. That was it. I wouldn't fly if I could help it, though. You don't get fed, even though it's BA, and the security is tedious. I had 2 pots of homemade jam with me and they made me throw them away. You can no longer wheel your case from car to check-in at Kirkwall's tiny airport, as huge concrete blocks now block the access (presumably because they are expecting attacks from terrorists no taller than 9 inches and who lack climbing skills.)

I have put in a full week this week, as I am now the stand-in for the County Drama Advisor (note use of capitals to make this seem impressive) every Thursday. Wednesday's trip back from Stronsay was less than pleasant: it took the best part of two hours to get home. It was a surprise to see the plane, which appeared from an entirely different direction than usual, as it was so windy. Once airborne, it was so buffetted by the gale that we were at an angle of 45degrees, first one way, then the other. It was like being in one of those war films starring Kenneth More. I was so cold when I got home I had to go to bed to warm up. I had a rehearsal that evening for this one-act play I'm directing and walked out into the sort of rain that soaks you instantaneously to the skin. Even cuddling my little hottie, HW Bear, failed to warm me through by morning. But a trip to Hoy always cheers me up, especially as I was being paid a day's supply to do nothing.

The idea is that the entire school will put on 'Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat' at the end of March. Somehow, this ghastly Lloyd-Webber farrago has passed me by and I knew nothing about it, so I spent part of the day watching a dvd featuring Donny Osmond as Joseph and Joan Collins as Potiphar's wife. You don't know the meaning the term 'cheesy' until you have seen this film. It was truly dreadful. Then we had a staff meeting to decide on a modus operandi. I had assumed that I was expected to direct the show, until it was pointed out that I wouldn't be there for much of the rehearsal time. So who IS going to direct it? We're too busy announced the acting Head. (There are only 2 fulltime teachers at the school and the non-teaching Head is off on long-term sick leave.) So a proper show, in a theatre, with lights, sound and costumes is going to be directed by - er - nobody? Hmm...

The week ended on a high note, as Friday's lessons on Hoy went really well - a first - and I let them spend the last lesson attempting to teach me Scottish dancing. Me dancing - always good for a laugh. As for why I want to learn to dance, that'll have to wait till a future post. There was a beautiful sunset as I was leaving - photos above. It was just as frosty clear on the last day of term, when we had a fun day. I let the boys out to let off steam and they put me on the zip-line: they were laughing too much at me screaming to take a photo, so I include one of Ryan on it instead. The calm one was from the ferry that same morning: you can supply, in your imagination, the Viking longships that once sailed these same waters, gazed at the beautiful mountains of Hoy and, with that innate sense of the poetic with which those soulful Scandinavians were blessed, decided to call it 'High Island.'

So I was in a good mood and had jolly plans for a nice long frosty walk today, but walked out the front door and slipped on black ice on the concrete path, so I now feel achey and bruised and generally wretched. Curses be upon Orkney Islands Council and their bloody penny-pinching council house design: massive long sloping path with no safety rail and facing north so ice, once formed, never melts. I've hurt my back, my neck, an elbow and a wrist, so once I've finished this, HW Bear and I are crawling back into bed with a hot whisky and a nice book.

Happy New Year, one and all. May 2008 bring you health and happiness and, for those among you in the teaching profession, less marking.