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!