The play what I wrote

At last something has happened that I can write about (other matters being things that it would be unprofessional to relate.) We splashed out on a night in Kirkwall in order to attend the BBC recording of 'Mark Steel's in Town', a Radio 4 show in which the comedian goes to a town and takes the mickey out of it. He did Dartford proud (hard not to mock Dartford) but seemed on shakier ground wi' Kirkwall, possibly because he'd read the Orkneyinga Saga and discovered that these people's ancestors were seriously violent, a trait that still emerges in the annual contest of The Ba', one of those ruleless games in which the entire male population participates. The broadcast is on Wed. 12th May at 6.30.

Had Mr Steel hung around for a few more days, Flotta would have given him some additional material, because on Saturday it was the site of the WORLD PREMIERE of Ghosts in the Machine, a comedy written by your truly. I formed Flotta's first-ever Drama group last October and wrote a play for them to perform. Rehearsals had to be fitted round the pecularities of island life: all secondary-age kids are weekly boarders in Kirkwall; shopping and music lessons occupy Saturdays and Youth Club takes up Sat. nights; Sunday includes Sunday School and Kirk and adults who work at the oil terminal do 12-hour shifts. This left one hour per week to rehearse, so it was a miracle that we got it together on time. The plot concerned a group of ghosts who are doomed to spend all eternity on the Orkney island of Flirtay, a place where nothing happens, and the machinations of the Orkney Council, who are determined to spend even less on Flirtay than they do already so that they can go on all-expenses-paid trips to Norway. (Any resemblance between this bunch of incompetents and my employers is purely coincidental.)

Half the population of the island turned up; they all laughed in the right places; the cast of adults, teenagers and kids really did me proud. I only wish we could do the play again, seeing as they all worked so hard. We've been invited to do the play again at the Gable End Theatre on Hoy, but although the two islands are only 15 minutes apart, transport links are so useless that I fear it may be impossible. (On Fridays, I teach for 1hr 40 min. and spend nearly 4 hr. travelling, out of the house for 9hr in total.)

Meanwhile, Spring keeps attempting to spring, only to be driven back by winds straight from the Arctic. But the lambs are thriving, nonetheless!

The 0.01 of a mile high club

April may have been the cruellest month to an ex-patriate American who could enjoy the pleasures of London in January, but here on Flotta, January is the pits. Once England thawed, our glorious weather turned dreich (an untranslateable Scots word that encompasses sideways rain, squally wind, poor light and an accompanying sense of misery) and, apart from going to work, I've scarcely left the house. The weather was so bad on Thursday that our Burns Night supper on the following evening was a washout. The wind had calmed, but I imagine that most people thought the island would be inacessible and so failed to turn up. Thus the anticipated 130 punters became 51, leaving us with a dozen uneaten haggises and about a quarter-ton of clapshot. The leftover mince has been frozen: I wonder how long it'll be before the 'Old Folks' who are provided with a free lunch every month will notice that they've been served the same meal every time?

The sole event of note over the past few days was that I was given a chance to experience the world's shortest flight, solo. The new pilot, John, couldn't believe that I'd been here two and a half years and had never flown from Westray to Papa Westray, so I got a free ride! I also got my certificate and a free bottle of Highland Park whisky. Hooray!

Snow? What snow?

The temperature in the UK may be only 2 degrees warmer than Antarctica (well, it IS summer down there, after all) but here in Flotta, it's almost balmy. Cynics might say that the infamous Flotta Flare (Flotta's own contribution to global warming) is keeping us snow-free, but whatever the reason, it's really been lovely here, with crisp sunny days and beautiful views of the snow-covered hills of mainland Orkney and of Hoy, which looks like Spitzbergen got towed down here for a refit.

What with being ill for the last week of term, and the school on Hoy failing so far to reopen, owing to an invasion of polar bears, I have done one days work since 16 December. If things carry on like this, I'll soon be unemployable. Coming back from my one day's toil last Wednesday, I was just dozing off nicely in the plane, when suddenly the pilot put it into a near-vertical climb, rather alarming to say the least. (I did the unforgivable and shrieked: we itinerants are supposed to display sang froid at all times.) Turns out the manoeuvre was to avoid a flock of geese, so it could be he'd saved our lives. One of the notorious near-misses of itinerant flying folklore is the time a flock of geese was NOT avoided and an engine went out because a goose got sucked into it. (When they dismantled the engine to assess the damage, they found the poor goose was still alive, despite being completely featherless.)

Christmas was lovely: Bill and I took turns to be ill this vacation, but both managed to be well for Christmas Day and New Years Eve. Bill cooked a fantastic meal on each occasion - duck, wild boar - I had the East Midlands traditional pork pie-for-breakfast on Boxing Day (yes, even the East Midlands has traditions) - and New Year we were first-footed and then went first-footing ourselves. It was fun - I'm more used to rising than coming home at 5.45 am these days.

Photo is of seabirds I startled as I walked past Kirk Bay (on my daily walk in the sunshine. Just thought I'd mention that again.)