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.)

Merry Christmas, Snorri!

When I was little, I had a book called 'Snorri the Seal' about a baby seal called - you guessed it - Snorri and how he coped with murderous attempts on his little furry person by Orca, the killer whale, and how he met the elves who create the Northern Lights. Well, up here the Northern Lights are called the Merry Dancers, but we do have pods of orca in the Flow and we certainly have thousands of little snorris. Twice a week, I fly over the island of Lingaholm, which is just off the coast of Stronsay and apparently is where one-quarter of the world's population of grey seals goes to give birth. You can see them packed like - and, from a distance, resembling - sardines, all round the entire coast, with the overspill ensconced on the grass.

When I first started flying, I was lucky enough to see two seals swimming agilely under the glassy surface of the water, chasing fish, and I'd always hoped to see that again. Down in the harbour, we have our own (much smaller) seal colony here on Flotta and it's a real treat to be able to wish them good morning as I stroll down the pier to my 7a.m. boat. But I've got their number: these chubby whitish babies heave themselves into the water, giving Mama and aunties the illusion that they're off to swimming practice, but on a still day you can see them, sitting on the bottom, on a nice cushion of seaweed. Do you remember doing that when you were supposed to be clocking up your compulsory 10 lengths?

Most of our seals have gone now. You can occasionally see a head poking above the surface in the harbour, and Lingaholm still has a few half-moon shapes curled up on her shores, but I had assumed that most of the colony had left for the open sea. However, two weeks ago, I was flying back from Stronsay and spotted a seal swimming through the kelp. Excited, I tried to see some more. There were, dozens, no, hundreds, then - to my amazement - I realised that I was looking at thousands of seals, all swimming in the same direction. I can only assume that I had witnessed the winter dispersal of the colony, as they only congregate in order to give birth and mate again.

We haven't had the severe weather that has hit England. Bill went into Kirkwall to do the Christmas shopping (I've been bed-ridden since last Wednesday with a 'viral respiratory infection') on Monday and said both Mainland and Hoy were covered in snow. But Flotta remains snow-free and all of half a degree above freezing. Positively balmy! To recall sunnier days, I've done my best to upload a video of Snorri and co. plus a few photos, including one of the harbour as it appears on those days I manage to get home on an earlier boat and catch a little daylight. MERRY CHRISTMAS one and - if there's more of you - all!

Of Mice and Meerkats

The previous owner of our caravan lives on Stronsay. Despite the van being kept at the back of his L-shaped house and sheltered by an earthen bank and a fence, he had a huge iron staple driven into said bank and kept the caravan tied down, with the mooring rope going through a similar staple embedded into an oildrum full of concrete. Here on Flotta, we have to park it in a windswept area on the shores of Scapa Flow. We also have no means of tying it down. So, rather than wake up one morning to see our beloved caravan joining the German Navy (i.e. the one that was scuttled at the end of the First World War) we drove it down to a farm in England, just off the M6, where it's going to spend the winter courtesy of a Mr Skidmore. We thought this would be safer than leaving it somewhere in Scotland. I discovered today that we had both had a more or less identical nightmare about the van being swept away in the Cumbrian floods. Still, better with Mr Skidmore than here, as the weather is grim! Gales, driving rain, very cold...

We had a lot of things to do at the house, such dealing with the usual Autumn influx of mice (ugh!) and having a new carpet fitted (gorgeous!) so little time to catch up with pals, unfortunately, but we did manage to see 'Turandot' at the Coliseum, which was fantastic, as well as a day at London Zoo, to feed our meerkat obsession. We'd just walked in when a child spoke to me: to my great embarrassment, I'd no idea who she was. As she was a kid I teach on Stronsay, who I'd seen only a week previously, I felt a bit of a fool. Autumn was especially beautiful this year - the first Indian summer since I first moved to London in 2002 - and it wasn't until we got back to Aberdeen that the weather broke. The ferry journey home, normally a tedious six hours, took nearly eleven. A life on the rolling wave etc. We'd had to come back early because I was supposed to do a day of in-service training: I woke up in the B&B at the time it was due to start, so I went home instead, which almost cost me three days pay (a Friday and a weekend) but I'll say this for Orkney Islands Council, they are quite understanding when it comes to seasickness.

The problem with living on Flotta is that you can't get off the island in the evening (not unless you want to pay for a restaurant meal and a night in a B&B) so no pantomime for me this year, or any other social activity, so I have started a Drama Group, a Flotta first as far as I can make out. I have written a play for them to perform, so with any luck news of its World Premiere will soon be on its way. Rather ambitiously, it has a cast of 14: so far, I haven't had that many people turn up to audition, but I have already had complaints that my chosen time coincides with 'folk needing to go the byre' (that's mucking out the cowshed to you and me) and couldn't I hold the rehearsals on an evening during the week? I pointed out that all but four of the island's children and teenagers are away as weekly boarders at the Kirkwall school during the week and it was mainly to keep them occupied at the weekends that I'd set up the group in the first place. However, I'd forgotten a key fact of rural life, i.e. that if you do anything or nothing, people will find something to bellyache about.

Photos: Caravan prepares for hibernation; an iguana (?); otters; aardvaarks underground; Meerkat Rex; view from our house north; and ditto south.

Travels with a ginger beer plant

[I wrote this in August, at the end of the holiday, but have been having photo download problems (caused by incompetence rather than a technical fault.]

The ancient English tradition of 'beating the bounds' consisted of an annual trip by the villagers around the parish boundary. In order to ensure the key landmarks were remembered, the youth of the village were given a good thump at each relevant tree, rock or ruin. This - I assume - ensured that everyone had a strong sense of belonging (as well as a sore bum.) I'm not sure of Bill had this in mind when he planned our honeymoon: as I am now a member of a clan, by marriage, we spent an awful lot of time doing Highland things. No violence, obviously, but an awful lot of driving! Over the past 7 weeks, I have done nearly 3,000 miles, the result being not dissimilar to the effects of beating the bounds. But we had a fabulous time and I'm not complaining.

We bought a caravan, which, despite my total lack of self-confidence, I actually enjoyed driving very much. I have to admit that so far I can only drive it forward and was forced to look tearful and helpless in order to attract the attention of any kind, experienced caravanner who wished to do his good deed for the day and either help Bill push or reverse the car himself.

We love caravanning!! Every site was different; all -bar one (see below) - were fantastic; all the other campers were just lovely, with happy, friendly kids and well-behaved dogs. (This blog's title, by the way, refers to the fact that I attempted to kepp a ginger beer plant alive all summer. The things that happened to that poor plant! We'd park the caravan. only to find that it had somehow tipped over and the bathroom floor was awash with ferment. It survived for a while, but sadly died, apparently of sucrose poisoning.)

We drove from the Aberdeen ferry down to London, anticipating a jungle of weeds, but in fact the garden was not too bad at all. It required a lot of hard work, but not machetes and flame-throwers as I'd anticipated. It was nice to be able to pop in to my former place of work and catch up with a few kids and colleagues. (Nicer still, to be able to assure said kids that, no, I would not be coming back.) Star moment: getting a congratulatory kiss from the new Head, a former colleague. (The previous one would probably have had me marched off the premises under armed escort.)

After a few days, it was all the way back up to Invernesshire for the Gathering of the Frasers of Lovat. This wonderful event, the first for 10 years, was not marred, fortunately, by our accommodation. There wasn't a 'recommended site' nearby, so we chose one at random, which turned out to be owned by some extremely dodgy geezers from Essex. Apparently the site was where Lord Lovat exercised his troops before the D-Day landings and the semi-derelict shower block was left over from his tenure. Bill was reunited with his laird, a merchant banker who lives in Geneva (they're not daft, these highland chiefs.) This charming young man was exceptionally tall: this seems to be a prerequisite for being a highland chief. We met several during our travels and all looked like ex-Guardsmen.

We went to the Gathering in Edinburgh, an amazing event, the first Gathering of the Clans for a hundred years. There were Scots from all over the world, including Native Canadian Scots, Maori Scots and Caribbean Scots. A bunch of German barbarians calling themselves the Lechfeld Highlanders fell in love with Bill and kept dragging him into their photo shoots: we never worked out what they were for, as they didn't speak a word of English, but they were frightfully jolly. After the Gathering, we returned to the North-East for the Aboyne Games: lots of caber-tossing, sword-dancing and so on. By this time, Bill seemed to have palled up with half the aristocracy of Scotland. Suddenly, his dyed-in-the-wool republicanism went out the window, to be replaced with remarks like "As I was saying to Lord So-and-So..."

Photos this time are of one of the new sculptures at the Camden Market Stables; Bill argues politics with aristocratic chum; Bill meets Robert the Bruce; a march-past by the Atholl Highlanders, who are, I believe, the last private army in Europe; and, for those who remember my years in Finchley, Bill with Mari.

No sich a bad day

Apologies for lengthy silence, dear reader (I suspect the singular is now apt.) I have been suffering from an excess of weather. After our cold and soggy wedding, Easter weekend was glorious, which gave practically every inhabitant of Flotta the chance to point out what a shame it was we hadn't got married a week later, but since then the weather has been appalling. It has been largely sunny but with a glacial wind that has driven me to near-insanity. (The title of this posting is the oft-repeated Orkney phrase that could possibly just tip me over the edge.) It soared to 12 degrees the other day and the tar on the slip road to the ferry started to melt. (I am not making this up.)The temperature, apart from a few pleasant days last week, has rarely gone into double figures.

Normally I would have a few entertaining pieces to relate from the world of work (seeing as venturing past the front door hasn't been an option during my days off for the past 8 weeks) but work has been a bit grim, well at one of my two schools anyway. For obvious reasons, I can't go into that, though it's certainly been a hot topic for discussion as my fellow itinerants and I have voyaged on the ferry. Just to make our joy complete, the school was inspected last week, which seemed a bit thick, seeing as there's only two weeks to go till the end of term.

Over on Stronsay, things are going well, at least. Last week we took them round Stromness (see photos) and this week we went to a talk by a real live astronaut. A kid asked the question I confess I was hoping someone would ask i.e. how do you go the toilet? It requires potty-training before going into space, plus careful positioning once in orbit apparently.

Photos: lambs; baby seals, Flotta; lonely teddy, Stromness; grass verge poppies, Orphir

Our Wedding

What none of you married women out there tell us about-to-be-married types is that the whole carefully-planned day will whizz past in a blur of plastered-on smiles and terror and, just as you're starting to relax and enjoy yourself, all the guests start to leave.

Why I got into such a state I can't imagine. I have been onstage enough times and have even appeared 'Live at the Hilton Hotel Colombo! For one night only! The worst singer-saxophonist in the world!' all without a care, but my wedding floored me. Bill did practically all the work; all I had to do was get my hair done and turn up; but somehow that fairytale elation never put in an appearance.

The weather was not kind - I could blame it on that. The hairdresser had managed to coax curls out of my straight-as-a-yard-of-pumpwater hair and it really looked nice. I'd spent the past year growing it for the occasion and the first thing she did was chop 6" off it, so that was rather pointless, but Bill was pleased to find his hair is now longer than mine. The Big Surprise he'd set up for me was that I was to ride to the church in a carriage drawn by two beautiful horses, Finn and Heidi. I'd picked the hotel for my night alone in Kirkwall because it had a courtyard-style carpark on the lee side of the building, away from the perpetual gale that sweeps the harbour front. What they failed to tell me was that they are turning their carpark into a building site, so I had to exit into the teeth of said gale. It began to rain at exactly the time the horses turned up. We trotted through Kirkwall in the rain. The photographer ensured that neither the curls nor my 'waterproof'' mascara would survive the trip by spending 15minutes taking photos before we set off. It was raining so hard that not even the hardy souls normally out on the streets of Kirkwall were out to see my ceremonial entrance.

However, the service was lovely. St Olaf's was packed, which was very touching, and the service - a modern Scottish Episcopalian liturgy - was just perfect. There was a piper outside and my cousin David and I proceeded up the aisle to something unpronounceable by Handel. Lorraine, my friend from work, read my surprise for Bill, 'To my husband' by Anne Bradstreet, something that was very important to me (a) because it said everything I wanted to say to Bill (b) because I wanted Lorraine to be part of our special day, particularly as she'd organised her visit to her son, who's doing his Gap year at the Bah'ai centre in Israel, round the date for our wedding and (c) because that beautiful poem made me think of Viva, who couldn't be with us, but it was a link to New England. Jane (Ainsworth) did the other reading, from the Song of Solomon, and performed beautifully. (I hope to hear such clarity at her wedding next year!) David, our wonderful vicar, did the gospel reading, of course, and gave a lovely homily. Cath, my oldest friend, and Bill's brother Roddy witnessed our marriage and then it was off down the aisle to the strains of 'Highland Wedding' played by the piper.

By the time we got outside, it was not only raining harder, but also cold and windy. The photographer insisted on more photos, in all of which I have hair plastered across my face like a moustache. By the time we made it to the Town Hall, we were both soaked. Apparently the buffet was lovely: I never saw it, as once the call for food was given, the guests descended like a flock of vultures. But I'm glad that people had a chance to see Bill's culinary skill. He did all the food, assisted by his nephew and brother. We employed caterers to do the serving of the hot food and run the bar. The idea was to serve two sides of belly pork, marinated in dry cider. Tesco, who charged us an arm and a leg for stuff that, in retrospect, we should have bought from Lidl's, managed to supply cider vinegar instead, so that was ruined.

What else went wrong? I guess top of the list would have to be the music. The two bands BOTH failed to turn up. Luckily, we'd made several c.d.s of danceable music. The idea was that Bill and I did our comic turn (Bill can dance, I can't) to a song by Leanne Rymes (my original choice was 'At Last' by Etta James, but I thought it made me sound desperate) then 'Chantilly Lace' would lure folk of all ages out onto the dance floor to jitterbug the night away. As soon as we'd finished 'waltzing', the caterer, like a person from Porlock, called me away for something or other and, whatever it was, I couldn't escape, so could do nothing about the fact that what was playing was not our planned c.d. but some ghastly heavy metal thing that went on for what seemed like 20 minutes. The net result was that nobody over the age of 16 did any dancing, which is a pity, as they do love their dancing up here.

But it was great that so many people managed to come. I was bitterly disappointed that most of my pals from England couldn't make it, ditto people from overseas, but it was hardly surprising. The logistics of getting up here, not to mention the cost, make it more expensive than if we'd held the wedding in a foreign country. So, for all you people who would like to have come but couldn't, we'll be having a do down in London next year. And we're really grateful to everyone who did come, especially Rachel and co from Cornwall (the longest journey); my cousin David and his wife Cherie, from Hampshire; Ian, Sue and Simon from London; Cath and Adrian from Hastings and Jane and Rich from Warwickshire. You all spent a fortune on this jaunt and we do appreciate it. I can't leave out my fellow-blogger, Mr Trainee Pig Farmer and his wife, brilliant people we'd never met but who actually came all the way from Westray to join in the celebrations. (Check out his The Edge of Nowhere blog: much funnier, not to mention more frequent, than mine.)

The logistics of living on one island (with no Sunday ferry service) and packing up the debris of a wedding in time for the Town Hall's Monday booking are too horrible to go into. We were exhausted and it was not until about Wednesday that we started to open our prezzies. We liked that!! I'd happily go through the whole experience again just for the fun of Christmas-in-April.

(After about of week of trying, I've managed to upload some photos, taken by a couple of the guests, but haven't got them in a logical order. You've been to weddings! Work it out for yourself! The 'official' pix are just good old-fashioned snaps, so at present have no means of conveying them electronically.)