Kirwall and falling in love

Sitting here with my back to the sea, I am enjoying the warmth of a warm Orkney day.
It is so still in the air here, the whole place echoes with silence and the sea. Modern turbines harness the ever present winds and low houses slink beneath dry stone walls, waiting the chill winds of winter and the harsh frosts.
Its ruggedness is it beauty, the landscape smoothed by ice age rampage. Mud stones create much of the walking and modern renders protect many a home from the damp.
This is a place of contrasts; of plenty but of poverty, of friendships and losses. A tough place which is made soft and yielding by the sun.
Have I enjoyed it? Yes. It is a magnificent place and I’m so glad to have visited.

The queue to get the tender back to the ship took quite some time, but being British, the queueing was excellent and the patience exemplary.
The journey back was a little more colourful than that out. The waters were on the turn and that mid change choppiness threw waves onto the bow.
I returned to my cabin and rested a couple of hours before venturing for lunch. To be honest it was almost tea time when I went in, but they still had the tail ends of lunch and I would recommend the stir fry vegetables.
So now? Well, I relaxed for a few hours and rested the troublesome knee, had dinner and am now back resting on the bed, about to read about tomorrow in Cruise News.

I did get my toes wet and was very surprised by the warmth of the waters. Now I’m listening to the peewit and shrill calls of juvenile gulls. How wonderful.