Ecosse and Beyond: 19th June, Sunday

Crossing back from St Margaret’s Hope in Orkney to Gills Bay on mainland Scotland.

I managed to reverse on to the vessel myself unaided. I was so pleased with myself I forgot to take my purse and therefore couldn’t buy anything to eat or drink in the ship’s cafe – it was lunchtime and the crossing wasn’t rough so I was really hungry when I started driving west. Gills Bay is east of the Castle of Mey where I had been before crossing to Orkney a month (A MONTH?) ago. I remembered there was a really good “tea room” there so detoured and had a scrumptious sea food platter (later I will raise the subject of food).

Gosh, it was strange to be back in a land with trees, cow mumble, rhododendrons, dog roses, foxgloves.

At Dunnet I detoured again to visit Mary-Ann’s Cottage, a museum which hadn’t been open in May. It was really good. Mary-Ann Calder had lived there all her life into her ‘90’s, and it is maintained just as she left it in 1990.

(the peat is recently cut)

I had a personal tour (come to expect it now) with a woman who had moved up with her daughter and the daughter’s family, from Warwickshire (I recognised her accent) two years ago. She said the locals gave the “incomers” 5 years before they moved back down south. Certainly she was trying to fit in with the community. So, as a result of talking to her, I didn’t take many photos and when I went back to take some it was difficult because of the other accompanied groups.

The best bedroom

Sitting room, cooking fire

Sitting room, box bed

Sewing machine not on display

The workshop

Turnip seed sower

Not quite a tractor – you walked behind it

I then continued to drive west, road slow - certainly with the Van - a lot of twists and turns, a lot of single track, weather deteriorating, time getting later. I drove around Loch Eribol, a deep and long sea loch (10 miles) which was used as a naval anchorage in WWII and where the German submarines assembled for surrender in 1945.