The last five days have changed my life. I was offered four days work in Orkney and stayed an extra day at my own expense to see some of the main island (known as the Mainland). On the first day I despised the place: ugly, featureless, windswept, barren and treeless I felt it had nothing [...]
Working in Orkney for a week, the conversation turns to whisky. My colleague tells me I should visit the Highland Park distillery. She say’s it’s well worth a trip. Another colleague tells me Highland Park is good, but Scapa’s better, causing a debate to rage where for some reason everyone seems to agree: Highland Park [...]
I’m in Orkney working for a week. “Did you walk past the PDC?” My questioner is earnest. She is really interested in my answer. She wants to know which way I walked to work this morning. “Did you walk past the PDC?” What’s the PDC I wonder. PDC? “Sorry”, I say. “The PDC, did you [...]
Red MacGregor. It’s a name to conjure with. An elusive beer, rumoured to exist in the keg. Tonight I aimed to find a pint. It’s the evening of a major European night of football. At least it is if you’re in England. I’m not. I’m in Orkney. I’ve an evening to spend and rather than nursing [...]
There are no pubs in Kirkwall, only hotels with restaurants and bars. It is the morning, and I’m getting ready for my first day’s work in Orkney, the first of four days. I pop my head into the bar of my hotel and ask the young barman whether they have any real ales. He says [...]
“First impressions often lie, Often fool the naked eye.” from First Impressions written by John Watts, performed by Fischer-Z I’m standing in a city. I’m going to describe what I see and it’s your task to tell me what year it is. I’m in front of a general merchants which sells a bizarre cocktail of baby [...]
“Orkney.” “Pardon”, I said. “We’ve got a customer in Orkney who’d like you to do some work for them.” Orkney. I’d heard of it. I even knew the word Orcadian, and I knew there was something in the back of my mind about music and natural history or was it geology. “Okay”, I said. Having [...]
Coils of rope on the quayside in Kirkwall as I look at the ferries leaving for the Northern Isles.
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