Mud cracks, mud cracks everywhere!
Orkney is full of stone which shows fossilised wave patterns and mud cracks. Orkney’s geological history has been a complex one involving …
The Chart of the Seas – Orkney on the Carta Marina from 1539
Orkney Museum has a fabulous reproduction of a beautiful and seriously unscientific map of Scandinavia showing the islands of Orkney, which was …
Ezekiel in St Magnus Cathedral
In St Magnus Cathedral they have a beautiful stained glass window dedicated to Ezekiel. Nowadays he would probably have a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a psychiatric nurse and a social worker on his team and be treated with antipsychotic medication to control his symptoms.
More guano than Peru
Fortunes were built on the stuff. Entire estates and magnificent country houses like Tyntesfield near Bristol were funded by it. People are …
The whites of their eyes
Humans have evolved as social animals and we pick up on incredibly subtle non-verbal cues from each other. Unlike most other primates …
Yesnaby Castle
Yesnaby Castle is a proper sea stack. Many people seem to think that Yesnaby Castle is a smaller version of the Old …
Old and new
St Magnus Cathedral is slowly weathering away. Beautiful new carvings have been inserted to replace some of the most weathered parts. Their …
A world in miniature
If you’re ever struggling to think of a present for a young child, buy them a bug pot and a magnifying glass. …
Good Gannets above!
Have you ever wondered how Gannets manage to dive into the water at such incredible speeds and yet seem to survive without …
The view from inside St Magnus Cathedral’s clock face
The inside of St Magnus Cathedral is just as fascinating as the outside, especially if you book yourself on one of the …
One of my favourite objects
One of my favourite objects in the Orkney Museum is this neolithic pestle mace head. It makes me wonder just how fabulous …
All hail
It’s a beautiful blue sky; so blue we are tempted up to Noup Head along the rutted track and past the farm …
Swallows – forty years ago in my nature notebooks
Swallows seem unearthly. Their flight is so elegant, so fast and so controlled they seem as if they inhabit a different world. …
An early map of Orkney
I’ve been looking at too many early and unscientific maps of Orkney because as soon as I see this moss on a …
Orkney Museum Staircase
I love Tankerness House which houses the Orkney Museum. Here are a couple of views of the staircase.
A beautiful whalebone plaque from an Orkney Viking boat burial
One of the most remarkable features of current archaeology is just how much there is still to discover still lying a few …
Giving me the sly eye
A seal at Pierowall is wary of me and watches out of the corner of its eye.
A peedie guide to Charles Tait
It was great to meet Charles Tait, the author of The Peedie Orkney Guide Book: What to Do and See in Orkney …
The Twa Corbies
The Twa Corbies is a favourite ballad of mine, so I’m delighted to see two Ravens on the cobble and pebble beach …
Somewhere between mild irritation and death
Washed up on the shore at the Bay of Skaill is this beautiful jellyfish.
All aboard
The P&O cruise ship Arcadia in the Hatston terminal at Kirkwall in Orkney. The cruise visitors are a mixed blessing for the …
No Vehicles
A classic Volkswagen Campervan at Yesnaby.
Einar and the Northern Lights
There’s a fluorescent green ring encircling the Earth tonight made by charged particles from a solar wind. As if the milky way …
Weathered sculpture at St Magnus Cathedral
What was this sculpture originally do you think?
Celebrating Einar at St Magnus Cathedral
Einar, or Torf-Einar as he is sometimes known, is celebrated in this wonderful stained glass window at St Magnus Cathedral.
Starfish
She wishes she could find a starfish here; I go looking for one and find one. She thinks it’s because she wished for it; I think it’s because I looked for it.
Sea Urchin
Spotted a Green Sea Urchin Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis at the Bay of Skaill.
Pincer movement
A Hermit Crab emerges from its shell, pincers first; it’s just like me getting out of bed in the morning.