*takes a bow "Thank you thank you"
*tries to stand up "Damb has someone got Heddles crane on speed dial"

Now come on folks I canny be the only twit wie a tale fighting the winter blues.


Its all about the weather

"Whit awfy weather the day ahm fair drookit."
"Aye hids a driech day right enough, and wur haen a full sail breeze."

Such is a common greeting from customers to the café in Stromness. I discovered many years ago that life on the island revolved around the weather.

In fact I discovered that before my foot ever touched Orkney soil. It was my first ever holiday on my own, ok I know that compared with Benidorm or even Blackpool a fairly isolated Scottish island probably would not seem like the great adventure for an eighteen year old. However for me it was the ideal choice since I had never really been into discos and drinking. Ever since I had watched a schools television programme about Skara Brae the village which had been buried in the sand had captured my imagination.

It was however to be late 1979 before I was to first meet Orkney Weather. I had dressed with care and as was my fashion at the time wore a hat with a short veil. As I stepped onto the platform just outside the door of the aeroplane before descending to the tarmac (Well you never know when you might catch the eye of a young gentleman) the famous Orkney wind took a great liking for my hat. It plucked it from my head twirling it up out of reach before dancing it tantalisingly close before me as I tottered down the steps. Once it birled around me like some demented highland dancer with me at the centre of its wild sword dance it decided to take its new prize and go visiting. And so alas my lovely hat was last seen making a mad dash over the water to Shapinsay.

I often wondered if it stopped of to visit Balfour Castle before working its way up the islands to land on top of one of the sheep living outside the sea wall on North Ronaldsay. I have never made it to that island, perhaps it is for the best after all I would hate to have to debunk some local legend of the strange Were sheep who constantly wandered round the sea wall looking for entry to the human part of the island.