New poem on Orkney

I've written a new poem, based on my experience in Orkney. I know I need to read and study some more poetry - there's a bit of a desert in my brain right now, born of excessive busyness - but this suggested itself in the form of a sort of incantation.

You can read Touching the past here

Touching the ancestors

Henge and marker stone
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

The recent lack of posting on this blog has been largely because I was away on holiday in Orkney, and though I've been posting photos over on flickr I haven't got round to writing about it.

This was my first visit to Orkney, and came about partly because Mr B had a notion to do a bit of ancestor-hunting on the island of Shapinsay. In the event, we left the Shapinsay trip till our last day in the expectation of sun - a wise move, as it turned out. But before that day I'd already fallen in love with somewhere unlike anywhere I'd ever been. The usual transformation of landscapes brought about by changing light was there, of course, but it was the landscape itself that caught me: these smooth, rolling fields, the low hills backed in the distance by the dark lumps of the mountains on Hoy, the standing stones everywhere, from the huge henge of the Ring of Brodgar (photo) to the random pair we saw in someone's garden, the ancient stone houses of Skara Brae, still with their stone furniture intact.

To the south, there were more recent relics in the Churchill Barriers with their scuttled ships and the Italian Chapel built by the prisoners of war who were working on the barriers. But on the same day as we visited the chapel we also visited the extraordinary Tomb of the Eagles, where we were handed neolithic objects to examine and where I hauled myself on a trolley (such as was used in the movie "The Great Escape") down a low tunnel into the 5,000-year-old tomb on the shore and got stuck on the way back out because the uphill slope brought said trolley to a halt. Because the site here is not under the control of Historic Scotland there are few restrictions - we were told to follow the arrows and if we found ourselves opening a gate we were on the wrong track! There was no-one with us at either house or tomb, and the loneliness and sense of thin-ness was palpable.

The landlady of our excellent B & B asked us if we'd be likely to return. I think the answer is likely to be yes.

Bere bannocks

I've been on holiday - and though I took my laptop and had wifi in my excellent B&B I was too busy being on holiday to blog about anything. We were in Orkney (on Orkney?) and it was wonderful, and I shall say more about it when I stop watching news programmes and haring about the diocese. But today I want to share a culinary first and a little bit of Orkney with anyone who's interested in easy, wonderful-tasting food.

I made bannocks. Not just ordinary bannocks, but bere bannocks. That's them in the picture, almost ready to take off the griddle which is actually a beautiful pan for making crepes which I bought in Quimper many years ago. I bought a lovely big brown paper sack of bere meal in the shop on Shapinsay during a wonderful day of ancestor-hunting, and the owner of the shop, Thomas Sinclair, offered to have a recipe written out for me when I came by to collect it before we went for the ferry. This is the recipe, and the results were delicious.

BERE BANNOCKS

1 cup of bere meal
1 cup of plain flour (I used strong white)
1 teaspoon salt
1 heaped teaspoon baking soda
buttermilk to mix (I used a carton which was about the same size as a tall cup)

Mix all ingredients together into a soft dough, and knead thoroughly. Divide into two or three pieces depending on how many/big you want your bannocks to be.
Cook on a griddle till the squishy bit in the middle has just turned firm (I poked to make sure - Mr Sinclair's recipe just said 'cook till done')
Split down the middle and put delicious things on it. (Mr S suggested razor clams, but I had other ideas)
Enjoy!