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.

Sun, rain and midgebites

Whaur's your South Sea islands now?
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

I've just finished uploading the last of my photos from the Colonsay trip here on Flickr. I chose the one on the right because the intensely blue sky reminded me that it was summer then - let's hope it returns. On the TV News tonight I saw the flooded fields of disconsolate farmers, and wondered if the weather had anything to do with the not very pleasant new potatoes I've been buying, which have pale fawn insides - undetectable when scrubbing - and a strange smell.

This is the first time for as long as I can recall that I've been at home during the first week in July, and I have to admit I was seized today by the sudden notion to book a holiday somewhere with guaranteed sun and heat. In the meantime, however, I'm so glad to have seen this clip on Complete Tosh. I thought I recognised Bury St Edmunds - glad to have it confirmed.

Tomorrow will see the second Midgebites and Candlelight at Holy Trinity Dunoon. If you read this, you're welcome!

Roundup

So that’s it, then. Another huge experience, one I’m enjoying in retrospect almost as much as I did at the time. Interestingly – for me at least – the things that come out in general chat are frequently absurd; the features of American life which you suddenly realise are features and not just accidents.

Some of these occurred in the bathroom – that lovely generic term which, in the US, does not necessarily imply total immersion. The shower curtains, for a start – everywhere we went, in hotels and in private houses, there were over-bath showers regulated by a single tap (though the degree to which you had to turn them to reach the good temperature varied alarmingly) and shielded from view by a double curtain – one plastic job to keep the wet in, and another, outer, more decorative one to match the décor. It seemed to be the done thing to keep this curtain closed even if you were not actually showering, thus concealing the bath – and making the bathroom seem small, somehow. For the shower fusspots, among whom I number myself, I have to report that a shower curtain is still a shower curtain and sticks to your wet body no matter how decorous. Give me a freestanding shower any day – nae curtains. Then there’s the toilet paper. It’s single ply and small. ‘Nuff said. And the taps – no turny ones wherever I went. All levers – and as far as I was concerned, the wrong way round.

Other difficulties concerned food – or rather, my inability to cope with the quantities. Ask for a sandwich and you get enough to feed a small family. With fries. And in the South, there is much frying in cornmeal batter and very powerful seasoning – and a dearth of the kind of coffee my soul craves. We learned, eventually, to eat a decent breakfast and then fast till dinnertime.

When we first hit San Francisco, and headed out for that wonderfully serendipitous meeting with felow-edublogger Anne, we were incredibly intimidated by the skyscrapers in the Financial District. We didn't know that's where we were - all we knew was that if we beetled down Market Street for long enough we should find the Hyatt Regency. And we did - a hotel which I found quite intimidating in its own right, like a Borg ship, for the cognoscenti among my readers. I knew it was all because we'd just come from low-rise, laid-back Santa Cruz, but it did make me wonder how I was going to cope with New York. In the event, I loved New York and by the time I'd had the evening with Anne I was no longer intimidated.

We realised that many Americans are distraught at their unpopularity in the world. We spoke to a concierge in one hotel who told us earnestly that Americans were friendly people who wanted to be liked – but we also realised why it is so easy for Americans to forget that the rest of the world exists, let along has opinions. The news progs we saw on the telly made little reference to anything other than domestic issues – apart from Iraq. And the adverts! So many, and so bizarre – do they not have an advertising standards agency over there? My fave was definitely the one extolling a pill to cure belly fat. “Stubborn” belly fat, actually, in the over-30s. Watch enough of that stuff and you’d be a hypochondriac without trying – or maybe dead: there were some dire warnings about adverse effects.

A last thought, however, has to be to wonder once more at the vastness and diversity of the States, and at the kindness and hospitality of our friends – friends who made our trip possible, and gave us the experiences that the ordinary tourist never finds. We are eternally grateful to them.

Doubtless I shall refer to this trip again, but for now - I’m done.