A little bit more shopping in Kirkwall was the order of the day today. I took the children and attempted, impeded by impatient diminutives, to shop for CDs, whilst Sarah browsed blissfully further down the street.<\/p>\n\n
One thing that strikes you about Orkney or, perhaps, all of the Scottish islands, is that shops have greatly diversified. I don’t mean amongst themselves, but within themselves: the range of goods offered by a single shop is incredible. Perhaps this is because the number of shops in a village or small town is limited, but people’s needs are more or less the same, no matter where they live. Conversely, the shops have probably needed to branch out in order to survive.<\/p>\n\n
In Stromness, we saw a pet-shop cum Internet caf\u00e9. Is there another, anywhere in the world? Where else can you check your e-mail and buy dog food at the same time?<\/p>\n\n
In Kirkwall, there’s a shop that sells mostly hand-crafted jewellery, but has a sign in the window that proclaims bait worms available inside<\/em> and has a couple of angling reels in the window. Where else can you buy a silver necklace and a bag of worms?<\/p>\n\n We drove<\/a> down to St. Margaret’s Hope today, on the island of South Ronaldsay. The island is connected to Mainland by a causeway. On either side of the causeway, the rusting hulls of grounded vessels can be seen; quite an atmospheric sight.<\/p>\n\n St. Margaret’s Hope is a pretty little village and an ideal stop-off for lunch<\/a>. We sat next to two old ladies and chatted to them for a good hour about life on the islands before moving on.<\/p>\n\n Next up was the Tomb of the Eagles<\/a>, a.k.a. the Isbister chambered Cairn. This place is a 5000 year old burial chamber, entry to which requires one to lie on a wheeled trolley and pull oneself along the entrance tunnel using a rope. Although the purpose of this is to get inside and see the tomb, you can imagine that Elo\u00efse and Lucas found the means much more exciting than the end.<\/p>\n\n On the way back to the visitor centre, we took the scenic route along the cliffs and spotted seals frolicking in the waters below.<\/p>\n\n And that was all we had time for today, really. The tomb took a good two hours and we got a late start on the day in order to do some essential shopping in Kirkwall.<\/p>\n\n Down in St. Margaret’s Hope, we also bought Lucas a woolly hat, hand-made on the island of North Ronaldsay from local wool. He’s very happy with it.<\/p>\n\n Tomorrow, we’re hoping to be lucky enough to witness a blackening<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A little bit more shopping in Kirkwall was the order of the day today. I took the children and attempted, impeded by impatient diminutives, to shop for CDs, whilst Sarah browsed blissfully further down the street. One thing that strikes … Continue reading