Time is manifold

Do you ever have memories that surface up from the depths? 

I woke up quietly, naturally to sunlight peeking in through the blinds. I went downstairs and could tell that the world hadn’t woken up yet, no noise of traffic filtering in through my front window. In a daze I went and lay down on some cushions, then my scruffy brown dog came padding over to lie beside me. The sky was a perfect pale blue. The temperature was mild like an un-buttoned shirt shrug, though I could sense outside was blustery, as if we were on the shores of a beach.

A memory of Orkney welled up from somewhere within; of when I was a child before anyone had mobile telephones. Isn’t it strange that I would remember the detail of something absent? Nowadays, on a workday, in fact every day, the moment I wake up I check my phone. It’s a source of truth for me now. Who’s been in touch while I’ve been sleeping? What’s the weather going to be like this afternoon? What’s the time right now?

Back in Orkney aged seven I would wake up on my summer holidays with no knowledge of what time it was or what was going to happen that day. I’d go into the kitchen first in case Granny was up listening to Radio Orkney, or Grancha was slicing bananas for his muesli. He always did it above his bowl working a knife in one hand like he was carving wood, no need for a chopping board. I’ve remembered on this particular day I was alone in the kitchen; the first one up. 

The light through the kitchen window was twofold, it was like a luminescent blanket thrown down from the sky which brightly shimmered off the surface of the sea. Light was mixed with water and air and that was how it filtered in through my corneas. 

I looked out and everything was so present.

Every atom of the island was alive with light and although we were in 1996 it felt timeless.

Not saying that I thought these things as a child, I wasn’t aware that the Orcadian light would infiltrate my deepest memories and spill out from my pores one day in my thirties to take me back to Burray, but it did. 

This is why time is creased – not always smooth and straight going headlong in one direction, like a fine line drawn with a metallic ruler. Time like Life is as messy as The Real World. Things can remind you of things, wires can get crossed and make like a diversion on the tracks. Our consciousness can take a wrong turning and we’ll find ourself wide awake in a long-forgotten memory today. Time is manifold. 

Busy busy end of the year

Even though I had the month of December off it feels like I did more in it than ever before. It was probably due to the lack of routine, which makes every experience feel novel, firing off synapses at a more rapid rate than my dull-wired brain is used to.

Therefore, I have a newfound respect for my nomad comrade friends gallivanting out there in the world, meeting new people and speaking many languages. I raise my glass to you!

I travelled to Manchester to see my friend’s play A Christmas Carol, which was a total festive treat. I was fending off a cold at the time, so I think spending a day in the cavernous cold space of the Manchester City Library with its grand oculus finished me off. I had a fever for two days and lost about two-weeks in a fug.

The best thing about this time of year is that friends who live abroad or far away come back through town. I got to host many a Christmas meal; some more successful than others. All I can say is if you intend to cook a Korean feast but omit all the chillies (due to a spice intolerance in some of the guests) then what you get is a very very salty meal. Yet we popped open about five bottles of champagne to celebrate various things I can’t remember clearly anymore.

Me and the dog went on a day trip to West London: what a charming world! My writer friend Eloise took us to a pub with a roaring open fire. When we entered there was a man reading a real newspaper with a brown speckled Dalmatian sitting calmly at his heels. I ordered a mulled wine which came to £9.50! The Fox & Pheasant could never become my local, but we can all dream.

I tagged along to a friend’s family walking tour of London. It had been organised by Una who was visiting her UK family with her American husband. The tour guide, Terry, didn’t know how to pitch his material as the majority of the walkers were familiar with London and this country’s archaic/feudal system of property/land ownership. 

I learned a lot, like how Westminster Abbey is a called a Royal Peculiar because it doesn’t belong to any parish thanks to the way the old kingdoms were sliced up in Britain. My favourite factoid was why the Australians call the English poms. It’s an abbreviation of Prisoners of Millbank (POM) as many convicts were transported to Australia in the 19th Century from this Thames riverside prison, which no longer exists.

After seeing friends and recovering from flu, I set out on an epic journey to Orkney. My family up in the beautiful remote isles hosted Christmas, and me and the dog trundled up there by train to Edinburgh > train to Aberdeen > ferry to Kirkwall. An overall journey time of 18 hours, however, the strikes and the storms did not get in the way! A Christmas miracle. 

It was a quiet time spent with books and going for walks – weather permitting. On Boxing Day as the heavy clouds rumbled across our island, I took the dog for a walk, but when we reached the crest of a hill it started to hail. The hailstones were as big as salt crystals, so I ran to a stone house and sheltered against its wall. ROLO jumped head first into a bush. I peeked at her from under my pulled down hood as we got pelleted by ice. Her small gingery tail, shivering poking out from a hedge. 

A Christmas seal sighting

  

Orkney holiday & St Magnus Way

Dark stillness. Clambering off the ferry along the jetty you can hear large waters slapping against the hull of the big ship.

Granny is waiting with eager open arms when we arrive after midnight. My dad came to pick us up in Donkey, the name he’s affectionately given to the coffee cream coloured car with a dented nose.

You awake and the scenery outside the window is bright blue glass, the sky is shale, and the light is golden champagne.

I had expected there to be lashing rain outside, but the barometer in the corridor is hoping for light winds as I tap it gently hopeful too, its hand ticking further away from thunder.

We walk the St Magnus Way from Evie to Birsay.

St Magnus Way route marker

I have the disposable camera that Noemi gave me to take photos of our trip to Orkney and snap one at the bay of Gurness. (The un-real tropical blue of the shallow waters cutting into the verdant green of the hillside won’t be captured on film.)

St Magnus was an Earl of Orkney in 1106. A pacifist in comparison to his contemporary warring Earls and Fiefs and because of this, his cousin Earl Haakon, ordered him to be killed on the island of Egilsay across the bay. Instead of being beheaded like a common thief the axe struck a blow in the middle of his head splitting it apart. 

Legend says that the ground where his blood was spilled turned into luscious green pasture. And Gurness means green headland in Old Norse. His hallowed body was carried along Orkney in a procession and the pilgrimage is said to follow this route.

There’s an ancient Orkney tradition where the body of a deceased person is not allowed to touch the ground, so there are many attested resting places (large stones) for St Magnus’ body dotted all over the island called Mansie Stones – however – none remain, and the evidence is patchy. 

The way I like all pilgrimages is to follow the scent of something sacred. You don’t want a historical route with coordinates and information centres. That would give the game away – why would you want to do something so ordinary and official? No, I’m chasing saints! Mixed in with folklore and miracles. 

At Grugar we disturbed a colony of seals basking in the sun, as we dropped down on to the flat rocks strewn with seaweed. I watched them scoot off inelegantly in their blubber suits making a splash. 

Grugar by the roost

Across a turbulent stretch of tidal waters called the “roost” there is the uninhabited island of Eynhallow, which in Old Norse means Holy Island. The ruins of a medieval stone church remain which people say was once a monastery.

Orcadians also say that the Finfolk used to live there. These nomadic sea-dwelling sorcerers who were prone to abducting mortal men and women to become their Finmen and Finwives. Two stories relating to the Finfolk of Eynhallow piqued my interest.

1. This small island was one of the invisible islands of Orkney where the Finfolk resided. The island was said to have been eventually consecrated and captured by a vengeful farmer named the Goodman of Thorodale, after his bonnie bride was stolen infront of his very eyes by a strong dark Finman rowing out on a boat. Thorodale had to go through a quest of labours to gain the sight to see the invisible island. After nine full moons of waiting and watching the sea, he saw it one morning and rowed determinedly to the mythical island carrying bags of salt with him, chucking it at the demonic sea creatures and mermaids who appeared to protect the island from him. They failed. He succeeded and Christianity prevailed banishing the Finfolk from their home forever.

2. In 1990 a boat with eighty-eight tourists embarked on the island to look at the ruins of the church. When it was time to return only eighty-six tourists got back on the boat. The police were called and there was an air-search, and the coastguards were notified. The two missing people were never found and the crew were blamed for miscounting. However, the crew were sure there were eighty-eight people who got on the boat and so, it was assumed they were Finfolk returning to their own holy island home. 

What makes you feel alive?

Dirty orange fug outside the train window with rain streaming down the pane. We made it on to the train! Running through a crowded Edinburgh Waverley, near-missing tourists laden down with shopping bags and wheelie suitcases. Aidan runs ahead pulling my dog at warp speed, her head hits the dangling lunch bag of a woman on her way to work. I shout “Sorry!” as I bounce past, my top-heavy rucksack titling me sideways. 

“You can appreciate the weather today – we have had some significant delays – this is a limited stop start service.”

The train is packed but the torrential downpour outside and the dampness inside combined with the air conditioning gives the interior a cool and still air. We are all sardines contained in a metal can shuttling towards the Scottish coast. 

The windows are steamed up. Outside is an impenetrable mist that tints the whole day lilac. 

Like falling through a static splash of a log flume.

Speaking to a friend who had impulsively bought international flight tickets for a crush, I asked him, “Why would you do that?” The answer was forthcoming. 

“Because it makes me feel like I’m doing something. Like I’m alive.” I nod comprehending this feeling but not having ever impulsively bought flight tickets for love. 

Making it onto a train just in time – 

Leaving the city behind. 

Blowing out all my grimy city snot on to tissues; scoffing the store bought sandwich; running my hand through my hair and scraping dandruff off my scalp;

Gets me closer to feeling free

Breathtaken

 

I decided to walk to the end of the island. 

 

It’s funny I had never thought of doing this before. Happy with the idea of being able to see the beautiful views of Orkney through my window, or equally happy to get in the car and drive to a scenic spot, I hadn’t ever considered walking out of the front door and continuing. 

 

There is one road that goes through Burray. It curves all the way round the island and if you’re in a car shoots off to one of the two neighbouring islands in the archipelago. But if you’re on foot the road doesn’t have to curve, and it doesn’t remain a main road either. It turns into a single track and goes on straight over a very low undulating hill. 

 

I had a dog with me so I felt there was more purpose to my walk, although I’m sure if you were a seasoned rambler you wouldn’t think twice about it. Walking a dog gets me out of awkward situations, like standing aimlessly outside a person’s garden as they hang their washing on the line. I can’t help worrying that if I didn’t have a dog the residents would think, ‘What is she doing up here?’

 

The rustle of my waterproof jacket and the clink of ROLO’s nametag on her collar added rhythm to my momentum.

 

As you walk further away from the main road and the pier, the sights and sounds fall away too. You start straining to look at things in the distance. The cluster of houses on the opposite island, South Ronaldsay, look like a quaint fishing village from a time of sepia photographs. The number of telegraph poles lessen until you look up and spot a single one with four thick wires, each extending to a lone house. 

 

The old houses are bungalows. Low and squat to the ground to withstand the battering wind. There are barely any trees in Orkney, so there’s nothing to break the horizon when you take in the scenery with a sweeping gaze. Flat as a pebble. I can clearly see the hills of Orphir on the mainland as if I were looking through a telescope. Picking out details like walking trails and telephone masts – or am I making it up and my eyes are filling in the blanks of the maroon dark hills. 

 

Unused to seeing anything that far away I begin to doubt what’s real. 

 

There is nothing between sea and sky apart from us.

 

You’d think the breath-taking views are the thing that takes your breath away. It’s not. It’s the quiet. I stop walking and it’s totally quiet – so I stop breathing. A seagull glides in the air and falls back, like a film that’s dropped its decibels down to zero to add weight to its frames. 

 

When a bird chirrups it’s like a phone ringing. 

When a cow moos it’s like a dinner gong. 

Suddenly you’re aware you are breathing and it’s the loudest thing on earth. 

 

The wind stopped for a second and I was engulfed by my own sound, the rushing of blood and body heat to a degree which makes me think I am never sensationally aware of my existence. It’s shocking. I braced myself; I missed the banal buzz of beings; clung onto the sound of the city for safety, but it felt goddam sacred too.

 

I plodded on escaping from the sound of myself into the wind and up hill, hell bent on reaching the end of the island. Maybe I would see a selkie? I got up the gravel path but was impeded by a tractor parked at the end where a big man was getting out of its cab. 

 

The farmer had stopped beside a field where another man was strolling towards him. They both looked similar. Big rubber boots, heavyset bodies, sweat-browned faces, dried mud mingled with hay on their trousers. They looked weather-worn and comfortable.

 

The man who’d left his tractor sidled up to the fence where his friend now stood leaning over it with both arms. I turned and headed back catching their opening conversation, which chimed through the silence at the far edges of this island.

 

-       I’d thought you’d died. You’ve growan a beerd an’ evry’in.

 

-       Aye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Travelling to Orkney

 

The Caledonian Sleeper was cancelled. We had slogged ourselves to Euston with a full rucksack, folded up pink dog crate, and a dog. Once we arrived the big black departure boards looming over the station hall were blank, so I thought, ‘typical everything’s broken’. Then I learnt there had been flash floods and a small fire had broken out on a track and that all trains were cancelled. Dejected we trailed back home on the Northern Line and the DLR and I booked the earliest train to Aberdeen the next morning. (The ferry to Orkney leaves once every two days so, if I didn’t make this connection then my holiday would be cut short and Granny would be sad.) 

 

I took at taxi at 5:30am the following day with a sleepy puppy. I was worrying about travel, timings and toilet breaks. The first leg of the journey was King’s Cross to Edinburgh. Outside King’s Cross station I walked around the severe green squares hemmed in by tall business blocks and austere coffee shops, waiting for ROLO to relieve herself. It’s mainly construction workers in orange glow and hard hats at this time of day. The humidity of London had brought out many snails, leaving irksome trails of slime along the immaculate buffed concrete. 

 

I managed to stop off for two hours in one my favourite cities in the world: Edinburgh. It was a hot day with clear skies and bright sunshine. Even with a bag strapped to my back and both hands full, I enjoyed walking along Princes Street gardens and gazing up at the hill with a giant castle on top. Edinburgh Fringe memories came flooding back; the excitement of live shows, the familiarity of long walks flyering poor passers-by, being fun drunk, feeling insatiable, stupid youth. 

 

Hopped back on the train at Edinburgh Waverley to Aberdeen, which is a two and a half hour ride. On board, a Dundee granny surrounded by her six or seven granddaughters fed ROLO some boiled sweets. ‘Nan! You can’t do that! Ask first.’ She looked over at me with wide eyes and a gummy grin and I couldn’t tell her off – I’m not that brave. She said, ‘These lot are all my grandchildren.’ I said, ‘wow’. ‘We bin t’Edinburgh to do sm’shoppin.’ With that the rest of the ride was filled with squabbles, shouting, mock tears, laughter, the nan trying to find her mask while being berated by a gaggle of girls who were sweet and screechy and all too much.

 

I made it to the ferry in Aberdeen one hour before departure time! I met a Shetlander along the way who was going home for one day to ‘sort out some business’, very vague and I couldn’t understand every third word he said to me. On board – this was the stage I was most worried about – ROLO had to be put in kennels. I didn’t want to part with her immediately, but dogs aren’t allowed in the interior parts of the ferry, so I sat outside with her on deck. 

 

The sun was out and the crossing was smooth. I found a sheltered spot where it wasn’t too windy and made friends with a man who was born in Stromness and left the islands when he was seventeen. He was returning for a holiday after having sailed the Atlantic in his catamaran with his partner. He had deep characteristic wrinkles and bright eyes, reminding me of a Richard Branson type. Sometimes, I wished I could be an old man with tall tales, rather than drifting into middle-aged womanhood worrying about her wrinkles. 

 

An hour into the journey I had to put ROLO into kennels. I was guided below deck by a uniformed crew member. He unlocked many doors and finally swung open a heavy door into a room of metal cages. One husky was sat upright looking harrowed. The sound of the ship’s engines whirred aggressively in the background. ‘Christ, I didn’t want to leave her in here.’ I put a water bowl in the cage for her, but she scrabbled to get out. I bolted the door and then I was led out. The crew switched off the lights, so it was pitch black in there and the heavy door was locked shut. I wasn’t allowed to see her again until 9pm.

 

Upstairs in the dining room I felt awful while I ate a good macaroni and cheese. Usually, the ferry is bustling with big oil tanker lads drinking beers, parents with prams and kids running around reckless. This time everything was sombre, the bar was only going to be open between the hours of 7-9pm. You could only sit on every other table because of social distancing. No wandering about the boat with drinks. Announcements being made about having to wear masks at all times because we are in Scotland – alluding to Sturgeon’s independent and safer concerns on how to curb Covid-19.

 

We arrived at Kirkwall at 11pm. Dad picked me up wearing yellow trousers, looking happy. ROLO had made it! She was scruffy and wet from her spilled water bowl, but still with a wagging tail and bright eyes. I collected my bag off the trolley and Dad drove us home. ROLO passed out on my trouser leg. I looked through the windows at the islands swathed in mist, or low clouds, parting for us like ghosts.  

Flannel Chronicles Part II

Driving to the Ring of Brodgar

Flannel Chronicles Part I

Driving with seals in Orkney

Power cuts are nice

The sky is teeming with stars but we kill it with our light. I never knew this until the power cuts. In the middle of the night when the storm had risen up, gale-force winds cracking against the windows, a wind buffets through the house and I feel the panes expand and contract as though they were sails and malleable like that for an instance, of a ship.

When I arrive in Orkney by ferry, on the island of Burray where we live, what strikes me is the silence.

The lack of hum from the planes and pollution, or sirens and tarmac being sped across by vehicles. It is never silent but how I imagine silence should sound. Underwritten by the purring immensity of the waves and broken by gulls and birdsong in the day.

It’s revealing for a city-dweller like me, filled with hubris, to not only see but hear Nature and how vast and unpredictable she is. Never having to endure frightful storms in the city, ones that blow the power cables out from right beneath you, and blot the street lights out completely. Torches and candles, firelighters and smoke detectors. Grubby coaled fingers. Hushed scramble.

At 1 a.m. I heard a thunderclap so loud that it shuddered through my skin and rose me out of bed. Flick the light switch on but nothing and so there was nothing. In my flimsy nightgown I walk the corridor to the porch where it’s all panes of glass and the sea close by and I peer around the island. Electricity is dead and the sky is lighting up instead.

Sheet lightning is what you would use in a film for utmost dramatic effect, because for once light does not shine up but is a blanket that comes down. Cascading all over the scene in one fell crash, lighting up every crevice and exhuming every shadow. A flash this bright and all-round emboldens angles and crooked edges, flattening out empty land, so to a loner wide-eyed looking out at open space the thought flickers of how frightened one would be if the next illumination defined the outline of a figure standing there, where there was nothing a moment before.

When the storm had passed I stayed fixed to the spot by curiosity and fear. This was silence. The air had been smashed out by thunder. I walked outside to feel the alien calmness, the winds had dropped and I couldn’t decipher the sea. Looking up I gawped at the stars and stars and more stars. Tiny million flecks like a detailed map and brighter larger ones too, they sparkle who knew, really that these lights were there all along dampened by the smog and 24-hour shop.

I stopped. And in the cold I spoke a gasp each time more stars opened up to me. I never wanted the lights to come back on and that’s when I learnt power cuts are nice.

Inbetween Time

The only time you ever have ‘enough time’ is in between things. Such as now - while I lie flatly between duvet and throw - when I am supposed to be packing. An in between state (I am in) because I left work an hour ago to go home to pack for the very long journey tomorrow where we cross continents. Another man I know crosses oceans (going the other way round the globe).

Everyone is on the move again after the roast turkey and stuffing and gravy sandwiches. I lie flatly and think of the beauty of the way - how family will fly up to taunt and tear one down and then shoot up like a distress signal which ends in a glittering shower-burst of light - the winds picked up at night and in the day it was still. 

Orcadian landscapes have a haze they wear; the locals call it the Har. When there is no wind and the sun is lower than you could possibly paint it on the horizon the Har dissipates the sunlight and generously spreads the particles across seas and mounds making everything glow, faintly. When the wind picks up the droplets are blown clear and you’re left with hewn edges. Fragments of rock that were sleepy giants turn in to tablets. There are bird calls everywhere and the sun rises only to set - you’re right there sir - there is a certain timelessness about it all.

When I travel my body puffs up. That is when I travel internationally across time zones; that is when I am not in any time zone. Maybe it’s because the mental state of waiting (for the flight to be over) versus the physical sensation of it being day when it should be night (thus having gained a few hours out of nowhere) creates a physiological contradiction in me that makes me swell. I have no idea but time is tricksy.

And so why is it that I only feel like I have enough time in between things. Like for example, you have a meeting at 3pm but you got out early from the dentist's at 12pm so you have 3 hours to kill - you literally have it in such abundance that you need to get rid of it via murder - poor time. You think we don’t want you when you know all people want is more time, you must get such mixed messages all the time time. It must be the want for something to arrive quicker or last longer that marks the passage of time. Or gives it any meaning at all, otherwise we’d all be here in between states neither waiting nor wanting nor waning. And a warning to all layabouts like me who try to hide from time in between inner and outer layers of bedsheets fully clothed lying really pebble still - we won’t go unnoticed - time will creep up and devour us whole like a crocodile.

First Winter Morning

Blink blink sunlight passed over the horizon and the playing fields of clouds rolled out over the misty blue. A letter with two fish sealed upon the envelope had arrived awaiting my thumbing. The days at work seem long and dreary because of the on-off central heating the lack of cats and the dead lightbulb turned upside down on the adjacent table, ‘I’ll buy a new one at lunch’ I say feebly and never do. Screw-in tops, I’m cautious of buying the wrong size. The boss suggests I embrace what the Danes do ‘hygge’ and I wish I could so I try and do it but the only glitch is it’s difficult to do alone.

I think of my friend in America where the weather must be getting “pretty baltic” as he described it over an e-mail from long ago. New York in Winter. I wonder if it’s prettier of more wintry than here? Two sprawling mega-cities with cosmopolitan folk and rundown neighbourhoods. Do they have council Christmas lights? I notice that on my street to work the lights on the lampposts aren’t lights but green shrubs made of plastic and shiny spindles. This street mustn’t have the budget for lights. 

The envelope contained a pale blue letter with a black and white photograph glued to the reverse. The small things really count, I guess. This little messenger guided by two swimming fish on the creased white paper tossed and turned over mailbags and conveyer belts. Guarded by perfectly formed handwriting. ‘What’s you landscape?’ she asks. 

That self-induced dawn, the first Winter’s morning was brimming with light but shy. Her streaks of pearl pink brushed against the sides of flat clouds but if you looked closely she could have been the aurora in disguise. I think of Orkney and the crashing waves on to a placid shore that’s seen it all. The cliffs are grand but unassuming. The few weathered goats that eat seaweed are as much part of the landscape as the jutting out rocks from beneath the sea. Sometime seals bask blubbery and gleaming with snouts like dogs and big wide eyes. I delight at the sea. So to answer your question, that’s my landscape Annina, but this will do for now.

Light at the end of the tunnel and fish

Feeling quite lucky today, walking along the tow path back to my boat. 

This weekend we sailed from King’s Cross to this part of town, Angel of Islington, a nice part of town. To come out on this side of the canal however we had to drive through a long and treacherous tunnel, underground for what seemed like five hours to me riding on the back fending off the arse of the boat with a pole to stop it from scraping the sodden crumbling walls of the Islington tunnel; built over 200 years ago; lingering with the smell of stale sweat and the feeling of dead men. Crumbling walls, crumbling bones, cobwebs gliding over face and shoulders and my mind flying at the thought of getting stuck. There was light at the end of the tunnel - behind and up ahead - but there seemed little promise of making it through alive. Of course I’m being dramatic. My friends told me they enjoyed the ride afterwards. 

Today, sunny and mundane I stroll along the tow path back to my boat which we parked beside a small chug-a-long of a thing. There’s soulful American folk playing from within, the tinny twang of guitars drift through my cabin windows as I peek out to see a pretty lady with maroon-coloured hair painting her toe nails on deck. Summer has broken out in patches across the city. This part of town has rustic warehouse conversions, busy manic cafes that spill out on to the tow path and bespectacled clientele with vintage briefcases and art-student graces. People look rather beautiful here. There was a man who caught a monster of a fish when we arrived on the scene. I asked what kind of fish is it? He told me a carp. And the passers-by went up to have a look, to take a few photos. The two fishermen took a cool swig of their beers, looked pleased with themselves and let the big fat carp go. He splashed its face a few times with canal water before the carp looked lively enough, then the unfortunate grotesque aquatic creature flicked his tail and dove down in to the depths of the water to dissolve. 

Whilst in Orkney we were walking along a stretch of beach outside my grandparents’ home called Watersound. At the headland there’s a disused pier jutting out and there two kids, one with bright orange hair and the other with spiked white hair were playing. Being bored and shouting at the sea, mainly. When we threw rocks in to the sea the white-haired one copied us and got even bigger rocks until he held a minor-sized boulder and crashed it down in defiance in to the shallows roaring whilst throwing it. Feral kid. The other, who was hanging off the pier out of sight shouted back to his mate, I caught a fish! I caught a FISH! and they both scarpered and screeched through gritted teeth, excitement, anger and amazement.

Fish are exciting, apparently. 

Dead Seal Scrolls

‘Merry Christmas!’ says my Grancha, ‘who wants some sherry?’

‘It’s Christmas Eve not Christmas yet’ interjects Granny, ‘you always want to be early for things.’

‘Oh. I see darling. B’won’t stop us from having sherry though will you?’ He asks sweetly but already up and meandering over to the drinks counter. Grandparents in Orkney are the sort of people who have a drinks counter; two bottles of Castelgy Gin, bitter lemon Scheweppes - almost certainly flat, aged sherry sweet and dry, a vintage Taylor’s port, and some red wine that I drank the whole lot of last night. 

The fire is grinning and burning up, toasting the backs of old socks and yesterday, I, as the Youngest of the Lot was on my hands and knees digging ash out of the lead bucket that’s been stuck in the fireplace for over a decade. The grill has snapped in two due to the continuous fires overhead but it still works and can’t be replaced anymore. Scraping ash in the morning - and seven piles of it - when touched feels cold and smooth, like the pebbles on the beach outside. When I was six I threw a tantrum and ran down to Watersound and had a go at the sea, I was angry about something with a burning desire to kick everything to bits and to quell my rage I shoved my hand in to the cold wet sand and dug down until about my whole arm was lost in the depths of the shore that clenched it. When I pulled it up it popped out from the suction and a small yellow-green crab had it’s pincers around my middle finger! I shrieked for the tiny life of me and waved my arm about frantically yelping and jumping about until the crustacean plopped off and scuttled back in to the sea. I ran back home no longer angry or crying but at peace with whatever had just gone on. The ash in the grate was cold as silt and smelt distinctly of nothing.

*

‘Hello. Big fat gross dead Mr. Turkey’ it sat there as a lump in shallow pools of watery-blood, ‘We’ll eat you tomorrow. Sleep well.’

*

When the door bell rings twice succinctly in two onerous rhymes that means Colin’s at the door, he is my hero and 90 years old and wears a fluorescent jacket that has Duck Patrol printed on the front breast pocket and Game Warden emblazoned on the back. It was a joke present from his longstanding friend but he wears it with pride and jauntily. Recently Colin took in Lily, an abused rescue-dog who hangs by his side enduringly and always looks so nervous of being hit again, what brutality can sear in to even animals’ brains I thought, and my hero’s bushy crown of white hair and weathered toothy-smile is what brings life to our laughter. 

‘Someone to come and see you’ Colin says nodding at Lily on the end of the leash, she turns her side to me and only dares to look up with twitchy eyes when she thinks I’m not looking (I am). ‘And to drop off this.’

‘An Orcadian dictionary, perfect. Thanks.’ I bend down to touch Lily but her leg wobbles and I just put my hand out for her to sniff.

‘Merry Christmas then!’ Says Colin as he saunters off with Lily tight by his side, and Granny tuts and murmurs to herself about it only being Christmas Eve. 

Don’t say ‘noo’, say ‘now’,  

Don’t say ‘ku’, say ‘cow’. 

(C. M. Costie, Speech)

The language of Orkney seems to have passed from the Norn to the Scots and then to the “correct way” of English, taught throughout the schools during 20th Century to standardise their spelling and speech. That’s fine I see it happening that way everywhere, I think, but it’s a shame. Now the dialect is known as Orcadian and to be honest when I speak with some I still miss half the conversation or the whole meaning. ‘Back of four’ means anytime after four o’clock and I find the logic sort of odd, just as I find it sort of odd how the sun rises and settles in one low position above the horizon for half an hour in the day before it starts to set again. Darkness is here by four.

*

‘Maybe after lunch you’d like to go beach combing together?’ asks Dad hopefully.

‘Only if we find treasure.’ I say non-plussed, stirring my tea with a hot spoon.

Wrapped up in layers of wax coats and fleece wearing a hat with a flap on both respective heads, the two stride up the drive, atop a cliff edge and down to the Playgroup Beach. Here, if you were to walk in to the sea and carry on straight you’d arrive in Norway, tells me my father, god know’s why we talk in as-the-bird-flies hyperbole. Totally unrealistic. I wanted to look for treasure, odd bits that fell off boats or deep-sea-shells that got thrown up by the swells but all I could see were thick mats of seaweed; layering sinews dripping wet and ripped up from the ocean bed, strewn across the sandy beach and now covered in little skippers (sand midges) eating away at the decaying water-fauna. Then lying there on the shore - I was drawn to it - a body like form. Corpulent; whale-ish in demeanour not size and not yet bloated, actually very calm and still like a sleeping policeman. 

One dead seal.

A big grey body and two little paw pads where the tail should be. I asked in that swallowed-shrill-cough I save for times of shock and persistent calm - 

‘Where’s the head?!’ It was severed clean off.

‘Probably cut off by a propeller of a boat. Nice and clean.’ There’s me looking at the dead thing in disbelief and he sees that and walks away.

‘What boat?’

‘Could have been your ferry. About the right timing.’

‘Hey, I was not involved in the murder of this sacred seal.’ I protest and I have an urge to get close up to it, it doesn’t smell yet and it’s fresh just headless, that’s all.

‘Don’t go near it. Sea-knits.’ Dad walks away and so do I. I don’t believe in sea-knits but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. 

‘Merry Christmas, dead Sacred Seal, I’ll pass on your regards to dead Mr. Turkey.’ Another year washes by.

Puss & Her

Rimi is wrapping her presents sat cross-legged infront of the roaring fire after a Christmas Eve meal. The members of the family are all going about their own business, stuffing dead turkeys and what not so no one pays any attention to her. Thankfully. She feels like with each present she wraps the closer she goes to insane. Puss her lifelong imaginary friend and cat sits upright purring beside her.

Puss: And what’s that?

Rimi: A torch

Puss: Who’s that for?

Rimi: Granny

Puss: What else did you get her?

Rimi: A bowl

Silence as she wraps and pulls off strips of sticky tape

Puss: Is that all?

Rimi: Yes

Puss: Just a torch and a bowl for Granny?

Rimi: Yes alright

Puss: She’s not an evacuee Rimi, nor is she a prisoner of war, why didn’t you get her anything pretty?

Rimi: Because I’m crap at this

Puss: What did your nice male-friend say? ‘It’s nice to give’. Why aren’t you like him?

Rimi: I do like giving just not when I’m forced to

Puss: Hence the torch and the bowl

Rimi: Yes. Are you going to just sit there licking yourself or can you help me with the wrapping

Puss: I’m afraid the cat cannot assist the human in worldly things, only metaphysically

Rimi: Right help you are

Silence as the cat licks her paw and cleans her face with it

Puss: How are you getting along with your father?

Rimi: Not great not badly, so middling

Puss: Have you got him anything in there? (nods at the plastic bag of bits and bobs)

Rimi: Peanuts

Pause

Puss: Really? You’re joking

Rimi: No. Yes he likes peanuts, or assorted nuts or whatever they are

Puss: You are a terrible gift buyer

Rimi: (Mumbles as she rips off the tape with her teeth) I’d like to see you do better with your claws and cat-face

79

22:03. Oh, bollocks it’s too late to call now. It’s past ten.

Punch the numbers in to the phone screen (telephone receivers are of a bygone age), tap tap tap and then ring ring - I hope it’s not too late. I don’t want to wake them up on a Monday night…

Granny: Hello Burray 236?

Rimi: Happy Birthday Granny! Sorry it’s so late, I just forgot but I knew it was today, I meant to call earlier and I wanted to send you a card but I forgot - and I know I called yesterday, on Sunday, but I completely forgot it was your birthday today and I really I just wanted to really say happy birthday.

Granny: Oh thank you darling.

Rimi: Happy Birthday. Have you had a nice day - what did you do?

Granny: We went out for dinner

Rimi: Ooh that’s nice. Where did you go?

Granny: To the Sands Hotel.

Rimi: Lovely. What did you eat?

Granny: Well, for my main course I had lamb

Rimi: Lamb! That’s different.

Granny: I like lamb, but your Grancha doesn’t like lamb.

From off-side

Grancha: I do like lamb… (mumble mumble muffled words)

Chuckling

Granny: Did you hear that?

Rimi: No, not quite.

Granny: Grancha says he does like lambs but only when they’re in a field.

Rimi: That’s sweet

Granny: Not to eat.

Rimi: Yes, I got that.

Chuckles again (she has a nice chuckle, like a clucking hen)

Rimi: So how old are you?

Granny: Do you really want to know?

Rimi: Yes

Granny: Seventy-nine.

Rimi: Wow. That’s not a number you hear too often is it.

Granny: That’s right. I’m old old old!

Rimi: But you’ve still got the spirit!

Chuckling

Granny: Yes, I suppose I do.

Rimi: What did Grancha have for dinner?

Granny: What did Grancha have for dinner? What did you have for dinner…

From off-side

Grancha: I had… (mumble mumble muffled words)

Granny: Oh I remember! Grancha had scallops and some Orkney cheese.

Rimi: Yum

Granny: And for pudding he had... what did you have?

Long pause

Rimi: Granny?

Granny: My brain’s a bit tired so I’m trying to think

Rimi: Take your time

Silence

Granny: A white chocolate tear-drop!

Rimi: A white chocolate tear-drop?

Granny: Yes a white chocolate tear-drop. I’ll get him on the phone so he can tell you about it. He’s dozing off but I know he’d like to tell you himself.

Rimi: Ok

Granny: Bye for now –

Switched receivers (they still have receivers in Orkney)

Grancha: Hullo sweetie-pie

Rimi: Hello Grancha!

Grancha: Are you well?

Rimi: Yes thanks. Tell me about your truffle.

Grancha: My what?

Rimi: Your truffle; the pudding you had at the Sands.

Grancha: Well it wasn’t a truffle

From off-side

Granny: It was like a… (mumble mumble higher pitched muffled sounds)

Grancha: Ooh, my white chocolate tear-drop.

Rimi: Yes, tell me about that.

Grancha: Well it was quite difficult to eat actually.

Rimi: How so?

Grancha: Couldn’t break easily through the shell. Was like trying to eat an egg with a small spoon – a hard boiled egg. I’ll pass you back to Granny now.

Rmi: Ok.

Grancha: Love you lots

Rimi: Love you too Grancha, sleep well.

Switched receivers

Granny: Well thank you for calling my dear, it’s really rounded off the day splendid.

Rimi: I love you Granny.

Granny: I love you too. Now good luck moving off the boat, I think you’ve probably stayed on the boat long enough now. It must be getting cold on the river?

Rimi: It is. Autumn’s setting in.

Granny: Time to find a new home but you know you can always come back here whenever you want. We’ll be waiting for you.

Rimi: I know. Love you. Good night. And happy birthday.

Click goes the sound of their receiver and I can hear the ducks quacking up at the moon outside. It’s probably time to go ashore.