Come rain, come shine
May. 22nd, 2018 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustYesterday was dreich. It started well enough. On our way to the restaurant on the previous evening, we had chosen a road we hadn't previously explored, and discovered the answer to my question: Nice town, Cromarty. But where do the residents go shopping? Here on one side of the road were the bakery and the Post Office; facing them, the supermarket and a very superior cheese emporium, housed in the old Police Station. So before leaving town we called in to buy some cheese. Their extensive collection included both Scottish and Dutch cheeses, but we agreed with the (almost certainly Dutch) lady who served us that the Dutch cheeses would travel better...
At this point it was barely raining at all, but as we drove off, the rain and mist closed in, and what should have been a beautiful drive up the east coast was reduced to grey and wet. We stopped in Tain for an errand, but didn't feel inclined to linger in search of coffee (though I am as a general rule very fond of Tain). We toyed with the idea of diverting to Forsinard and the RSPB information centre, but we missed the turning. We could, of course, have turned back, but over lunch at Berriedale we consulted the guide book, which was glowing about the local museum in Thurso, and thought this was a perfect way to spend however much time we would have before the ferry by the time we reached the north coast. Unfortunately, whatever the opening hours when my guide book was published (a couple of years ago), the museum no longer opens on Mondays - but we only discovered this afyter we had parked, and made our way there on foot, in the rain. In the end we found somewhere to park with a sea view, and wrestled with Saturday's crossword until it was time to head to the ferry terminal at Gill's Bay - where we had a mug of tea and became human again.
Anyway, that was yesterday, in Scotland. Today we are in Orkney, and the weather is brighter, even sunny at times, and dry. Windy, of course - as I said, we are in Orkney.
If I have written anywhere about our previous visit to the Tomb of the Otters, I can't now find it: but I am astonished that I haven't posted about it. Briefly, then, just down the road from the Tomb of the Eagles (which I have written about before) is the Skerries Bistro, and in the car park of the bistro is a long green mound which was for was for a long time dismissed as just a natural mound. Then someone lowered a waterproof camera into a hole in the ground, and spotted a skull, and it turned out to be a neolithic tomb. This was in 2010, so it must have been 2013 when we visited it, and were shown round by a retired teacher who took us into the garden shed to see some on the bones and - what I particularly remember - a polished stone not entirely unlike the skull of an otter in shape, large enough to fit easily into the palm of my hand, which had been worked to mark (or emphasise natural markings) where the eyes should be, and which had been placed in the tomb neatly covered by a child's bone (I had remembered this as a kneecap, but today we were shown the crown of a skull). It is known as the Tomb of the Otters because it contains large quantities of otter spraints, as well as otter bones: there must have been a time when otters were permitted to come and go in this burial place. We spent the morning there, catching up on developments. Rather to my surprise, visitors are still taken inside the tomb, which is substantially unexcavated, and crouch in the damp while the guide urges you to sit down - but not there, because it's unexcavated, and don't lean on that gate, because it will probably break, again...
After lunch at the bistro, we took the distillery tour of Scapa - though not without a detour to visit the round church at Orphir. WE have, in fact, toured Scapa distillery before, but we didn't mention this, as it was during the period when the distillery was semi-closed, and while I don't think the tour was at all unofficial, it didn't seem tactful. It is now part of the Pernod Ricard group, under the Chivas Brothers name, and while the tour itself wasn't particularly slick (a pleasant young man who appeared to have learned his material by heart rather than having any real grip of it) the hand of marketing was evident in the availability of t-shirts and hip flasks and branded glasses (you got to take your glass home after the tasting) not to mention the whisky itself, now in two 'expressions', one lighter and more refined than the Scapa that used to be my favourite whisky, the other matured in barrels which had previously held a peated whisky, and surprisingly strongly peated as a result.
Photography wasn't allowed on the tour, for reasons I didn't find entirely convincing, but we could,and did, take photos outside. Approaching the distillery from the north brings you through a cluster of dark, drab warehouses and industrial buildings, but from the sea - and from the coastal path - you are greeted by a gleaming wall, next to which there now stands a large wooden megaphone, of which my picture shows only the edge:
Edited 08.06.2018 to insert photo:
And that was today.
At this point it was barely raining at all, but as we drove off, the rain and mist closed in, and what should have been a beautiful drive up the east coast was reduced to grey and wet. We stopped in Tain for an errand, but didn't feel inclined to linger in search of coffee (though I am as a general rule very fond of Tain). We toyed with the idea of diverting to Forsinard and the RSPB information centre, but we missed the turning. We could, of course, have turned back, but over lunch at Berriedale we consulted the guide book, which was glowing about the local museum in Thurso, and thought this was a perfect way to spend however much time we would have before the ferry by the time we reached the north coast. Unfortunately, whatever the opening hours when my guide book was published (a couple of years ago), the museum no longer opens on Mondays - but we only discovered this afyter we had parked, and made our way there on foot, in the rain. In the end we found somewhere to park with a sea view, and wrestled with Saturday's crossword until it was time to head to the ferry terminal at Gill's Bay - where we had a mug of tea and became human again.
Anyway, that was yesterday, in Scotland. Today we are in Orkney, and the weather is brighter, even sunny at times, and dry. Windy, of course - as I said, we are in Orkney.
If I have written anywhere about our previous visit to the Tomb of the Otters, I can't now find it: but I am astonished that I haven't posted about it. Briefly, then, just down the road from the Tomb of the Eagles (which I have written about before) is the Skerries Bistro, and in the car park of the bistro is a long green mound which was for was for a long time dismissed as just a natural mound. Then someone lowered a waterproof camera into a hole in the ground, and spotted a skull, and it turned out to be a neolithic tomb. This was in 2010, so it must have been 2013 when we visited it, and were shown round by a retired teacher who took us into the garden shed to see some on the bones and - what I particularly remember - a polished stone not entirely unlike the skull of an otter in shape, large enough to fit easily into the palm of my hand, which had been worked to mark (or emphasise natural markings) where the eyes should be, and which had been placed in the tomb neatly covered by a child's bone (I had remembered this as a kneecap, but today we were shown the crown of a skull). It is known as the Tomb of the Otters because it contains large quantities of otter spraints, as well as otter bones: there must have been a time when otters were permitted to come and go in this burial place. We spent the morning there, catching up on developments. Rather to my surprise, visitors are still taken inside the tomb, which is substantially unexcavated, and crouch in the damp while the guide urges you to sit down - but not there, because it's unexcavated, and don't lean on that gate, because it will probably break, again...
After lunch at the bistro, we took the distillery tour of Scapa - though not without a detour to visit the round church at Orphir. WE have, in fact, toured Scapa distillery before, but we didn't mention this, as it was during the period when the distillery was semi-closed, and while I don't think the tour was at all unofficial, it didn't seem tactful. It is now part of the Pernod Ricard group, under the Chivas Brothers name, and while the tour itself wasn't particularly slick (a pleasant young man who appeared to have learned his material by heart rather than having any real grip of it) the hand of marketing was evident in the availability of t-shirts and hip flasks and branded glasses (you got to take your glass home after the tasting) not to mention the whisky itself, now in two 'expressions', one lighter and more refined than the Scapa that used to be my favourite whisky, the other matured in barrels which had previously held a peated whisky, and surprisingly strongly peated as a result.
Photography wasn't allowed on the tour, for reasons I didn't find entirely convincing, but we could,and did, take photos outside. Approaching the distillery from the north brings you through a cluster of dark, drab warehouses and industrial buildings, but from the sea - and from the coastal path - you are greeted by a gleaming wall, next to which there now stands a large wooden megaphone, of which my picture shows only the edge:
Edited 08.06.2018 to insert photo:
And that was today.
