June 2022

1st June – An auspicious start to June, whilst enjoying a coffee on the garden bench this morning, we had a visit from two bull orca. Passing friends alerted us, so I grabbed a camera but they were already leaving, so my photo is rather fuzzy.

This shot looks over the motorhomes on the Ness Point campsite, I’m not sure if the campers noticed anything unusual!

7th June – We have, finally, taken delivery of the new car, a Kia Niro. Driving automatic electric is a bit different from driving manual petrol and I’m still on a learning curve. Needless to say, we’ve been making a lot of pointless journeys but it’s nice to know that I don’t need to buy petrol any more!

10th June – One of our pointless journeys took us past this scene. I don’t know why but Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name came to mind.

13th June – Another birthday has crept up and surprised H! This year it brought with it a lovely, unique jewellery commission. West Sussex based artist, Tracie Callaghan, made this beautiful pendant of a silver octopus on a piece of ocean jasper, all to H’s own specification.

16th June – Whilst Shorewatching at Ness Point, I regularly talk to one of the local fishermen, Joe Lawton, who sets crab creels in Hoy Sound. This is his little boat, the St Lawrence. Joe comes up to the Point each day to see the sea conditions before he sets out.

It must be the smallest, working fishing boat in Stromness and it does well to not get swamped in the strong tidal currents.

I was working in the garden this afternoon, when Joe’s van pulled up and he presented me with two freshly caught crabs, very much alive and kicking.

We had to do a quick Google search on how to humanely dispatch and cook a live crab. Well worth it – delicious!

22nd June – After a few days of wet and windy weather, it looks light things are improving. We were treated to this beautiful cloudfest over the George Mackay Brown garden at 10 pm this evening.

25th June – Woken at 6 am this morning by the Hamnavoe‘s fog horn. A real pea souper! Three hours later the sun has burned off the fog and it’s turning into a beautiful day.

The day brightened up sufficiently for the great and the good of Orkney’s artistic community to gather in the GMB garden this afternoon, for the formal opening of the new art installation.

Thanks were given to all involved in the design and installation and a number of poems were read out.

26th June – June is proving to be a good month for Orca sightings. This solitary bull passed through Hoy Sound while I was doing my early morning watch at Ness Point.

He managed to take some time out of his journey to give us a bit of an acrobatic display.

28th June – Aaargh!!! I’ve just had the dreaded positive test result! I came home this afternoon feeling fine but very quickly started feeling hot and feverish. Took a test and…

H and I have divided the house up into a clean zone and an infected zone and our paths shouldn’t cross. Fortunately she is still testing negative.

I’m pretty angry about the whole thing, we have been so careful with wearing masks, sanitizing in shops, etc. but there are so many inconsiderate people simply not bothering.

Hopefully I can beat it without passing it on to H.