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I bought an Mp3 download today of Saltfishforty an Orcadian band, they are very good. At the moment I am listening to The Afro Celtic sound System who are FB! It is a wee whilie since I bought some cds/mp3s. To be honest I prefer the hard copy but when the price difference is right I will buy the MP3. I have a cd on order of The Hidden Orchestra due out in September, I heard them at The Big Tent Ecofestival. There were several more there I would have liked CDs of but they were not available.

Jim is doing his accounts and I am sitting with a glass of wine having just finished a rather boring tea. I have recently started on a low carb diet and finding it quite difficult. It is the last of many diets I have tried and have always avoided as sister L goes on incessantly about it… It kinda puts me off as she goes on about her PCOS constantly and this diet is realated to her condition. So if I lose megastones I cannot admit she was right but I suppose I hope in a last ditch attempt to lose weight, she is right, we shall see. I only started it as Jim was interested in this method and he promised me a camper van if I lost 3 stones. He bought a book called “Waist Disposal” by Dr Briffa who goes on about metabolic syndrome and fat bellies and stuff like that. Its all low carb high protein stuff and I like my carbs.

Tomorrow lunchtime we are going into Edinburgh to see the “Tailor of Inverness”. I have seen it before and it was excellent but Jim hasn’t and as he told me about it in the first place I am willing to go again. BUT he then has to go to catch the plane to Paris immediatly afterwords. He couldn’t get a flight on Monday but had to get back for a contract signing and dinner in a fancy hotel in the Champs Elysee (2 michelin stars). I am not jealous no I am not well just a wee bit …. ok I am jealous as hell, big shitebag!

Wednesday I am forced to go to Paris for a week as Rach and Jamie are going to Rock on Seine and as her nibs didn’t save the money soon enough she was too late for camping tickets so she is camping in Jim’s patio (just a wee one) . I don’t really trust R to be in Ji’s flat over the weekend so we will have to stay. Unfortunately she was late in booking her flights so instead of the weekend only she has to stay a whole week!

Monday is a day out with the “girls” ( post menopausal old hags, though some of them are good for their age) to Edinburgh. We will try to take in some shows and dinner at the mosque (my friends think it is the highlight of the day) we went last year, it was pissing down but had a superb curry. You eat outside under gazebos bu the food is mega cheap and excellent and I can even eat low carb if I forget about the rice and naans. A nice daal and meat or veg curry . There is a vennel round the corner from the mosque where you go in and is open most days I think.

Today was the last day of Jim’s holiday and we did a marathon job of hoovering out the bedroom. The bed is too heavy for me to move so it never gets moved. BUT recently we have been plagued by clothes moths and they love dust under dark, dusty spaces to lay their eggs. Well there was a wheen of dust there so we spent several hours vacuuming.Where do all the books come from … amazon I suppose… doubled up on bookshelves under the bed in stacks, piles on the floor in front of the bookshelves. My old bones are complaining now. The big reason we are so paranoid is that we spent a king’s ransom on our drawing room carpet and it is Persian wool ( Iranian really) and we do not want the moths getting to that.

One thing I do like about the i phone weather app is when you see that these places who have had sun all summer now have 5 days of pishing weather when we are getting it reasonably OK.We had a good early summer but immediately the school holidays arrived…to the day… the rain started and has only really just stopped. We have had sunny periods but more rain. Meteor shower tonight ( last night was best) to the north west, best about 3am for the insomniacs, but earlier should be good.
Didn’t do much today .. went to Tesco and got some wine as Ozzie wine is 25% off then 5% more if you buy 6 bottles. So 6 bottles of Tingleup Riesling. Dry citrusy and delicious. Now the difficult part trying to keep it. One down 5 to go! Well 6 really as I had one.

Home now and the sun is shining…. in Kirkwall as well. The photos wouldn’t be as good without the skies of doom.Drove down last night got in about 1am and had a delicious Scapa whisky. It was so nice to be in our own bed. Now for the washing.
Paris next week… not through choice… but Jamie and Rachael are coming over for a rock festival at Parc St Cloud but there are no camping tickets so they are staying on Jim’s patio. 4 of us in that wee flat is a thought so I hope the weather stays warm. But how to feed them with a couple of rings and a microwave. There is always sushi but it is messy to make and I would have to make tons of it. (Jamie is still a growing lad.)
Now the washing and tidying. I don’t know about anyone else but we come in the cases get dumped in the hall but one always needs opened downstairs so the place which was acceptably tidy when we left now becomes a midden. Agh we know we are back. No rest for the wicked.
Photos later!

Skara Brae and Maes Howe today quite magical. Maes Howe goes from the early prehistoric through to the vikings then the discoverers in the victorian era. Now in a chill out hotel copying their music on to my computer. Good stuff.

This morning I got a severe weather warning as it was going to be heavy rain in Kirkwall. We toured the south Mainland and South Ronaldsay and the weather was glorious, did the Italian chapel which was amazing then crossed the Churchill Barriers ( 4 causways between the islands which the Italian POW’s built to stop any more submarines getting into Scapa Flow after the Royal Oak was sunk). Then we went to Skara Brae where the weather was great but the place was hoatchin’ . We decided to come back tomorrow. We booked a place on the Mae’s Howe for tomorrow. So tomorrow we will go to the Ring of Brodgar, and Skara Brae and we might go to the Brough of Birsay if the tide is right. In the evening we will go to Maes Howe and then to dinner in the Hotel, Woodwick House. The weather forecast is as bad for tomorrow as it was for today and we got a light shower at about 3pm today. I hope tomorrow is similar or better. At least Jim is talking about the next time we come whereas we came off Arran and he more or less said been there done that don’t need to do it again. Though he has said that the next is Lewis and Harris.The people here are happier… or less miserable anyway than in Lewis.
Tonight we are going for a meal in St Margaret’s Hope in South Ronaldsay and we are bussing it. We will get the bus at 6.30 for a 7pm meal. After the meal we go to the local pub and the get the bus back at 10pmish. It is great as I get free travel and we both get to drink. Better than we can do at home. I wonder if the ferry travel was free?

First day on the Mainland and as we suspected it was pishing down. First we visited Kirkwall and St Magus’s Cathedral. I am no church sightseer but this is fabulous. We then pootered around then checked in at the b& b. Then we went to Stromness for tea but iit was Monday and eveything was shut. Stromness’s main street is the first main streeet I have seen with passing places. It is something else. We then went to see the Italian Chapel but that was also close but it was meant to stay open till 10pm it was very wet so I don’t suppose they expected any more visitors after 8pm. Tomorrow is a neolithic day.

Like a lot of consumers I tend to stick with the things I know how to work. I recently change from Nokia to an Iphone. That was a major step but I saw Kat and Rob with one and I didn’t realise how handy the wifi would be. I love my ipod and have used one for years and would find it difficult to use a different brand. I find I am slow to learn how to do new things and it takes a good while for me to get the hang of them. But I suppose I am an OAP and I should just crawl into a cocoon and say I am too old to leard.

I’ve buggered my knee. I was quietly lying in bed reading this morning when I should have been up . I heard the bin man driving up the hill road and thought “Oh shit, I never put it out and it’s full and had fish bits in it”. I rushed on a pair of breeks and a jumper and ran down the stair twisting my knee on the way down. I got the bin out on time but have been pretty disabled today as I can barely walk on it. I have developed a method of locking the knee as I stride but it puts a strain on other bits so I am limiting movement. I am now lying resting it and being buzzed by a nasty bluebottle. If I missed the binman it would be another fortnight till it is picked up again so would be seriously full and stinking.