Sunday was an amazing day weather-wise, the sun came out, the wind dropped and it got positively hot. I left Ross fitting the ridge tiles to the roof as the correct ones had been delivered and storms were being predicted for latter in the week. As it was the first Sunday in the month it was time for a drive up to Dounby for their indoor car boot sale. This is quite a social event and a good time to meet up with folks from the other parts of the island particularly for us, our friends from Burray. This time it was particularly busy and I had trouble finding a parking space in the large car park. After eventually parking I wandered in and I ended up having a good ‘blather’ to a couple of friends that I met there, a walk around the stalls didn’t reveal anything that caught my attention so as it was getting near to lunchtime ( the car boot show doesn’t start until about noon, very civilized I think! ) and as I was near to the Orkney Brewery and tomorrow was my birthday I thought I would treat myself to a burger there.

I got a warm welcome when I arrived from the ladies who work there, as we had met before on several occasions. Eating on your own is never the greatest experience but the burger was great, washed down with a half of their Red McGregor bitter. When came the time to pay, I spotted one of the waitresses who I had worked with at the Ness of Brodgar was hiding behind the counter eating a piece of Rocky Road cake. When I questioned her about the stealth eating, she admitted that it was her birthday yesterday and the cake was a present from one of the other ladies. So when I said that my birthday was the next day a piece of this cake was offered and very nice it was too! People are so friendly here and I left the place not feeling quite such a ‘billy no mates’ as I felt when I arrived at the brewery.

As the day was so nice I decided to take a little walk by Skail Bay but instead of walking along the beach I took the route by the little church and along the cliff tops. The path is a little tricky in places but after storms Anna and I have taken some great photos from this walk. I found a comfortable slope on the cliff top and settled down in the sun and had a little kip (see photo ).

When I got back to Mill Cottage there was just time to have a shower and get ready for the John Rae Society AGM that evening. This went very well, and after the formal business was done everyone ended up chatting away and eating some of the lovely food that had been provided.

Monday was my birthday and my first since we moved to Orkney. The day passed keeping busy with work and liaising with the builders. I opened all the cards that had arrived the previous weeks and my two sons Oliver and Tim rang me in the evening to wish me happy birthday as well as my old friend Mark Boreham which was nice.

This week the building is going well and we have a digger back on the site. The improvements he has made to the garden area and the area by the Grain Store are fantastic, but I shan’t be posting any photos of the work until next week. This is because I want to surprise Anna when she gets back next Sunday so apologies to everyone about that. You will have to wait for the ‘big’ reveal later.

Apologies about the weather station not updating but the new extension has blocked the signal from the station to the unit plugged into the computer. All will be sorted when we move back!