A wet day in Stromness

The weather changes by the day in Orkney - yesterday was brilliant, today was very, very wet. So we started the day in Stromness with a leisurely visit to the fabulous Stromness Museum.

The old town is clustered along a single, characterful and winding main street, flanked with houses and shops built from local stone, with narrow lanes and alleys branching off it, as in my blip for today.

First recorded as the site of an inn in the 16th century, Stromness became important during the late 17th century, when England was at war with France and shipping was forced to avoid the English Channel. Ships of the Hudson's Bay Company were regular visitors, as were whaling fleets and Captain Cook's ships watered there before their voyage around the world. Stromness Museum reflects these aspects of the town's history, displaying for example South pacific artifacts brought back by Cook's men, important collections of whaling relics, and Inuit artefacts brought back as souvenirs by local men from Greenland and Arctic Canada.

Given the foul weather today I can't resist quoting one verse from the poem Bloody Orkney, written during WW2 by Captain Hamish Blair, one of the many soldiers who spent a stultifying, boring war on the northern frontier.

All bloody clouds, and bloody rains,
No bloody kerbs, no bloody drains,
The Council's got no bloody brains,
In bloody Orkney.

Captain Hamish Blair