A Cycle run to Finstown and Beyond

A perfect midummer's day in Orkney.

Early sun from a cloudless azure sky
An open road and the thrumming of tyres on tarmac
A gentle breeze at our backs

Bright green fields, edged with dry stane dykes, slip -sliding down to grey stony shores fringed with burnt umber seaweed
Deep blue sea rippled out from the shore and calm as a mill pond near the road

The smell of new mown hay
A tractor with a following of seagills in its wake

A scattering of houses as if thrown randomly onto the landscape

Black as black Aberdeen Angus cattle grazing in fields of yellow buttercups
Creamy coloured cattle ( Charolais perhaps) at a gate looking solemnly through long eyelashes at yellow coated cyclists passing by.

The cry of peewits over the fields
Oyster catchers with oh so red beaks hunkered down on the shoreline.

Grassy verges filled with a myriad of coloured flowers- buttercups, oxeye daisies, vetches, clover, shepherd's purse and lovely yellow flag irises.

A picnic beside a bridge, watching new white puff ball clouds appearing from nowhere and being reflected in the water

A lie down on springy daisy covered grass watching boats plying to and fro from Kirkwall

And a turn for home with memories of a magical cycle run .

And, just to complete the day, the anticipation of a blip meet with two Orcadian blippers, Northern and Poppy.

His Lordship thinks I've been reading too much George Mackay Brown