The Old Homestead

His Lordship is a hard task master when it comes to exercise, so it was his idea to cycle forth into a cold, breezy, low cloud day this morning with rain in the air.

The plus side of this dull grey light is the intense colour of the roadside flowers : the yellow of the buttercups, marsh marigolds and the flag irises in the ditches and marshy parts of the fields, the bright scarlet of the huge poppies and the red of campion and wild roses and the intense purple blue of what I think is geranium.

The further we cycled from Stromness and its proximity to the hills of Hoy, the clearer the weather got until just after our obligatory tea stop at Dounby and the visit to Corrigall Farm Museum, the sun came out and we had a warm run back by Maes Howe and Stenness with the shimmering lochs and low fields encompassed by a big Orcadian sky of high clouds on a pale blue background.

Orkney's weather is so fickle.

The blip is of a room in the Corrigall Farm Museum.