Orkney Weather

A Week’s weather in a day is the norm for this special place.
I set off on my trusty steed before breakfast for a dander round the highways and byways of Stromness in the windless early morning promise of a day of calm and sunshine. However, I was no sooner home than the mist descended on the land and the rains came- gentle warm rains but wetting and distinctly cheerless nevertheless.

On holiday it doesn’t do to chicken out even if it is wet and so I strode forth suitably waterproofed and took this blip of a squall approaching.
Once more home and dried off, the sun came out and the wind freshened and now I’ve found a sheltered spot in the garden to sit and bask in the sunshine.

Orkney does this sunshiny weather so well. Where I sit, the sea is a coruscating blue with white horses on the waves further out. The stony shore line appears a light umber fringed with dark brown seaweed and in the distance the white lighthouse at the south end of Graemsay stands sentinel before a pale cream beach under green mown fields. It’s difficult now to remember how bleak this view was under a thick curtain of mist and rain earlier- such a transformation!