Lofty View

I don't have a great deal to write as it is 00.22 and we have not long arrived at our hotel in Stromness on Orkney after returning south to Lerwick from the Northmavine, retrieving my 'lost' hat, using up time till the ferry departure late afternoon with scones in the Museum Cafe and relaxing on the Knab.  What followed was a six hour ferry trip and a twenty minute drive then some faffing to locate the hotel carpark in the narrow streets of Stromness, which at midnight looks very like Lerwick.  Our hotel is tired.  We guess it must have once been a very grand place, right on the harbour, but we do have a fine sea view, the room is clean and we have everything we need and Paul and Ian seem sound.  Not quite sure what their roles are but they were welcoming.

We passed some time in Lerwick waiting to join the ferry queue by overlooking the town from Fort Charlotte which is where I took my blip of the seagull.  There was a large Scandinavian cruise ship in the harbour, hence why all the cafes were full (!) and we watched the comings and goings of the coaches and the small boats ferrying what sounded to be mainly American women of a certain age to and from the ship.

The 'lost' hat has quite a funny story attached to it.  Whilst parkrunning on Bressay last Saturday, a marshal kindly offered to hold on to my woolly hat which I had forgotten to remove when we started off.  We then both forgot about it and she had taken it with her on an earlier return ferry.  We managed to locate her via FB but she was away babysitting and said she would leave it at the guest house we had been staying for us to collect today on our return.  Meanwhile she posted a photo of the conservatory where she had left the hat inside.  I thought it was her conservatory.....Apparently, she had seen our host Rebecca in the street and asked her if she got the hat?  Rebecca looked confused and said no.  She had left it in the conservatory of a house around the corner!  Rebecca called round to another very confused householder who could not understand why a woolly hat had appeared in his conservatory!  This is what happens when folks leave their doors open but it's lovely that they feel able to!

Tony is telling me it is well past midnight so time to finish here and look forward to exploring some of Orkney tomorrow.