Today was another moving day. We were supposed to spend a few hours flying from Stornoway (Outer Hebrides) through Inverness to Kirkwall (Orkney Island). We were supposed to be on Orkney by 10:15 and I thought we'd spend the whole day exploring the island. Things went wrong right away. As we walked into the airport we were told that flight to Inverness was canceled. We were rescheduled on a flight through Edinburgh leaving at 12:05. That gave us about 5 hours on Lewis and Harris, but we had already turned our rental car in. Fortunately, we are in Scotland where people are nice. An airport employee heard of our problem and said "I can fix that." In about ten minutes we had our car back and were invited to enjoy more of the island.
And we did, first we drove out to the almost ghostly Calonais Standing Stones placed here over 4,000 years ago. The stones are erected in a small circle, perhaps 20 feet in diameter. Runways of parallel stones run in opposite directions. At the very highest point of ground the stone runway stopped at a burial cairn. Sandy said that she got goose bumps just standing there. Me, I just keep wondering what possessed these guys to keep standing stones on their ends.
We still had time to swing back into Stornaway where we picked up a Harris Tweed sweater for me and sandy got a pendant of polished gneiss that reminded her of the Calonais Standing Stones. Then back to the airport to drop the rental car off for the second time today.
Our plane was delayed again. Finally we got in the air and landed in Edinburgh and wouldn't you know it, delayed again. When we were finally getting ready to take off for Orkney the pilot apologized for all the delays, but then said "when we take off we'll fly this plane like we stole it". He did make good time. And then when we landed and got our rental car I had a devil of a time finding our AirBnB. All is well that ends well, and we did find our apartment, and after that a pub for a refreshment and meal. The day did not go as planned but I always like the adventure of working my way through it!
Another piece of good news, I completed hitting for the cycle of foods I must have in Scotland. Tonight's pub had on its menu Cullin Skink. It has taken me more than two weeks but now I have had: Scotch eggs, haggis, beef and ale pie, and cullin skink. The fresh oysters, mussels and ubiquitous fish and chips have been a good add-on. Oh yes, and Scotch Whisky.
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