A Quiet Moment in a Kirkwall Street

Taken out for lunch in Kirkwall!!  Even more surprising - for good behaviour.  I also took the opportunity to go along to the Council Offices and pay a bill and post a document in the VAO letterbox (I hadn’t rehearsed).  Meantime CMC went her own way and bought a new bag and some towels. 

On my way back to our rendezvous a poignant little event happened.  I saw a wife in front of me who was quite bent and obviously concentrating on her walking.  I thought ‘ha that’s Janet’ but wasn’t sure.  I hadn’t seen her for 18 months and she was wearing a mask.  I maneuvered myself in front of her but she turned into the lane by the Tree Shop.  I followed her into the covered alley.  She was slightly ahead of me.  I said ‘Is that you Janet?’ – she looked round quite startled.  I thought, no this is no Janet.  But it was.  ‘Aye’ she said ‘it’s me but wha’s thoo?’  I said ‘I’m Iain. I used to see you at the weekly Kirk Café’.  ‘Hello Jim’, she said. 

I said, ‘Don’t you remember we used to have such a deep and meaningful relationship?’  This is her honest reply: ‘No, but we could start one now!’  She asked me where I stayed.  I said ‘If you go down past the Parish Kirk along the Gyre Road you come to the Gyre Farm, turn left down to the Breck’.  ‘Whatever happened to that lovely couple that used to be on the Breck – are they still there, Jim?’  (she was referring to me and CMC).  ‘Yes, I’m Iain and CMC is still with me’. ‘I’ve got dementia and I’m no sure of things Jim’.  I asked her where she was going.  She indicated she was to meet her man in the car park.  I asked how she knew the car.  ‘It’s a blue wan’.  We looked in all the blue cars and found her man (Mike).  I opened the car door for her.  She climbed in and I went round the driver’s side.  I spoke to Mike.  She leaned over and said to her man ‘Dear, this is Jim and I’ve been calling him Iain’. 

I would say she was 50/50 witty.  Until two years ago she was a model of humanity caring for all elderly in the Parish.  And she served tea in the Kirk.  I had tears in ma een.  It was a bittersweet moment.

Why bother with the cliché that is St Magnus Cathedral or Broad Street?  I bring you a Blip exclusive of a vernacular part of Laing Street / King Street junction.  Upstairs the East Kirk has the best dance floor in the County.

Don’t forget ‘Tomorrow is another day’.