Sylvan Orkney

Starts gently and doesn’t overheat.
 
After breakfast the Current Mrs Creel and me walked round the policies.  After overnight rain the Gyre Plantings were glistening and verdant.  We met in with our neighbour Carla, taking Aaron a walk in the pram.  She informed us that her, Andy and Fraser, are putting their house on Air BnB for three months so they can go to Vietnam.  She also mentioned the rash of people mixing up identification of knots and dunlins. We then met Hazel, once CMC’s piano teacher, on the coastal walk.  She indicated she has a few sporadic gigs coming up.  She also told us about the last time she met Ivor Cutler in the Royal Festival Hall.  We headed home.  We stay on a prominence called the Breck.  There are only three occupied houses – all down by Scapa Flow.  It was a tranquil morning, waves lapping with a full tide.  Flat calm; from the front step we could hear skylarks, sparrows, redshanks, fulmars, a raven, black guillemots, common gulls and a blackbird and a meadow pipits.
 
At HQ CMC didn’t provide any pampering of my whims because I had to go back in the ring to wrestle with SSE and setting up a Direct Debit to pay for Hoy Kirk electricity.  After the call I kicked hell out of my inflatable Chairman of the SSE.  I then called the Hoy Kirk Insurers to establish a new policy.  I know how to have a good time.  There was still no time to be pampered.  However the Current Mrs Creel (RADA membership fully paid up) took me out to lunch in the east of the Mainland.  It truly hit the spot.  Back at base my new supply of coffee had arrived from Glasgow.  In a superb bit of timing the rain started the very second I put the mower away in the shed after the cutting.  There were a few midges as it became sultry; but not desultory. Sometimes I have to sleep in the shed too.  But no more of that.   It’s times like this I shouldn’t be let near a keyboard.
 
Lighting up time in Baltasound tonight is 00.06hrs.
 
The big question of the age, that’s always dodged is ‘Will we ever live in a world free of ornaments?’
 
Sleep well , all of you.
 
Dream of better days; and better Blips.