Northern Isles Day 7

Northern Isles Day 7

We had the place to ourselves last night, apart from a car arriving at 2.30am and parking up for 10 minutes with its engine running. After that I was awake till after 5.30.

The weather has been the same as yesterday - blustery showers and a brisk wind. After breakfast we had a walk south along the cliffs then up a trig point before descending to a small graveyard which had a few Commonwealth War graves.

We then drove to Stenness to see if we could spot the elusive little blue flower found in that area only but no luck though we saw lots similar at Eshaness. Stemless was a base for haaf fishing and a few ruins existed.

We called to see St Mungo Hotel which was a Scandinavian kit building assembled in Glasgow over 100 years ago. It still looked good.

From there we called at Mavis Grind to see when the Atlantic (on the right) and North Sea (left) are very close. Until the 1950s boats would get dragged across the space to save the sail round the north of Shetland. The closest I’ve ever been to an otter was sadly a dead one which must have been knocked by a car as it crossed from one side to the other.

We stopped at the Co-op at Brae for some fresh fruit and veg before heading down the back road to Aith and then along to West Burrafirth ferry terminal. We are parked for the rest of the day here. Unfortunately no boats go to Papa Stour till Wednesday so we won’t get to visit there. However we have booked a dusk boat to Mousa on Saturday to (hopefully) see the storm petrels arrive into the broch.

#2 daughter had a meeting at school with the dyslexia team about James. In some tests he scored as low as you can go - eg remembering a series of words and repeating backwards. In others he was scoring high. They are putting in place 3 sessions a week with special needs to try to address the issues. It’s lucky he is articulate and bright or he might not have been referred so young. I hope he’ll make progress now before he feels frustrated and falls behind in other areas.

Unfortunately I have almost run out of data allowance so I’ll not be able to look at journals much.