Patience is a Virtue

 
After the now ritual dook with the Selkies, I travelled through to Kirkwall on the seat in  pole position in the bus. This allowed me an unrestricted view of another wet Orkney day and the chance to appreciate the appeal of the colours of a rain obscured landscape. 
In sunshine, what springs to the fore is the intense blue of the lochs with their fringing of umber seaweed and the blue sky studded with fluffy white clouds. In the rain, the lochs are a nondescript grey and it is the myriad of greens in the landscape which draws the eye.There are so many shades ranging from the lime green of fields recently cut for silage through a kaleidoscope of grassy greens where black cattle and black crows appear so prominent, to much darker greens shot through with brown of the hills leading to Orphir. This misty landscape doesn’t necessarily make to the tourist brochures but it is so quintessentially Orkney that it has its own appeal.

Kirkwall was damp but cruise ship free enabling me to meander unhindered. This little vignette outside the Cathedral caught my eye. Retrievers are very placid and accepting of life in general and these two were incredibly patient as they sat in the rain waiting for their owner to emerge.

A cup of coffee in Kirkwall Town Hall after some food shopping, a bus trip back to Stromness with a welcoming greeting from a fellow Selkie as I splashed up the Street and I’m home. Now I have the dilemma of deciding between Wimbledon and the Tour for an afternoon of TV watching.
 
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