Claremont

Because "Island Blogging" is moving from its BBC host to a new host all future editions of the "Fletcher Saga" will appear at the this web address (URL):

http://claremont.island-blogging.co.uk

Feedback - brickbats and bouquets - from readers is always welcome.

I started this blog last month (November) but kept on putting off publishing it. Now it is December so I thought I'd best put it on the web before the New Year was upon us.

Margareth thought that readers of this Saga might like to see how the captive fruits of her Monstera Deliciosa are progressing. The flowers appeared on April the 1st 2008 and according to Botanical Knowledge the fruit takes twelve months to ripen. The fruits are filling out nicely and are well on the way to ripening. They are still living in her daughter's bedroom and being thoroughly neglected - Margareth says "no change there!. Margareth and her husband, Al, have now put their house on the market and wonder if the house will sell before the due event. Maybe a kindly prospective purchaser would take it on! Margareth's daughter has bought a flat and it doesn't look as though there will be room for the plant to be accommodated there!





Margareth, her husband, Al, and her unusual plant family send seasons greetings and a healthy and prosperous 2009 to you all.

Together with a handful of hardy souls Maureen and I attended the annual service at the Stronsay War Memorial at mid-day on Sun 9 Nov. It was a bitterly cold day which felt even colder because of the strong wind and the exposed location of the War Memorial. Our minister, Jennifer, made the service a very short one and we all shivered as we stood in silence to remember all those who had given their lives for our freedom.

For some time now Maureen has been complaining that the kitchen seemed to be very dark and she needed to use the under-cupboard lights in order to see what she was doing when preparing meals. As the existing 6 foot fluorescent tubes had been in use for 2 or 3 years I decided to replace them with a couple of new tubes from Ebenezer Stores. What a difference it made. Now we need dark glasses whenever we go into the kitchen!

In my last blog I mentioned that the car's windscreen wipers had stopped working. After receiving a lot of help and advice from a friend on the island I discovered that one of the the bearings had siezed up; no doubt Stronsay's salt-laden wind had contributed to this problem. However, after the application of a bit of non-too-gentle persuasion and copious amounts of lubrication the wipers are now functional once more. Now all I have to do is replace a worn-out wiper blade. The car's annual road-worthiness test becomes due in January 2009 but I think our trusty Discovery will become an "island car"; this will mean that it no longer needs annual road-worthiness tests but is prohibited from being driven anywhere except on Stronsay's roads.

We had a delivery of heating oil last month and were delighted to find that the price has now dropped back to 46.75 pence per litre; much better than the 64.8 pence per litre we paid in July. And when I took Surrey over to Kirkwall for her annual innoculation last week I found that I could buy petrol at just under a pound per gallon.

Recently I discovered the Kirkwall on-line library database which has been very handy when Maureen wants to find out whether the library has more books by an author she enjoyed reading. The library staff are extremely helpful in responding to requests for a particular book to be put on the mobile library when it visits Stronsay, on last month's visit Maureen was delighted to receive the very latest Bernard Cornwell book "Azincourt".

This will be the final Saga for 2008; Maureen and myself (not forgetting Surrey, our white cat) wish all our readers a very happy and peaceful New Year.

We've just (Sat 18 Oct) got back from the doctor's surgery after having our annual anti-influenza injections. So far we've had no adverse reactions but we often wonder whether these injections have any real effect - would we catch 'flu if we didn't have them?

A couple of weeks ago we went up to Olivebank, one of our two shops, and did a bit of shopping. We also collected the newspapers for ourselves and for Sue, our postmistress. I wonder why it is that all the extra bits that go in the Saturday edition of the Daily Telegraph don't usually arrive until Monday - there are no newspapers from mainland on Sunday, they arrive on Monday. It's no fault of Maurice & Sheila who run the shop, they are at the mercy of Loganair who carry newspapers out from Kirkwall; and they in turn are reliant on the early-morning newspaper flight up from Inverness or Aberdeen. The effect of this is that on Monday there is a weighty pile of newspapers to cart home and we don't get the Telegraph's radio & TV guide in time to see what's on on Sunday; we have to rely on the BBC Radio 4 website. But I digress. On our way back from Olivebank to the other shop on Stronsay, Ebenezer Stores, I parked outside the post office whilst Maureen took the newspapers in to Sue, the postmistress. However, when I tried to drive off to Ebenezer Stores the gear stick (it’s an automatic) felt very sloppy and didn’t seem to be attached to anything nor did the car engage gear. Fortunately the car was outside the Post Office and therefore, quite literally, just across the road from Claremont so I left it where it was and phoned Mark, the island’s car mechanic who works from Olivebank garage. Next day Mark came along and diagnosed the problem straightaway – the cable between the gear lever and the transmission had snapped right at the end. Mark managed to get the car back to the garage at Olivebank, phoned the local Land Rover agent in Kirkwall and then phoned me with the news that a new cable and the extra bits to fit it would cost me well over 178 pounds (about 350 US dollars); I should have known that it would have been an expensive item after paying over 100 pounds for a new oil cooler (a two-foot length of copper pipe with heat-dispersing fins soldered onto it) 2 or 3 years ago. The car is now well over 12 years old and spending that much on a simple repair would be uneconomical so Mark said he would try to fix the old cable; and, being an honest chap, said that he couldn't guarantee that he would be successful nor that the repair would be long-lasting. An hour later Mark phoned with the good news that he had managed to re-attach the cable but, because the cable was now a couple of inches shorter, I would only be able to select “park”, “reverse” or “drive”. As those are the only selections I ever use this was quite acceptable to me and I heaved a sigh of relief. The car has been fine ever since, or at least it had been until the windscreen wipers packed up a week ago! When the car received its annual MOT inspection in January 2008 the mechanic on mainland warned me that the next MOT would involve some major (and expensive!) repair work so when the next MOT inspection becomes due in January 2009 the car will become an “island car”; this means I won’t have to put it in for an MOT inspection but I will only be able to use the car on Stronsay. As I only ever go to mainland 3 or 4 times a year this is no great hardship.

Sue, who has been Stronsay’s postmistress for the last five years or so, has now retired. Lisa, who lives just down the road and has worked as relief postmistress from time to time, has taken over from Sue. And our neighbour Bob Tateson, a teacher at Stronsay Junior High School, retired at half-term so Bob’s house, owned by the Education Authority, is now empty awaiting the arrival of Bob’s replacement.

Whilst browsing the Internet for photographs of Stronsay I found a wonderful website, it contains a huge quantity of photographs of the UK including Orkney – there’s the usual Vat of Kirbuster photograph but there's a photograph which actually shows our house, its centre right, second house from the right. I even found a photograph of the Derbyshire village (Hayfield) where I was brought up

Malcolm, our reliable handyman, moved to a new house last year. He chose the new house because it was attached to a large but rather decrepit outbuilding. He has made the outbuilding weather-proof, made it accessible from within the house and upgraded the electrics; now the decrepit outbuildings is a large, well-equipped workshop. The outbuilding housed several feral cats which Malcolm was amazed to find happily co-existing with the family of blackbirds that have their nest in the rafters inside the building; apparently the birds and the cats share a common entrance to the outbuilding via an old steel drive shaft which runs through a large hole in the wall. Malcolm has actually seen a cat watching a blackbird walk into the barn along the old drive shaft, inches from her nose. However, although the cats and blackbirds manage to tolerate each other the cats soon dispose of any mice or rats that dare to show their nose in the building.

Vicky the hairdresser paid her monthly visit to Stronsay a couple of weeks ago. As she was doing Maureen’s hair Vicky remarked that her cat had developed a habit of jumping onto her bedside table and drinking from the glass of water that was left on it overnight. The noise of the cat lapping the water woke Vicky up in the middle of the night so she thought of a clever ploy to foil the cat – she only filled the glass to the half-way mark so that the cat couldn’t reach it. However, the cat was equal to the challenge and found out that it could dip its paw into the half-full glass of water and then slurp the water from its wet paw thus making even more noise than just lapping from a full glass of water. This reminded me that our white cat, Surrey, has become very lazy just lately; when a fresh bowl of water is placed on the floor for her she lies down and waits for the ripples to cease before carefully dipping her paw into the water and then licking the water from her paw - all this still lying on the floor, how lazy can a cat get?

In last month’s blog I mentioned the Stronsay Beast - I should have mentioned Dr Yvonne Simpson's website which has lots of information on the history of the Stronsay Beast. There’s also a handy guest book if you want to pass on your ideas of what you think the Beast might have been.

I had a pleasant surprise when I got Highland Fuel's bill for 500 litres of heating oil delivered on 10 Sep, it was 59.40 pence per litre which compares favourably with 68.91 pence per litre for the 500 litres that was delivered in early July. However, petrol and diesel are still the same price.

I had another pleasant surprise when, thanks to the Pensions Advisory Service, I discovered that when I began to draw my state pension in June, Maureen's pension should have risen from 42 pence (yes, fortytwo pence!) per week to 60 percent of my state pension. I telephoned a very helpful lady in the Pensions Department who informed me that Maureen should have automatically received her pension increase and that her new pension will be backdated to June.

I went into Kirkwall this week for an appointment with the ENT specialist at Balfour Hospital, I left with a prescription for lots of medicine and an appointment in January 2009. I had time to do a little bit of shopping and decided to treat myself to a meal in the Albert Hotel. I was horrified to discover that a pint of Guinness now costs three pounds twenty pence! Thank goodness I can still brew my own at home for about thirty pence a pint.

At the end of August I noticed an inflatable dinghy and several people in immersion suits on the beach at the Ayre of Myres just down the road from us and wondered what on earth was going on - were they the survivors of a shipwreck or members of an extreme sports club? The truth was much more mundane but still interesting, they were carrying out a survey of the Harbour Seal population.

I played the organ for a wedding on Sat 6 Sep. Whilst the rest of UK was being drenched in rain and battered by high winds the Stronsay wedding party had a day of bright sunshine, no rain and just a little fresh breeze. Driving home after the wedding I was amused to see about 50 sheep crowded into a corner of the field opposite the Community Centre and staring intently at the cars arriving for the wedding reception in the Community Centre; perhaps one of their former associates was featuring on the menu.

The weather is playing havoc with the seasons, crocuses have been blooming outside Sunnybank farm since late August, they are either very late or very early!

The Orkney Science Festival came to Stronsay on 11/12 Sep. I opted out of the tours of Stronsay (too much walking!) and the lunch but I did go to the well-attended evening lecture on the "Stronsay Beast". Geneticist Dr Yvonne Simpson gave an extremely interesting talk on the history of the beast (which was 55 feet long!), covering what it could and what it could not be. Dr Simpson is hoping to obtain permission to send a small sample of the surviving bits of the beast to a DNA testing laboratory in Florida which has a database of all known shark species, this will prove that the beast was or was not a shark. If it was a shark then the database should show whether it's a known species or a new one; if it wasn't a shark then the DNA will be used to try to determine if it matches any known species. If permission to take the samples is given the results should be available by the end of the year. After the lecture we were able to help devour the mountain of food left over from lunch.

We had a laugh last week when the postman delivered a flyer from Scottish Gas promoting their central heating boiler maintenance plan etc. Scottish Gas don't seem to be aware that the only gas on Stronsay is in the form of cylinders of propane or butane gas; and, as far as I know, there is no "mains" gas on mainland either.

When Maureen puts down fresh water for Surrey she (Surrey, not Maureen!) has developed the habit of lying down in front of the water dish and watching it intently for some time before rapidly moving forwards and drinking. Perhaps Surrey thinks that the small ripples indicate the presence of some live food in her bowl?

Recently the Scottish Government announced the abolition of carpark fees for hospitals in Scotland (except for the PFI ones). The decision will have little effect up here as parking at Balfour Hospital in Kirkwall is free, if you can find a spare parking space that is.

When I left the RAF in 1973 I trained as a Radio Officer at Bletchley Park so I was interested to see that there is a petition to save Bletchley Park, the home of the "code breakers" in World War 2. The Bletchley Park Museum has just received a $100,000 donation by data protection expert PGP Corporation and IBM but more cash will be needed for years to come.

We've been having really good weather these last few weeks. Maureen has cleared out her greenhouse; it's really the old coal shed but with the original leaky roof replaced by clear, corrugated plastic one. I've converted the old outside lavatory, which is fairly good condition, into a "potting shed". After whitewashing the interior walls and roof it now seems much less gloomy. In there I've put some lettuce plants we were given, they seem to be thriving, and I've put a few cauliflower seeds and radish seeds into small pots and they seem to be growing OK. One day in July it was so hot that it actually melted the tarred road outside the Fire Station. We're not used to these temperatures!

Mike & Sheila's ducks have raised a brood but one duckling has been brought up by one of their hens and refuses to go anywhere near the duck pond despite the best efforts of Mike & Sheila to encourage it. If the duckling strays too far from its "mother" hen the hen just clucks and the duckling scurries back.

Although we're basking in sunshine we've an eye on the winter so we bought a couple of portable electric lanterns to cope with any power cuts. They are the "wind up" type which will also run from a 12 volt car battery. They should prove very handy and experimentation has shown that about a minute of "winding" will provide around 30 minutes of light.

I went over to Kirkwall on the Friday before the County Show and the weather was fine and warm. Of course on the following day it poured down in the afternoon. It was my first visit to mainland for some weeks and I was surprised to find that Orkney Ferries have moved into the 21st century and the ferry fares can now be paid on board by credit or debit card instead of the old system of either cash or cheque. Whilst in Kirkwall I visited the "new" Tesco store (previously owned by various groups including Presto, Safeway/Morrisons and Somerfield) and noticed that it's still mostly the same staff who've been there through all the changes of ownership. There was some controversy when Tesco announced that they were going to buy the store from Somerfield and even more controversy when Tesco announced that they wanted to build an extension to the store. The store was closed for several weeks when Tesco took over which, apparently, caused quite a bit of congestion in both the Co-op and Lidl stores.

It's our custom to listen to the "Book at Bedtime" on BBC Radio 4. However, at the beginning of each episode the announcers have developed the annoying habit of telling listeners what's going to happen next instead of just giving a resume of what's happened in previous episodes. Yet another reason for me to shout at the wireless.

It's the Orkney International Science festival next month. All of the events are on mainland but on Thu 11 Sep and Fri 12 Sep there is a special event on Stronsay which centres on the 200 year old mystery of "Stronsay Beast". I've booked our tickets, if you're interested in the event I've posted the details on the Stronsay Development Trust website

Margareth has yet another "mystery" plant! In the photographs below, just at the back of the Mother in laws tongue, is a pot containing four huge (Spanish onion size) bulbs. Out of each bulb grows about a 3ft long "snake" which then branches and produce little white dandelion-like clocks. It does not have leaves and the flowers are tiny, about the size of a garden pea (a pea in the pod not the pod). Margareth inherited this plant 4 years ago and says that she has done nothing with it except neglect it, it gets water from the capillary action of the bench it sits on and lives in an old 8" plastic glue pot. What is it?

According to Bill Miller, RNLI committee secretary on Stronsay, the Lifeboat Sunday events on Stronsay last month raised over £2,500 (about 5,000 US dollars).

Regular readers of my ramblings will remember that I got my first hearing aid earlier this year. Batteries for the hearing aid are available from Dr George McKay's surgery so when my first pack of batteries was finished I called to collect a new pack from Katrina, Dr McKay's very friendly and highly efficient practice manager. I popped the new pack of batteries into my shirt pocket and forgot all about them until Maureen came in a couple of days later and handed me the rather tattered remains of the pack of batteries; they had gone, with my shirt, through a complete hot wash cycle and spent quite some time in the tumble drier. Amazingly the batteries still work so I didn't have to go cap in hand and confess to Dr McKay what I'd done.

Karen English from Tennessee, USA is an avid read of the Fletcher Saga and had emailed us to say she was spending a couple of weeks in Orkney and would like to visit Stronsay. So it was that I collected Karen off the morning ferry on 18 June and drove her up to Claremont where Karen, Maureen and I had early morning tea. Fortunately the weather was fine and not too windy so I took Karen on the Grand Tour of Stronsay beginning at the viewpoint on St John's Hill. This proved rather tricky because we found that the grass had not been cut for some time and I had to use my size 13 wellington boots to trample a path through the wet grass for Karen to follow. Next on the agenda was the St Catherine's Bay where our approach via the steep track leading down to the beach from the telephone exchange caused a great stir amongst the myriad of resident rabbits who emerged from cover to flee to the safety of the nearest burrow. Next we drove on southwards and just before Stronsay's very own Fire Station turned right towards Rothiesholm (pronounced "rouse 'em") to see the variety of birds in the small lochs on the way to the road-end at Millfield Moss. Retracing our tracks to the Fire Station we headed for the seal hide and bird hide at Holland Farm, calling in at Olivebank Stores to collect our newspaper. We spent so much time chatting to people in the farmyard at Holland Farm that we didn't really have time to go down to the beach to watch the seals and ended up travelling the back to Claremont via the Old Mill at Lower Millfield. We didn't want to be late getting back to Claremont because Maureen had spent the morning preparing a meal of North Ronaldsay lamb. After the meal we sat chatting but couldn't really relax because we were all heading for Moncur Memorial Church at 4 pm where the Oxford Singers were putting on a concert. The Oxford Singers numbered about 25 in all and were conducted by Stephen Wilkinson, they were part of the St Magnus Festival and their visit to Stronsay (on the same ferry that had brought Karen) was really a rehearsal for their concerts on mainland a few days later. The concert was very enjoyable especially in the glorious acoustics of Stronsay's kirk and we heard pieces by Byrd, Buxtehude, Purcell and JS Bach. After the concert there was just time to have a cup of tea with Karen before delivering back to the quay so she could travel back to Kirkwall.

Maureen's Medieval Hall is now officially a Baronial Hall as she has so much stuff from different periods of history. I think it's going to be like one of these museums or art galleries where only a fraction of its stock is on display and the remainder is "in store".

Margreth's "Mother-In-Law's Tongue" is still flowering



But now Margareth has sent me a photograph of a mystery plant. It lives on the window sill of her daughter's bedroom along with the cheese plant, aspidestra, and staghorn fern. The leaves are wide and furry, the length of each stem is about 10" and it has several yellow-ish "paint brushes" sprouting from it. Does anyone have any idea what it is?





Margareth is not only a healthcare professional with green fingers, she also likes sea fishing and, judging from this photograph, she is quite good at it!



The monks of Papa Stronsay invited us to their annual bonfire and barbeque in honour of St. John the Baptist. However, we didn't go because I was still getting over a slightly queasy stomach and Maureen's Menieres Syndrome makes travelling by sea quite an ordeal. Apparently there was a good turnout on the day despite the rather wet and windy weather which caused the barbeque to be held in one of the huge buildings on Papa Stronsay. There are photographs of the bonfire on the monastery's blog

One of our neighbours who lives just 2 doors away is Julia Crocker (Secretary of the Stronsay Development Trust). Julia has converted the garage of Clifton, her house in Whitehall village, into a very smart arts and crafts shop which was officially opened on 28 June. The shop has some books relevant to Orkney and to Stronsay but it is Julia's intention that the shop will concentrate on art and craft produced on Stronsay by Stronsay residents; the shop does have its very own website but it isn't quite finished yet!

First an apology for being so late in producing this edition of the Fletcher Saga. It should have been ready in May but we, like everyone else in Orkney, were too busy making the most of the good weather. We simply enjoyed the warm sunshine but the farmers have been very busy ploughing, harrowing, drilling and rolling their fields whilst one or two light showers have helped the seed to germinate. The lambing and calving are now over so the arable fields are filled with sheep and with cattle. And on the fifth of June I became eligible for my state pension.

A few weeks ago Stronsay's genial GP, Dr George McKay, held an open meeting to announce that he had proposed to NHS (National Health Service) Orkney that Stronsay and the nearby island of Eday be combined into a single practice when Eday's own GP retires this summer. This would mean Dr McKay travelling by a small charter boat to Eday on two afternoons each week and holding a surgery for an hour or two before returning on the scheduled ferry. I think the idea is to give the idea a trial run for a few months before assessing the results. Dr McKay is due to retire at the end of 2009 so he is keen to see the practice left in a condition that is viable and able to attract a new GP.

Do any of the readers of this Saga know of a qualified GP who would like to move to a small, single-handed practice of about 500 patients? I'm sure there must be at least one GP working in an inner city who would love to move to a more relaxed atmosphere, even if it was only for a few years.

One of Dr McKay's two nurses is Margareth; you may remember me mentioning her, her kittens and her goats in the Saga for 15 June 2006. Margareth has a Monstera Delicosa or Swiss Cheese Plant and, after extensive enquiries from Lands End to John O'Groats, she appears to have the only flowering and fruiting cheese plant in Britain. Apparently this is a very rare event because it needs special nutrients and growing conditions. Moreover, it takes a year to ripen! Margareth's daughter is a nurse at Balfour Hospital in Kirkwall and only comes home occasionally so the Swiss Cheese Plant is in her (unheated) bedroom. The plant seems to thrive on virtual neglect and gets an occasional splash of Stronsay tap water plus a few drops of "Baby Bio" once a year or when Margareth remembers to do it! The plant has been decapitated and the top along with its aerial roots repotted when it gets too straggley. Margareth is obviously a very green-fingered lady as she also has a Sanseviera Golden Hahnii or Mother-in-law's Tongue which is in bud. Margareth would love to hear from anyone who has any similar plant(s) in bud or in flower. There are photographs of the plants at the end of this Saga.

Last Sunday (8 June) was "Lifeboat Sunday", a day when the annual fund-raising event for the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institute) is held on Stronsay. Kirkwall's lifeboat came over for the day and was open for anyone to look around and inspect the wide range of equipment that is carried on board. The RNLI's supporters (both on- and off-island) put on their usual magnificent buffet lunch at the Community Centre where the main room was ringed with tables bearing a myriad of dishes, both hot and cold, and a mouth-watering selection of desserts. Either before or after your meal you could you could also participate in raffles or several tombola-like games; you could even get your hair cut as a qualified hairdresser was providing haircuts for ladies & for gentleman at five pounds a time.

Good news on the archaeology front. An archaeology team of eight, led by Naomi Woodward, is coming to Stronsay in the Autumn to continue with their excavations for four weeks. The SDT (Stronsay Development Trust) are running a raffle called "Dig Deep for the Archaeology Team!" to help to raise funds for the archaeologists accommodation. If anyone wishes to make a donation they may do so through the SDT Secretary who is "Julia Crocker, Clifton, Stronsay, Orkney, KW17 2AR"; Julia will issue a GiftAid form if applicable.

Stronsay's evening class in singing (aka the Stronsay Singers) started its Spring session on Monday. Although Stronsay only has 400 inhabitants there are enough enrolled students to give our tutor, Michael Lee, a four-part (SATB) choir to conduct & to teach.We are very fortunate in having the tuition of Michael because the extra grant money from the local education authority ran out last year thus Michael is only paid for the tuition on Monday evening whilst his ferry journey from Kirkwall to Stronsay on Monday and his return to Kirkwall on Tuesday morning are in his own time. Thanks to the efforts of Brian Crowe (one of our two tenors) Michael's fare on the ferry is paid jointly by Stronsay Community Council and by Orkney Islands Council whilst we (Maureen & me) provide his meal & accommodation on Monday night. I think I am correct in saying that our evening class on Stronsay is now the only evening class in the Northern Isles that receives tuition from a mainland tutor.

In last month's Saga I mentioned that we had been looking after Timber, a rather elderly but quite active cat, whilst Jack & Simone fetched Simone's elderly mother from the North of England. Sadly Simone's mother died a few weeks after arriving in Stronsay so once again we have Timber as a guest whilst Jack & Simone travel down to Yorkshire for the funeral. Timber is no trouble but we are keeping Surrey and Timber well apart just in case there is any animosity.

The cattle will soon be out in the fields again after their winter stay indoors and the calving. The lambing on Stronsay is almost complete and the field at the back of our house now contains quite a few sheep with their lambs. The view from our kitchen window has been enhanced because Bob Tateson has borrowed a couple of ponies to keep the grass in his "garden" under control; the antics of the ponies as they amble around chomping the grass whilst the birds (mostly starlings) follow the ponies around, sometimes getting what seems to be perilously close to the ponies hooves and teeth. Our own garden has been rather neglected for the last year or so but we have plenty of daffodils and primulas which are just about at their peak right now.

The carpet for Maureen's "medieval hall" was ordered from Wolstenholmes in Kirkwall on Thu 03 April. On Sat 12 April Wolstenholmes phoned to say that the carpet had arrived and would be delivered to the Kirkwall depot of Jim Holland, the Stronsay haulier, on Mon 14 April. Sure enough, Jim Holland delivered the carpet to our house on Monday evening; no mean feat as the carpet is 5 metres wide and 5.5 metres long and is very heavy. However, by Friday Malcolm & Paul had the carpet laid and firmly fixed down. I've put one or two artifacts onto the walls, put up curtain rails and hung the curtains over the windows and the door but Maureen was rather taken aback when she discovered just how much "stuff" she had stored away ready to display; I suggested that she should adopt the system used by museums and display just a small selection of the total stock and rotate the selection every few months.

We went to the Stronsay Hotel on Sunday evening, our first visit for quite some time. We went partly because Maureen wanted to celebrate the completion of another phase in her "medieval hall" project and partly because Maureen had almost run out of cigarettes and the shop was shut. Allan & Carol (landlord & landlady) were on their own so we had a good chat about a variety of topics and ended up going home with one of Allan's books that Allan was sure would be of interest to Maureen.

Main Claremont website

I've just realised that it is already March, the days are lengthening and I did not issue a "Fletcher Saga" in February. The old saying "time flies" is so true - it seems hardly credible that on 31 March we will have been in this house for four years.

In the last week of January I was replacing some light bulbs in the kitchen's undercupboard fittings when I managed to pull a muscle in my back. This meant I had to spend several days creeping around doing a passable impression of a geriatric Quasimodo although I did manage to help out with serving the drinks when Maureen put on a Burns Nighs supper for a few friends; this event had to be held a few days after the "proper" date because the RNLI had their own Burns Night celebration on 25 Jan.

February began with a bout of bad weather; on 1st Feb all schools & day care centres in Orkney cancelled, ferries & flights disrupted because of bad weather - severe gale F9 and storm F10. Next day about half an inch of snow fell on Stronsay but quite a bit more fell on mainland and disrupted the flights into and out of Kirkwall. The snow disappeared overnight, much to the chagrin of the youngsters who were looking forwards to some tobogganing.

In late January I was notified that I had an appointment for an MRI scan in the ARI (Aberdeen Royal Infirmary) on Wed 13 Feb. It seems that I need the scan because I've gone deaf in just one ear rather than both ears at once, the scan will show whether anything untoward is going on in and around my deaf ear. Thus it was that on Tuesday 12 Feb I took the afternoon ferry to Kirkwall and booked into the Kirkwall Hotel for two nights.On Wednesday I was up early and had my early breakfast of cereal, tea & toast before heading for the airport so that I could catch the early morning flight to Aberdeen . We took off on time and in gloriously sunny weather so I was hoping to see a bit more of northern Scotland from the air. However, although the whole of Orkney and the Pentland Firth was completely cloud-free there was a line of cloud that began at the coastline of Caithness and continued almost all the way to Aberdeen. It was bitterly cold in Aberdeen (about minus 2C) but the sky was cloudless. I got a taxi to the ARI (another 12 pounds to claim back from NHS Orkney!) and had the scan, the results of which will be passed to the specialist in a week or so. The scan was quite easy if a bit noisy, having read a bit about it on the web I expected it to be much more claustrophobic. I got back to Aberdeen airport in plenty of time to catch the afternoon flight back to Kirkwall but a dense fog descended about an hour or so before the flight was due to take off and it was soon obvious that there were not going to be any more flights that day. Eventually, after some confusion, the passengers due to fly to Kirkwall were told that their flight was cancelled and re-scheduled for 9:20 am next day. There were no rooms to be had anywhere in Aberdeen so I decided to go back to ARI to see if I could beg a bed for the night. After a short delay a charming young lady introduced herself as the support nurse for Orkney & Shetland and soon arranged for me and two other Orkney folk who were stranded to stay the night at the ARI. It was about 10 pm when she escorted me to my overnight accommodation and, thanks to the wonderful nursing staff of ward 29, I was soon sitting down with some hot tea & delicious buttered toast in a single-bed ward. Next morning I was given breakfast before setting out for Aberdeen airport. Fortunately there were no further delays and I arrived in Kirkwall just before lunch. I called into the Kirkwall Hotel to collect my things and pay for the two night stay, what a pity that I didn't get the breakfast that I was so looking forwards to. However, I still had time to do a bit of shopping before catching the afternoon ferry back to Stronsay.

Maureen's medieval hall is almost complete. The walls have been plasterboarded, papered & painted; the light fittings have been installed; and all that remains is to select a suitable carpet and get it fitted. On the recommendation of a friend we're going to put down coir matting in the small entrance hall because anyone coming in through the back door inevitably brings in dirt and damp on their footwear.

Naomi Woodward and a small team of archaeologists from Orkney College have been digging at Linkshouse on Stronsay for the last week or so. This dig was a follow-up to the Stronsay Archaeological Survey in April 2007 when some very interesting finds were made. The field walking that was undertaken then produced significant results in almost a quarter of the fields that were walked and enabled funding to be obtained for this years dig. Last Saturday the dig had an "open day" so, after dropping the hairdresser off at the airfield after her monthly trip to Stronsay, I made my way to Linkshouse Farm where quite a few local folk were already getting the "grand tour". I should have known better and taken my wellington boots - the mud was inches deep! However, Naomi gave an interesting description of what they were looking for and showed us some of their finds which included quite a lot of flint. Just to find a few significant items involved washing, sieving and then inspecting dozens if not hundreds of wheelbarrow loads of thick, black mud that had to be brought almost quarter of a mile over a very water-logged field to the barn in which the diggers had made their headquarters. Some soil samples will be sent to Stirling University for analysis. I took some photographs then, having seen the black clouds rapidly approaching, I thanked Naomi set off for home before the heavens opened.

Some readers may remember Timber, the cat who spent a couple of weeks with us in 2006 whilst his owners (Jack & Simone) were away on holiday. We had a phone call from Jack a couple of weeks ago asking if we could look after Timber at very short notice whilst Jack & Simone travelled down to the North of England where Simone's mother was not very well. Of course we agreed and Timber arrived the following day, complete with her own enormous litter tray and ample supplies of food, cat litter, etc. Timber was the perfect (purrfect?) house guest and happily dwelt in Maureen's pig-pen with the occasional foray into the corridor and, once or twice, upstairs into the bedrooms. We kept Timber and Surrey apart because Timber is "of riper years" and we didn't think it fair on Surrey who is accustomed to being the Top Cat at Claremont. A couple of weeks later, Jack phoned to say that they were back home and that Simone's mother had travelled north with them and would be living with them. So it was that when Jack & Simone collected Timber they brought Simone's mother, a charming lady, along to meet us and take tea with us. Even though we'd only had Timber for a couple of weeks it was quite emotional when we said "cheerio" as she was carried back to Jack's car.

Some friends of ours on Stronsay acquired a dog - "Shep", a sheepdog - from Westray last summer. He's calmed down a lot from his bouncy puppy days (thank goodness) but still manages to get himself into many a scrape. When his owners came downstairs the other morhing they could find no trace of Shep. They called him and searched in all his usual hiding places but he was nowhere to be found. One of the owners had to visit the bathroom but found that the bathroom door was bolted shut. As her husband was still in the kitchen it could only be the dog who had gone into the bathroom (typical nosey dog!), somehow managed to push the door closed behind him and then, scrabbling at the door handle with his paws to get out, managed to slide the bolt across thus securely locking himself in. His owner, probably having watched too many police films on TV, decided to break the door down and put his shoulder against it. Unfortunately instead of the flimsy bolt bursting open as he intended, the whole door split, vertically, into two pieces to reveal the dog, who had remained perfectly silent when he was being called, curled up and trying to hide behind the toilet bowl whilst looking decidedly guilty.
--
Bruce Fletcher
Claremont, Stronsay, Orkney

Here's the first Fletcher Saga of 2008 - I hope that you've all recovered from the Christmas and Hogmany celebrations.

Just before Christmas we were invited over to a friend's house for some informal carol singing. Apart from some "community" carol singing we heard some songs from Amelia on keyboard then on the guitar with Josephine on the recorder and Tilly on violin; all three girls are under 12 and were a delight to hear. Later Lisa, the mother of Ameila & Josephine, joined the three girls for a couple of songs.

Eileen, an intrepid friend of Sue (Stronsay's postmistress) and her mother, Mary, came north for a short break over Christmas. Her flight from London was delayed but she eventually arrived in Kirkwall on the Sunday before Christmas. Unfortunately there are no planes to Stronsay on Sunday but Sue managed to arrange for a member of the Kirkwall flying club to take Eileen from Kirkwall to Stronsay in a tiny, single-engined aeroplane. Eileen took it all in her stride and arrived safely but, alas, her luggage was still in Gatwick (or was it Heathrow) and it did not arrive until just after Christmas.

There was a good display of the Merry Dancers just before Christmas, there are some photographs on The Orcadian newspaper's website. The Maeshowe webcam for 20 Dec 2007 is available on YouTube.

The Christmas Eve service went well thanks to some help from the school orchestra and their friends. This year Jennifer (our minister) managed to keep the duration to just about 45 minutes as there were comments that the 2006 Christmas Eve service was a bit too long. The weather at 11:30 pm on Christmas Eve was perfect, a clear sky and a bright, full moon. In fact the moon was so bright that the candles in jamjars that were arranged on top of the wall around the kirk did not really show up as well as they should.

I miscalculated the heating oil (again!) and we ran out of oil on Jan 02. Because of the awkward re-fit schedule for ferries the tanker did not come over from Kirkwall until Jan 11.. Fortunately we have portable gas heaters and electric fan heaters so we did not suffer in the very cold weather we had during this period. Surrey loves the gas heaters and stretches out in front of them, luxuriating in the radiant heat; when the heating oil arrived and the gas heaters were turned off Surrey spent ages trying to work out where the gas heater's "on" button was located. In the first week of January we had some very strong SE winds meant that early morning ferry on Sat 05 Jan was unable to berth in Stronsay and had to return to Kirkwall. A ferry did reach Stronsay just before lunchtime but it was fully loaded with an enormous mobile crane and ancillary vehicles which were used to perform maintenance on the wind turbines on Rothiesholm. On the same day the evening ferry was cancelled and the Northlink ferries between Aberdeen, Orkney & Shetland were disrupted when adverse sea and wind conditions meant that boats were stuck in harbour at Lerwick and at Aberdeen. However, the Hamnavoe continued to ply between Scrabster & Stromness.

I went over to Kirkwall this week to get the car's annual compulsory safety check (MOT certificate) and to get my new hearing aid. The car passed its MOT and my new hearing aid is fantastic, it's tiny (a digital Siemens Chroma VC) and so light that I hardly know that I'm wearing it. Maureen is especially delighted with the hearing aid as our conversations no longer consist of her speaking and me saying "pardon?" to every other sentence.
(all the Fletcher Sagas are on my website)