Gurness--in the spirt of St. Peter and Granny

As Granny said more than once, "Always put your best foot forward."  To this day I am uncertain as to the specific meaning of that saying.  In translation, I suppose it falls within the Golden Rules class of rules.  The norms, the mores.  I take it to mean:  behave in public.  

Broch of Gurness tower ruins Easter Sunday 2022

She also said in a somewhat more risque rule:  "If they're looking that close, they deserve to see something."  That one I get, although admittedly it most likely is apocryphal, a nudge or two outside the  Golden Rules.  That may be why, of all her sayings, that particular one has stuck with me.  

An inherent conflict exists between these two, though, which presented itself in plans to attend Easter service at St. Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall.  Here an explanation (or perhaps a confession), may be de rigueur.  

Quern above stone cistern, Gurness Easter Sunday 2022

In front of our Orkney excursion, I sent an email to Minister Macnaughton of St. Magnus Cathedral, expressing interest in attending Easter Mass.  The conundrum in that "best foot forward" rule just mentioned, however, meant we were uncertain regarding acceptable attire for the Holy day.  

Neither of us wanted to detract from the cathedral service by showing up half-wild, muddied and in clothes ridden hard by a week's worth of wandering Scotland's North Isles--that old hymn of Just as I Am notwithstanding.  

Minister Macnaughton sent a very kind reply.  "We have no dress code, end of story."  From the sound of it, he too heard the apocryphal axiom from Granny.  He also mentioned a baptism to be held on Easter Sunday.  That tidbit probably affected our decision.  It added to our apprehension, as we did not wish to intrude.  Irreverently put, if we showed up muddied--i.e. not on our best foot--the congregation might rightly have said:  "Hey, what about those two?  Looks like they could use a bath too."    

Storage(?) room Gurness Easter Sunday 20222

Ultimately, we opted instead to visit the Broch of Gurness and continued our unmolested roughcast pilgrimage of ancient Orkney sites.  It was a tough itinerary decision because it meant going back on my word; specifically, we were a no show.  Not exactly best foot forward either.

In retrospect, visiting the Broch of Gurness was the better option.  As excuses go, we considered it being out in the "cathedral" of the natural environment.  But the truth is, I did not have the heart to tell the pastor of our change in itinerary.  Regardless, we did not have email capability in Orkney, so I couldn't.  That works as an excuse as well.  If not, I have a few more.

Iron Age village Broch of Gurness on Eynhallow Sound, Easter Sunday 2022

Spending the better part of Easter morning at Gurness and at another nearby ruined broch, once we got back to Kirkwall we did slink into St. Magnus Cathedral along with a number of other Kirkwall Easter tourists to view the cathedral's splendor from the edge of the crowd, in a manner of speaking.  So, maybe just call me Simeon Peter now that the rooster has said his piece.

As for Gurness, what a remarkable site perched on the edge of Eynhallow sound.

Wall interior(?) at Gurness, Easter 2022

That Easter morning we had Gurness mostly to ourselves, though it was staffed by a Historical Scotland ranger with whom we engaged in conversation for nearly a half hour or more.  (And yes, they were collecting admission fees.)  By the time we left Gurness, aiming for a separate walk along Eynhallow Sound out to a ruined broch (the Knowe of Stenso), several groups were starting to come in.  So, our timing was impeccable. 

At Gurness, not only is there the Iron Age broch and village but also foundations remain of a Pict settlement consisting of something like six structures at the site.  These are worth noting, and are found when you first enter the site.  Pict settlements are uncommon; or rather, they are not commonly uncovered, which seems most odd.  The Picts are an enigmatic people, considering they inhabited and ruled Scotland for several centuries or more.  Why they left such a paucity in the archeological record, relative to other people in Scotland, is not known.

Interior stairs to broch tower walls, 2022

Around the broch tower, an Iron Age settlement had been built. Easily 20 or more dwellings, many with hearths and foundation courses of bedrooms or sleeping quarters, main rooms, ovens and so on.  Protected by the broch tower, Gurness village also had fairly extensive earthworks which are, by themselves, quite impressive.    

In all, Gurness is a significant site.  It is well-signed with explanation boards.  We probably spent at a minimum a couple hours just exploring the Gurness ruins.  It is quite an interesting site, one that is whole heartedly recommended for those visitors who may venture outside Kirkwall.

Most visitors, particularly those debarked from cruise ships at Kirkwall, will visit the Neolithic stone circles at Stenness and Brodgar.  But it would be a mistake to not take in Gurness which is nearby Kirkwall.   

 

Dwelling adjacent to Gurness Broch walls, hearth and "rooms" Easter 2022

 

Kiln or ovens(?) Gurness village Easter 2022

 

Informational boards at Gurness, Easter 2022

 

One last note regarding "best foot forward".  As trite as it may seem, we try to represent Idaho with propriety while in Scotland, mindful that we not be perceived as the "ugly American".  Like it or not, Americans are often easily recognizable when traveling overseas.  With that identity comes a certain amount of responsibility, not the least of which is to be careful in archeological sites like Gurness to mind the cordons like the one shown on the photo above of the stairs into the interior broch walls. 

Too many fellow countrymen seem to go out of their way with loutish behavior, relishing tactlessness if not notoriety when abroad.  Whatever limited enjoyment they generate for themselves by deliberately creating a scene becomes a self fulfilling typecast.  Doubtless, these same Americans complain about coldness shown to them while overseas.  Yet at the same time they will broach an almost insulting rudeness to their hosts.  This is evident not only in the cramped confines of a transatlantic flight going over, but also in pubs and even historical sites while there.  That tain't "best foot forward" a'tall.     

One wonders why they bother to travel if they care so little about in situ culture. 

Iron Age "chalking" to weather proof against wind at Gurness Easter 2022

We've yet to outrun Karr

“plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose”-- the more things change, the more they stay the same.

How true.  Despite our modernity, we have yet to outrun Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr's aphorism, penned in January 1849 for Les Guêpes magazine (The Wasp).  

Les Guêpes was a side publication for Karr.  He established it while editor of Le Figaro, (c. 1839).  Le Figaro is still one of France's premier daily morning newspapers.

Karr was renowned for acerbic observations of politicians and erstwhile emperors.  Sometimes he ran into trouble.  After a ten-year publishing run, Les Guêpes took a brief hiatus, before Karr tried to revive it (1853 - 1855).  The venture ran afoul of ardent state censorship under Napoleon III, the self proclaimed Emperor of France. 

Elected to the Presidency of France in 1848, Napoleon III could not be reelected constitutionally.  So, what to do?  He ignored France's constitution and seized power by force in 1851 declaring himself Emperor of France.  Sounds eerily similar in intent to the riotous insurrection at the Capitol in Washington DC a couple years back.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Napoleon III, courtesy Encyclopedia Britannica

Napoleon III would be the very last monarch over France, self declared or otherwise.  He reigned for nearly 20 years...until he was captured at the Battle of Sedan in 1870 during the disastrous Franco-Prussian War, personally declared by Napoleon III and in which he personally commanded troops.  So, no one else to blame.

During Napoleon III's rule, annexation was all the rage.  Everybody was doing it.  (And still are if Ukraine today is any guide.) France was busy adding to its empire.  So was Britain and Russia. Little wonder that with so many territorial land grabs going on, they would eventually lead to conflict.  France allied with other imperialists--Britain, Turkey and Sardinia--to defeat imperialist Russia in the Crimean War (1853 - 1856).  

The Crimean War is something of a misnomer.  The war took place globally--in the Black Sea, the Baltic, the Arctic, the Balkans and in the Pacific.  As a result of this global war, the United States would acquire Alaska by purchase (i.e. "Seward's Folly") on October 18, 1867 from Czar Alexander II (who needed the money following Russia's defeat).  The Czar figured he was making quite the deal by offing "Siberia's Siberia" onto the American rubes.  The Czar did not want to risk losing the Alaskan claim since archenemy Britain could easily take the territory by a direct invasion from next door Canada, and Russia lacked the means to defend it.  So, he took the money.  Besides, the sea otters that Russian fur traders had exploited to near extinction were gone.  Who needs a fur trading empire if there ain't no furs?  (Klondike gold had yet to be discovered.)    

1855 Valley of the Shadow of Death (Charge of Light Brigade) littered with solid cannonballs

Other than Alaska, probably the only lasting good from the horrific Crimean War was that Florence Nightingale would go on to found modern nursing based on her experiences in the Crimean War.  She saved countless lives during the Crimean War, as well as lives that followed in other conflicts--including those in the US War Between the States only five years after the Crimean War.  Confederate medical care adopted Nightingale's discipline.  The Union did not.  Thus, the chance of survival in a Confederate hospital vastly outnumbered one's chance in a Union one.  For example, Captain Sally Louisa Tompkins, the only female commissioned as a Confederate officer, treated over 1300 seriously wounded men.  Of those, only 79 died--a record no other "Civil War" hospital came close to obtaining.  Invited to speak after the war by preeminent Johns Hopkins Hospital, she was asked how she achieved this.  Tompkins said:  "Clean, clean, clean."  (Out of medical supplies she even used kerosene as a cleaner and disinfectant.)  

Anyhow, the Crimean War was one fought over territory and trade.  All of these are usually culprits.  Imperialist Russia's appetite for somebody else's land seems unwhetted even today, as the bullying of Ukraine suggests.  Back in the summer of 1853, Russia occupied (invaded) the Danubian Principalities (Romania and Moldova) which were under Ottoman control. Czarist Russia dismissed the Ottomans as "the sick man of Europe" judging them as too weak to resist the Russian goal to expand and take Turkish lands to open the eastern Mediterranean for Russian control. This specific land grab is normally given as the cause of the war.

Securing promises of international support from Britain and France, the Ottomans declared war on Russia October 4, 1853.  Curiously though, despite claims, the invasion of the Danube was not the actual casus belli of the Crimean War.  It was religion--nothing new under the Sun there either.  

The fight was not between Islam and Christianity and/or Jewish.  Christians in the Holy Lands controlled by the Ottomans had little need of protection.  Rather, protection was sought against internecine fighting in the Holy Land amongst the Christians themselves--specifically between Eastern Orthodox (supported by Russia) and Roman Catholic (supported by France).

Church of the Nativity, photo courtesy CatholicPhilly.com

The row was over who controlled the various Christian holy sites in Bethlehem and Jerusalem.  To diffuse the conflict in 1850, the Ottomans sent the French two keys to the Church of the Nativity.  At the same time, the Ottomans issued a decree to the Russians giving assurances that the keys would not fit the door lock.  Too clever a diplomatic "solution" by half.  The "keys to the door war" escalated. 

In 1852, France under Napoleon III responded to the Ottoman effort to deescalate it.  The self declared Emperor seized control of the holy sites.  Russian Czar Nicholas I viewed the French move as an affront both to Russia and to its Orthodox Church.  The British tried to arbitrate.  And all of a sudden Nicholas I changed his spin and declared Russia's desire for expansion was no longer the priority...all he wanted to do was protect his Christian (Orthodox) communities in the Holy Land.  Uh, right.

So, what does Czar Nicholas I do?  Well, he invades Danube Principalities some 1750 miles distant from the "hot" conflict over the door keys to the Church of the Nativity, "Away in the Manger" notwithstanding.      

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  We've all heard the current excuses about "protecting" Russian speaking people to justify the ongoing criminal war in Ukraine as well.  Russian imperialistic warfare version 2022. 

Incompetence in the Crimean War (on both sides) unnecessarily cost many thousands of lives.  Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" memorialized the Battle of Balaclava and the horrific waste basically for nothing. Balaclava also gave us the term "thin red line"--so named for the 93rd Regiment of Foot (Sutherland Highlanders) who withstood a massed Russian cavalry attack that had as its objective the capture of the Balaclava anchorage.  Three companies of the 93rd  Highlanders were all that stood between the massed Russian cavalry and the docks at Balaclava.  Were it not for raw courage and the improved accuracy and range of the Highlanders' new Pattern 1851 Minié rifle (which out ranged Russian muskets by 400 yards) doubtless the Scots would have been overrun, and the British and French efforts in the Crimean War turned into a catastrophic total failure. 

Spring 1855 Balaclava Harbor taken by Roger Fenton; note steamers moored with sailing ships

The Crimean War was the first "modern" war, employing railroads, telegraphs, and explosive naval ordnance versus solid shot.  It was the first war to be covered by reporters and photographers.  It came to symbolize military mismanagement, tactical failures, logistical logjams and medical barbarism until the Treaty of Paris, March 30, 1856 mercifully ended it.

Spring 1855 Balaclava Harbor rail head being laid; taken by Roger Fenton

 

The war was a turning point for Russia.  No question.  It wrecked the Imperial Russian Army and sapped its national treasury.  It would take decades to recover (one of the reasons why the Russian Czar sold off Alaska).  Russian influence in Europe was shattered.  And so too its ambitions upon the eastern Mediterranean.  As is generally the case from armchair generals after a loss, Russian elite (mostly those who didn't fight) sought explanations.  That led to fundamental reform such as the Edict of Emancipation of 1861 abolishing serfdom, not that conditions changed very much for the underclasses in Russia.

Given they had just fought and lost the "modern" Crimean War, czarist Russia began a fast paced program of modernization (at least as imperialist Russia saw things) to recover its lost status in Europe.  If this sounds familiar, it should.  The circumstances are little changed.  Modern technological war, in primitive frozen and muddy trenches.  Ongoing conflict between Catholic and Orthodox.  Land grabs, threats and somewhere, in some wretched barnyard hovel under cold night skies, the Christ child is born.  No room in the inn.  No room in the heart for the Prince of Peace.  The more things change, the more they stay the same. 

 

[Grammatical note:  An aphorism is a concise, terse expression of a general truth.  The word was first used in Aphorisms of Hippocrates (c. 460 BC - 375 BC). "Ὁ βίος βραχύς, δὲ τέχνη μακρή" - "life is short, art is long".  Ancient aphoristic collections are typically known as wisdom literature, e.g. Book of Ecclesiastes.]

Stunning? Nothing to see?

Our walks in Scotland are often off more beaten tourist paths.  This was again true in Inverness ("Capitol of the Highlands") at Easter.  We do not purposefully seek out quirky locations.  We look for the overlooked, the normal, the everyday.  After all, this provides the flavor of a place.

The Muirtown Locks, or "The Cals" as they are locally known, were a planned destination.  Maybe it was an odd choice given any number of alternatives.  But it depends greatly upon one's interests...and upon  realistic expectations.  It's an eye of the beholder deal.  

An example would be the wireless museum in Kirkwall, Orkney this past Easter.  Within a block from our accommodations at The Ayre Hotel, the museum was low hanging fruit, so to speak, if we wanted to see something different.  We thought about it.  But historical radio equipment is not high on our interest list, so we opted to do other things.  No disrespect to the museum. Had we visited it, we would probably have found it quite interesting.  Just not our cup of tea (or coffee).

Doubtless, that same reasoning applies for visitors to the Muirtown Locks.  Travel opinions found online (the thumbs up/thumbs down variety) are of little help.  Online comments regarding the Muirtown Locks ran the gamut from "nothing to see" to "stunning".  "Stunning" is a bit over wrought in this instance.  So too is "nothing to see".  These are canal locks from the Age of Steam at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.  What would someone expect to see?  

For their part, most Inverness visitors are found near the castle and the numerous area pubs, which is fine.  That has its draw.  In several places, Inverness can be congested with pedestrians.  Incidentally, we too visited a couple pubs in Inverness.  We also walked up to the construction shrouded (no admittance) castle as the starting point of a walk upriver to the Ness Islands.  The walk was crowded with families and small group walkers due to sunshine breaking out.  

The upside to disinterest in the Muirtown Locks was that few people were there in an otherwise busy Inverness. "The Cals" are a flight of four locks in Muirtown at the terminus of the Caledonian Canal in northwest Inverness.  They would probably not be found on most itineraries of the many visitors to this Highland city.  That is a shame.  The locks have quite an engineering history.  

They also reflect our own contemporary problems with large scale projects--like two CalMac ferries that can't seem to get built not with any amount of money or with any measure of time.  The Caldedonian Canal was a big deal.  The largest British government project ever attempted in its day.  According to plans, it was to take 7 years and £350,000 to build.  True to form, it came back over-budget and behind-schedule...taking 17 years to complete at a cost of £840,000.  That's a pretty big miss.

And its biggest problem was that it was not up to "specs".  Work began on the Caledonian Canal in 1803 under the famous Scottish engineer Thomas Telford (1757-1834).  Teleford followed the survey route for the proposal which was laid by the even more famous Scottish mechanical (steam) engineer James Watt 30 years earlier.  James Watt ushered in the Age of Steam in 1765 and eventually industrialism.     

Muirtown is a basin on Beauly/Morray Firth.  The government sought to develop the basin as a second harbor for Inverness through which freight would be transported via the Caledonian Canal, an inland water route running 60 miles via canal works and 29 locks and through several natural lakes in the Great Glen of Scotland; the most famous being Loch Ness.  The canal would link Scotland's east coast (Inverness) to its west coast (Fort William).

The design originated in the Age of Sail.  But that age was soon to be obsolete.  The Age of Steam had already begun, and industrialization was fast approaching.  The raison d'être for the canal was to cut shipping times and increase safety by avoiding sailing the oft treacherous Pentland Firth on Scotland's north coast.  

The canal project claimed a social benefit as well...it would provide local Scotsmen jobs (an ageless recycled political claim still circulating as we speak).  With jobs, that would stem the flow of migration out of the Highlands.  That alleged benevolence must be taken with a huge grain of salt--on the order of a ton of it--given the ongoing Highland Clearances (Fuadach nan Gaidheal) are documented into the 1890s (late Victorian Era).  And in truth, the Clearances only stopped with the advent of the First World War.

Another reason for the project, though not expressly stated, was that the inland canal put British shipping out of the reach of French canons--the Napoleonic Wars were in full swing at this time.  War lent a certain urgency to it.  But wars don't last forever, even though they seem to nowadays.  The canal opened in 1822. 

The canal had problems when it first opened; chief among which was its depth--14 feet versus the planned 20 feet.  Just about the time the canal was finally completed, ship sizes began to increase to improve shipping profitability.  The canal did not have sufficient draft.   Muirtown Basin and the Caledonian Canal could not handle larger ship sizes, and the canal was euphemistically less than successful.  Eventually, in 1844-1847 another construction phase took place and the canal finally met its original design...too little too late.   

Limitation on canal transits are not unfamiliar today.  Modern ships routinely exceed Panama or Suez canals restrictions.  They must either sail around the Capes (e.g. with a Capesize class) or must remain in a specific trade geography with capable ports (e.g. Qatar Max, China Max, Very Large Crude Carriers, etc.)

The Caldeonian Canal missed the boat, to turn the pun.  By the time the canal was finished, steamships had advanced enough to ply the Pentland Firth better than previous sailing ships.  In any case, the "full potential" of the Caledonian Canal was never realized.  Today, Muirtown is a marina, and it seemed more or less full of pleasure craft.  The Caledonian Canal is now almost exclusively used by recreational craft.  We saw no boats of any kind in the canal.

As for Thomas Telford, upon completion of the Caledonian Canal, Parliament passed the "Church of Scotland Act" in 1823 [4 Geo. 4, c. 79], which granted £50,000 to build 32 churches in Highland and Island communities that lacked church buildings and/or to build them in communities with pockets of Catholic or minor denominations.  These were considered "undesirable" by the Church of Scotland.  In any case, these community churches became known as "Telford Parliamentary Kirks". 

Some "Telfords" are still in active use, for example at Portnahaven, Isle of Islay, which we visited in 2017.  Others have been repurposed as art studios, hostels, private homes, and so forth.  Some have been demolished and built over.  

Modern Americans raised on the mantra of "separation of church and state" would probably consider the Telford Kirks an anathema--edifices of a government established religion (which happens to be Presbyterian).  Yet, that retroactively applies modern values (ex post facto if one were to use fancy Latin or constitutional law) to an age already 200 years past.  Back then, not having a house of worship was considered an infringement upon human religious rights.  

The 1823 Act for Building Additional Places of Worship in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (i.e. the Telford Churches) would not be repealed for 150 years; not until the 1973 Statute Law (Repeals) Act which cleared out old Parliamentary statues that "are no longer of practical utility".

Stunning or not, nothing to see or not, the times they are constantly a'changing.  The Caldedonian Canal speaks that truth.  The visit to hear it was well-spent.  

Solvitur ambulando – it is solved by walking

In terms of a "different" walk, one of the more interesting in Orkney is the Holms of Ire just off Sanday's north coast directly across from Airon farm.  The two tidal islets--Inner Holm and Outer Holm--are accessible only at low tide.  As the name implies, Inner Holm is closest to Sanday's mainland; Outer Holm the furthest distant.

April 18, 2022 Whale Point Cairn at Airon; view toward Holms of Ire 

Different, the Holms of Ire walk is also somewhat difficult, at least in surety of footing.  It was similar to our walk out to the tidal island of Davaar at Campbeltown in 2019,   [https://whitleyworldtravel.blogspot.com/2019/06/ficklness.html] but with a distinction.  An actual causeway (called the Dhorlin) to Davaar exists at Campbeltown.  Whereas a causeway claimed to go out to the Holms of Ire is true only in the most general sense. 

April 18, 2022  Tidal channel between Airon farm and Inner Holm of Ire 

The Holms of Ire actually have broad "U" shaped tidal trenches, which the walk bisects perpendicularly--crossing a big ocean ditch that floods twice each day.

April 18, 2022  Another view of the big tidal ditch off Airon farm

 

The approach to the Holms is shingled with fairly deep piles of ocean-rounded rocks.  These are rather "tippy" whenever one's weight is placed atop them.  Walking requires an awareness of balance...which sadly senesces with the explorer's increasing age.

April 18, 2022 Darla picking her way down from Airon

Adding to unstable footing in places, tidal rocks are matted with patches of treacherously slick seaweed. These may mostly be avoided by picking one's route carefully.  (As I was reminded several times during the trek).  Still, crouching low and nearly on all fours a time or two to collect balance and traction may be expected for those venturing--whether young or otherwise.  

The term "holm" is derived from the Norse word holmr, meaning "small and rounded island".  That may be true for Outer Holm.  "Oval" in shape, it is perhaps a third mile long by a quarter mile wide.  But for Inner Holm, not so much.  It is narrowly linear, over a third of a mile in length and only an eighth mile wide at its best.  So, we defer to the Norse regarding their name of the place.

April 14, 2022  View north along spine of Holms of Ire

Prior to driving out, Sanday locals cautioned us.  Take care parking at Airon.  The current owner has had people towed.  Word to wise.  Fair enough.

We then got the laundry list with an accompanying thin veiled eye-roll, the meaning of which was not evident.  Call it mixed signals. 

Airon had been given to a new not-from-Sanday wife by an older Sanday gentleman, we were told, who subsequently died.  To the disdain of some, Airon farm was repurposed to keep Shetland ponies; a menagerie of sorts.  That evidently made it a hobby farm versus a "real" farm.

April 18, 2022  One of Airon's horses above the Holms of Ire

Here, I interject a lesson from my Dad when I was a young strapping lad all of 7 or 8 years of age.  I was clearly competent enough from my wealth of worldly experience to pronounce upon all things "manly man" and was derisive of all else. 

Dad was a produce buyer of crops grown in Virginia for markets in New York.  A different age.  He often bought crops from the last of the old Depression Era farmers with cash, sometimes by the briefcase full.  They distrusted any other form.  When I could convince Dad to let me tag along, I accompanied him.  

One purchase involved kale, a crop in the range of 40 acres.  Riding up the dirt track to the farmhouse (business was typically transacted at the kitchen table), I was surprised by a couple two acre field plots of daffodils.  I derided the clearly non-manly man farming.  Definitely not ordinary.  Dad corrected me.  

"That farmer is sharp.  He's probably making more money on just those four acres of flowers than all the other farmers are making on their entire farms."  Pop bought the kale crop...as well as cut flowers which were loaded in waxed "breather" cardboard flats (no plastic in that day), stacked onto New York bound trucks blown full with shaved ice off the loading dock (no refrigeration trailer units in that day either--even air conditioning was very rare.)  And a lesson was learned.      

April 18, 2022  View of Airon cairn from Inner Holm

My point:  it is unwise to deride so-called "hobby farms"--even if I could identify one of them.  So whether Airon has been converted into a pony ranch or not (and strictly speaking it apparently was not), we certainly encountered a number of their inquisitive ponies on the pasture through which our walk to the Holms of Ire began.

Not that we had need to add to our apprehensions, but as we drove to the end of the sealed track (road) at Airon a young man, apparently a service technician, drove out.  We hailed him and inquired about parking.  That was fine, he said.  But, "Be mindful of the tides."  

We were very mindful indeed.  That is the North Atlantic, after all.  It would be an unmitigated disaster to think in terms of needing to sprint across those tidal ditches and rough skerries.  Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.  We would be no fools.  But we were perhaps a little too mindful.  We abbreviated our walk on Outer Holm, which in retrospect we had plenty of time.  Still, those are considerable tidal ditches, and I'm no kicking spring chicken these days.  

April 18, 2022  Jumbled foundation on Inner Holm

It also turns out that the gratuitous story regarding Airon's current ownership was a bit off mark.  As would be discovered later, Airon was the home for nearly two decades of the renowned British composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (1934 - 2016).  Davies, formerly the Master of the Queen's Music (i.e. something of a music laureate) passed in March 2016 at Airon.  

Upon his death at 81, he gifted Airon to his "partner" Tim Morrison.  Evidently, this was the foundation of the local's "wife" eye roll.  As Morrison put it in online eulogies for Davies, "We were lovers long ago, and then in the last few years of his life, we acted as family for each other, latterly as his next-of-kin."  Whatever.  About the only thing I find a little untoward was Morrison focusing on the "I am his heir" thing. Not to be insensitive, but that sounded too much like Al Haig's "I'm in charge" deal after Reagan took a .22 ricochet in his left side.

Regardless, not knowing what we didn't know at the time we were there, we simply didn't want to be towed.  We left our rig as much out of the way as possible at the end of a berm that separated Roos Loch from the ocean.  Whether real farm or otherwise, our car hire was unmolested at Airon despite local concerns.  We were thankful of that much.

Davies was an interesting character, a prolific composer.  He moved out of modern society in 1971 and to the hilly Orcadian Isle of Hoy.  Davies spent a quarter century at Rackwick composing music in which he based instrumental compositions upon nature's soundscape.  In the late 1990s, Davies moved to Airon farm on the relatively flat and fertile Isle of Sanday.  It too became a soundscape source.  Several of his compositions commemorate the Holms of Ire and his home at Airon.  Thus, they warrant mention.  

Among Davies' first "Sanday" based works was Temenos, with Mermaids and Angels (1998).  An orchestral piece with flute, the title Temenos means "sanctuary"...which Davies considered Airon farm to be.  The most notable work was Litany - for a Ruined Chapel Between Sheep and Shore (1999).  Litany is a trumpet solo instrumentation, first performed in 2002.  The ruined chapel which Davies' work commemorates is St. Colm's, on the Inner Holm of Ire.

April 18, 2022  Outer Holm of Ire

St. Colm's Chapel, said to be medieval, is of a most uncertain date given its condition.  No recorded dedication has been found, but locally it has long been said to be dedicated to St. Colm.  If that claim is true, the chapel would be among the earliest in Scotland. What exists is confusing.  Several layers of human occupation or activity obscure the building foundation.  The location of chapel doorways and other details are not clear.  Its dimensions have been generally estimated.  The chapel walls were about 2' 10" thick.  Its interior measured 13' 6" by 9' 6" inside--which happens to be an almost perfect size for an early medieval chapel (back when the Christian mission tree was still green as it were).

April 18, 2022  Are these also vandalized ruins?

The lines of the building are difficult to determine even by professional archaeologists. There's little more than a rectangular depression partly filled with storm beach debris on the site over the centuries.  And there were later works over the site such as kelp kilns and probable worker huts. 

And then there's the senselessness.  The standing ruins that still exist suffered serious vandalism at the hands of recent visitors (within the last decade or so).  Apparently, the party was looking for treasure and demolished much.  After which, a crude rebuilding was done by someone else.  Whether that was Davies or Morrison or someone else familiar with the site is not known. Whoever tried to repair the damaged chapel foundations must've known the site at least well enough to realize the damage had occurred.

 

April 18, 2022  Plantie-crues on Inner Holm of Ire

Lastly, on Inner Holm some curious foundations exist...four circular and two rectangular without doorways.  One could say that these ruins dominate all those that currently exist on Inner Holm.  These are known as plantie-crues.  Similar constructions are evident in medieval monastic communities in Europe, particularly in Belgium.  These were built on the Inner Holm of Ire to create sheltered plant beds against ocean winds to produce...kale crops. 

Now there's a full circle story, solved by walking, as St. Augustine would have put it.  Whether these plantie-crues constitute manly man farming or not is for others to decide.  They were a hardy lot, though.  So just sayin'.     

April 18, 2022  Plantie-crues on Inner Holm of Ire

A spiritual thing

April 17, 2022 Easter Cross of daffodils at St. Magnus

While working out compatible schedules at the kitchen table for upcoming renovations of our homestead this Spring (2023), the contractor asked "Why Scotland?"  

The question arose when we roped off early April from the residing project.  It wouldn't work until after we returned from our Easter sojourn to Scotland.  

His question was out of the ordinary, having been asked during a construction scheduling meeting.  Off-balance, I replied:  "It's a spiritual thing."  

In other settings, I have addressed this question of "why" we travel to Scotland at Easter a number of times, in various hues and colors. 

e.g.  https://whitleyworldtravel.blogspot.com/2022/02/palmers-for-pilgrimage.html

https://whitleyworldtravel.blogspot.com/2022/04/what-was-and-what-remains.html 

But a more elaborate response would've been out of place.  My short answer seemed to satisfy the gentleman in any case.  We moved on, back to the work schedule.  

April 17, 2022  Hearth at Broch of Gurness

Whether the gentleman was simply being polite or genuinely interested on why we sojourn to Scotland at Easter, I cannot say.  But my quick reply needled me afterwards.  Surely our trips are about more than that?  Are they not about vistas and the north Atlantic?  Its seafood, smoky drams of uisge beatha and its people, with their mournful tales of the Fuadach nan Gaidheal against the joyful ceilidh here and now--these colors of life, of death and eternity, all interwoven into the tartan called Scotland? 

More, might not our sojourns be renovations in their own right, akin to replacing house siding?  Both are certainly made necessary by relentless weather; one by the natural world, and one by an indifferent modern age of soullessness, of disconnected existence in a so-called "virtual" world that is little more than digital illusion and imitation, sterile and empty.

April 15, 2022  Departure of MV Varagen framed

This recalls Emerson's transcendentalism (Self Reliance, 1841) .  "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself, for better, for worse, as his portion." 

One is too many, and today we have far too many youth luridly possessed by the unreality of social media in some instances to the point of suicide, or worse.  Human spirit has been discounted to valueless in such a world of AI and processing code.  Yet never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, as 2 Timothy 3:7 once styled it. 

Modern humankind shares little these days beyond anger.  Everybody's incensed.  Put upon. Bereft of the warmth of real human spirit, modern humankind is fast becoming stuck in endless recriminations.  As for enlightenment and the nourishment of mercy, not so much.  Thus it seeds self destruction.  A cosplay, a vicarious existence, a pretending to live.  The future without a future. 

April 16, 2022  Taversoe Ruick (Neolithic) Cairn on Rousay

Yet, here we have Scotland (borrowing the phrase from Idaho's state song).  Teeming with with spirit, its life a cacophony upon the bagpipes.  Scotland is real, a wholesomeness of living, a ceilidh danced in merriment not just upon the cairns of forebears but upon our own as well, in time.  Not a taking of one's life, but a giving.  Not disrespect, but holding love and cherishing it. Sharing at the table of generations. If only the troubled youth today understood as much.

We go to put our own lives in the context of eternity.  To find perspective.  And from that viewpoint, we kindle a spirit of peace. 

 

Taversoe Ruick--the way out

A few leftovers

Here are a few leftover shots of Stromness and some accompanying comments.  These weren't included in the previous "carpe diem" post, but may be of interest to those considering their own sojourn to Orkney's second city.  

We took a number of photos while ambling around Stromness, including this blue door and lion knocker.  

In Scotland, owners of homes and businesses are not exactly reserved when it comes to putting up bold color schemes.  That is equally true for Scotland's wooden fishing fleet.

In Stromness, buildings are mostly faced in sandstone.  Without the splash of color, the view-shed would be one of industrial drab, an ordinary Henry Ford Puritanical color scheme of sameness.   Given the oft gray weather in these climes, bold colors may be a kind of therapy of sorts.  Much like using lights to "extend" the winter day hours in Nordic countries near the Arctic.

This riotous seaside of bold colors, often primary colors, was certainly apparent in Tobermory on Mull when we visited in 2018.  Anyhow, viva the splash of color.

March 28, 2018  Tobermory on Isle of Mull 

During our 2022 Easter Tour, many sites in Orkney were under renovation.  In particular, Maes Howe on Mainland Orkney (even though, surprise surprise its gift shop alone was open).  The medieval church ruins on the isles of Wyre and Egilsay were also barricaded.  It seems Orkney made use of its Covid shutdown "respite" to improve or preserve its stock of historical buildings.  This was true for many places in Scotland, including Inverness Castle--no entrance.

April 9, 2022  Inverness Castle under remodeling

In Stromness, remodeling was also being done on the steeple tower of their "free church" wrapped in green construction cladding.  Here, the term "free church" originally referred to a Christian denomination that is separate from the government, and thus not making public law.  The Free Church has undergone a number of unions, schisms, legal actions and divorces, so to speak.  The term litigious comes to mind.

In Scotland, Free Kirk refers to a distinct Presbyterian Church that remained outside the Union of Presbyterian Churches which occurred in 1900.  The Free Kirk has somewhat dismissively been called "The Wee Fees" because its congregation is substantially smaller than that of the United Free Kirk.  The finer distinctions are lost on me.  I am aware, in terms of unnecessary divisiveness in a church, that were the body is there buzzards unfortunately gather.  That is not said with malice.  It's merely an observation of divisiveness over minutia.         

The photo shows a curious "cut away" at the foot of the alley's steps.  It seems that earlier builders sought to maintain the width of the alley for trade carts perhaps.  Apparently that could not be done without "whittling" (or "knapping") off the corner of the building on the main street.  In any case, it's an oddity not often seen.

As to our bench in Stromness square, I'm sitting on it.  It can be seen behind the cattle-footed planter against the Lifeboats Hall.  Though it may not look like it, the planter is in the middle of a street at a T-intersection.  This was an active traffic square.  So much so, we anticipated several times that we'd be witness to a fender bender. 

Some drivers, clearly non-locals, followed the dockside road around the corner and ended up in this square at this planter.  Many seemed unsure of what to do.  Left?  Right?  Back up? The worst of the bunch were those with what might be called camper vans.  They tied up everything, mostly because of their inability to back up, or their doubt about their ability to make the turn at the T-intersection and what was around the corner. 

In a kind of quirky type thing, rocks with some word hand painted on them sort of show up in random places around Orkney.  Some of these are marketed as folk art in a few stores.  Not exactly sure why one would do so, but art is in the eye of the beholder, perhaps.

This rock was left at a Royal Post mailbox in Stromness.  It has a coating, probably polyurethane to protect it, and a vine design of some sort with the hand painted word "Adventure".  

It was left upside down at the top of the mailbox. To read these, they need to be turned over.  Another oddity, but okay.  Some people collect garden gnomes.  Others leave craft-painted word rocks here and there.  I guess it is an adventure after all.