Smurs and Scallops
The days since our return from the north have had a dull, desultory quality. This has been greatly enhanced by the smur of rain which has washed Edinburgh seemingly endlessly since mid-July.
I have also had a headache which has been persistent enough to warrant a precautionary referral to our local A and E and which was probably a consequence of standing up too soon under the stone lintel of a reconstructed Pictish house at Old Scatness on Shetland on Tuesday. Time and paracetomol appear to have done the trick but it has also prevented me from sticking to my running schedule which is an irritation.
I had only one real dissatisfaction while in Orkney and Shetland and that was with the food when eating out. We had some nice meals and I had two or three fine plates of scallops – but these were about the only encounter that I had with the abundant seafood harvest of Orkney and Shetland (along with a fine chowder in the Lerwick museum). Most of the meals were not significantly different from what could be obtained anywhere else in the country and not in the same class as the seafood available in Edinburgh. Given the agricultural and marine fertility of the archepelagoes I had hoped for more – and had it been Scandinavia or North America I would have found it.
I mentioned George Mackay Brown in my last post. I went into town today to spend a book token which I was given some weeks ago. I took the opportunity to buy the new novel from Thomas Pynchon -Inherent Vice- in the hope that it is more engaging than his last; I also found a copy of Brown’s Collected Poems. The poems are, of course, vintages to be savoured rather than beers to be guzzled, but it is immediately apparent that it is a volume to which I shall return again and again.
Rackwick
Let no tongue idly whisper here.
Between these strong red cliffs,
Under that great mild sky
Lies Orkney’s last enchantment,
The hidden valley of light.
Sweetness from the clouds pouring,
Songs from the surging sea.
Fenceless fields, fishermen with ploughs
And old heroes, endlessly sleeping
In Rackwick’s compassionate hills.
Recent Comments