By Bernie Bell

Pics by McB

September the Seventeenth………….Fifteen years ago today we arrived to stay in Orkney……. Lilias had made us a cauliflower cheese for in case we hadn’t eaten on the way, and had marshalled the removal men in placing our furniture and flower pots in and around the house we were renting……A true Orcadian welcome………Stayed at Millhouse, Stenness for eight months…….

…….until we got our own house……Happy memories..….And the beginning of 15 happy years here.  This evening we’ll raise a glass to those 15 years, and counting……

“Mingle with the good people we meet, yeah
Good friends we have had, oh good friends we’ve lost along the way, yeah.” – Bob Marley – ‘No Woman No Cry’

September the Eighteenth…….Harvest coming along nicely……Good to see……Next thing, there’ll be castles and caterpillars made of bales…..Good to see too….

September the Nineteenth……..It’s amazing what you can do with some bits of pallet off the beach – and a rainy day……An extra shelf on the bookcase……Room for more books!

September the Twentieth……………It’s a new dawn……It’s a new day…..

September the Twenty-first……..I’m struggling……How things are in the world….Needn’t write a list….We all know about it.

Then…got over-tired yesterday and had a bad night….The kind of pain that makes you feel that you don’t know what to do with yourself…..And that leaves me more tired today.

Then…..I read of the Covid cases on the two cruise liners which were here yesterday..…One passenger taken to the Balfour Hospital.

I was very much struggling.

For lunch Mike made Mushroom Bruschetta……We copied the recipe from a starter at Lucano’s restaurant in Kirkwall…..It’s gorgeous….. I ate my Bruschetta……Enjoyed and appreciated it…..Immersing myself in the flavour.

The photo is of the ingredients as I only thought of writing this after we’d eaten it!

On a day when the world around me and in myself is coming close to taking me down…….Immersing myself in a flavour – something which is part of daily life and which is just – there….. helped. 

Same goes for scents…..The last of the Rosa Rugosa and Honeysyuckle flowers….Inhale!

For that matter, I’m still enjoying the smell of the Bruschetta in the kitchen.

September the Twenty-second……………The seasonal magic of mushrooms…….

September the Twenty-third……………Newly fallen Birch leaves in a corner of our garden……Happy memories of Mike’s childhood garden….