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Day 9 of our Orkney visit saw us go to the island of Rousay. I have never been and Brenda hasn’t been in years. Exploring the Chambered Cairns and Brochs was very interesting. The landscape was amazing.

Day 8 of our trip to Orkney. Weather was here and too wintery for me to take photos the last couple of days. We did more driving with Kendra and returned the car. My pal from Glasgow has come up and today we took a million photos. We started off the day with a boat tour of Stromness Harbour, Scapa Flow with views of Hoy cliff sides. We had a walk on the historic streets of Stromness. We then went to Skaill beach and back up to the Whale bone in Bursay. We also visited Longaglebe Geo. Tomorrow we are going to the island of Rousey. We have never been to this island before, so kinda excited.

Today Kendra, as part of her driving practice, took me out to the Standing Stones of Stenness, the Ring of Brodgar and then back up to my favourite little abandoned croft house in Orphir. We had to dodge showers and snow showers the entire time.

Day 4 of our visit. Today Kendra took us on a 70 mile journey up the the north Mainland and back. She is really getting her confidence back. She drove through town and 3 round abouts with no trouble at all. We went up to the Bay of Skaill where I tried out some long exposure photography of the waves crashing into the rocks on the beach. Then we went up to the Brough of Birsay and walked out to the Whale Bone. We drove back into Kirkwall for Lunch at a food truck and then back to the house.

Went into Kirkwall and had a wander and lunch on the main street. Rented a car for Kendra to practice her driving. (She did great!). Went for a walk up to the village. Paid our respects to the fallen. Walked around the Church we were married in. Talked with some of the nicest neighbours. Great to see them again.

Day 2 of our Orkney visit saw us go to Happy Valley (we haven’t been there since 1985). Edwin Harold planted trees and bushes from all over the world in this tiny valley. We also had a quick visit with John Hamilton of Stoneworks Orkney. John and his partner Ann Sutherland (aka: Queen Ann) have raise over 80,000 pounds for Charities here in Orkney in the past 5 months. The weather moved in and so we headed home. We had a visit from Brenda’s brother and family.

The pandemic and health issues have kept us from travelling, but with travel restrictions lifted and the ok from the health professionals we booked a trip to see our family in Orkney, Scotland.

Here are a few photos of our journey over and our first day. The blurrier photos were taken with my mobile phone.

The weather turned cold again and the birds came back looking for seeds. We have been hearing Robins early in the morning, but had yet to see any. They finally made an appearance. Cardinals are so stunning in their red coats. Has Spring truly arrived?

We took a short trip down to the Byward Market to get some Maple Syrup and Maple Candies. We haven’t been downtown in months and it was nice to see people out and about. I was a little nervous in one store as it was full of people and tight quarters. But it was still nice to be out.

The weather cooperated to shoot a few more visitors to our backyard bathtub feeder. I am hoping to entice some Bluejays with some peanuts in shells that I bought. The weather is supposed to me amazing this week so I know they will be hungry.