Our first visitors have already left again; it was great to have them here. We went to pick them up at the ferry terminal and headed straight south to see the 'Tomb of the Otters'. It was quite impressive to see a tomb that was only just recently discovered and has not been completely excavated yet. We also found that there are mixed feelings between the owners / discoverers of the different tombs, to say the least. Just go and see the 'Tomb of the Otters' and you'll find out what I mean ... The weather was great for the whole stay of our friends and they were sadly missing the famous Scottish rain for almost all of their stay. On Easter Sunday we even got a completely cloudless day. Roland and I took part in the Kirkwall 10K and were soon too warm running in long sleeves. We finished the race within seconds of each other and were both very happy with our time.

Getting back from the race we all looked for the Easter rabbits that had been hidden in the garden. Unfortunately one of them couldn't be found even though we've looked for it for literally hours. So either a bird took it to its nest or it's still lying there somewhere in the bushes, waiting to be found.

On Monday, a very dense sea haar moved into Orkney. For those not familiar with it, it's a dense fog, built when warm, humid air moves over cold water. I was quite interested to see it and to find out about its depth and what the logic is concerning its disappearance. I got some early insights that day when we went to Rousay. Apparently the top of the haar was at about 400m and places in the lee (away from the wind) of high hills had a fair chance of getting some sun. There was a big haar hole in Rackwick, Hoy that day and, we couldn't believe our luck, another one in the southwest of Rousay. So we spent most of our day there, at Midhowe broch and cairn and enjoyed the warm sunshine while we saw mainland in the sea haar across Eynhallow Sound. There were some more fantastic cliff arches a bit further west, absolutely breathtaking. We then also managed to see a whole bunch of seals on the north side of the island and spent a lot of time observing them.

Natalie's parents arrive Friday night and then we'll be busy showing them around and celebrating Natalie's birthday. A weekend after that we'll already be heading for Aberdeen where the children have qualified to play in the Northern Scotland school's chess tournament.

We are back to school and everyday life, after another two lovely days on the most northerly island: North Ronaldsay. We had a nice stay and the people were very friendly and helpful - and we had a great dinner (with the men trying the North Ronaldsay sheep with mint jelly, which was apparently delicious!) and talking to the “boys” who did all the bird observing and then we met more lovely people the next day. Here is what Nanouk wrote about our holidays in his school essay:

My Holidays 2014
First we went to Stronsay. We went to our hotel. It was very nice. We had our own room. We were indoors most of the time.
When we were home again we unpacked and packed again. We went to Sanday by ferry.
In Sanday we went to high dunes. I walked to the top and sledged down.
In North Ronaldsay we went to the lighthouse. It was high. We went home.
Then we went “bag the bruck”- ing.



I few things I (Natalie) would like to add:
“Bag the Bruck” is a big day in Orkney, where everyone (well, a lot of people) go to clean up the beach. We asked at the local shop and were allocated a stretch along a local beach. We were amazed how much brook (the Orcadian word for rubbish) we found, although it had looked so tidy!

I would have thought, Nanouk would mention Billy in his report, the lighthouse keeper. In his letter to his Swiss class mates, Nanouk told them all about the different jobs Billy had (Fireman and farmer are just two additional ones) as we had also seen a German documentary about Orkney that was mainly about Billy. Watch it here.
The other thing I wonder about is the phrase “We were indoors most of the time.” I think I’ve never been on a holiday on which we were outdoors so much! We only were indoors for eating and sleeping and we’ve even caught a bit of sun!

Two more things I think should be mentioned about the last leg of our holiday: The sheep (they are all around the coast, eating seaweed!) and the bikes we rented, which were fun!


Yesterday we were invited to the school for parents evening. This is very different to Switzerland. In Switzerland we have a parents evening, where we invite all the parents to our classroom at the same time and give a small presentation about the year ahead and it’s also a social event. Then, on another date, we have parents’ talks, and all parents get an appointment of 20 up to 40 minutes with the teacher alone to talk about their child. This is normally spread over two or three weeks and is hard work for the teachers but very interesting for both sides!
But although we only had 10 minutes with the class teachers each, we had good feedback from the teachers and it was nice to be back at the school. We are very proud of how well Nanouk and Maleah are doing!

On Saturday our first friends are coming and we can’t wait to show them “our paradise!”

So we are back from travelling to the islands of Stronsay, Sanday and Eday. The weather could hardly have been any better, we only had about 3 hours of rain in the 5 days we were on the road and loads of sunshine. However, this still doesn't mean T-Shirt weather. It is hardly ever T-Shirt weather in Orkney. Nice weather in April means that the hats and gloves come off and that you feel toasty in your rain trousers and rain jacket. One day in the sand dunes of Sanday even the jackets came off and the kids played in the sand barefoot.

Stronsay was our first island on this trip. The village of Whitehall in Stronsay looks quite grand along the northern shore. It really was grand 100 years ago with at times up to 4'000 inhabitants during herring season. Now it's down to a couple hundred, but the character of it is still perceivable. Our hotel was in the middle of the village. Other than that, Stronsay is a surfer's paradise or rather would be, if the water was warmer. Within a short area there are beaches facing all directions, so one is always bound to have good surf. This didn't really interest us, but it means that there's also always a beach that is somewhat sheltered from the wind. We spent a lot of time on one of those, relaxing in the middle of the high grass on the small sand dunes. The kids built a small shelter in the grass which was very comfy. And of course we also went to see the Vat of Kirbister, Orkneys most spectacular cliff arch. It has to be said that we've already spent a lot of time by the cliffs and you would think that we've just about seen it all. But every time we go to see more cliffs there are features which we haven't seen before. There are so many incredible rock formations on the Orkney coasts that you never tire looking at them. Gloups, arches, caves, stacks to just name the most spectacular ones.


Of course the story about Stronsay wouldn't be complete without mentioning the dozens of newly born lambs we saw in the fields.

In Sanday it was a different species that impressed us (somewhat): Rabbits. There were so many around, it was a miracle we didn't run one over (although plenty of other people had ...). Sanday is, what can you say, full of sand. On a nice day (which we had two of) the beaches are as impressive as anything I've seen in other parts of the world. There are about 10 beaches, one more beautiful than the previous, the longest being about 4km long. We spent a lot of time at the Tresness beach, which has sand dunes 20m high. We especially brought some sledges to slide down the dunes. It wasn't quite as fast as in the snow, but still a lot of fun, as was the jumping down into the very steep dunes sides. The kids jumped from 1m behind the ledge, over the flat and then sailed down 2m vertically to land in the steep soft sand. I couldn't quite muster the courage to do the same, I guess it's part of growing up ... On the second day in Sanday we got an incredible lunch 'basket' from our very impressive B&B (we would have loved to stay longer, they have the best shower north of London ...) and spent some more time in the cliffs and on the beaches. Apparently one of the paths to the cliffs has been washed out by the winter storms. Four meters of coastline has disappeared, so we just kind of tumbled down the dunes to the beach. The getting back up was a bit more difficult.


After our brilliant time in Sanday we moved on to Eday and I wasn't sure whether Eday would be able to compete with the other islands because in my eyes it's the least touristy. There is also no real village in Eday, whereas Stronsay has Whitehall and Sanday has Kettletoft and Lady Village. Having said that, we hardly ever saw any tourists anywhere at all except when looking in a mirror. But we certainly saw most of them in Eday. Eday has other qualities. Not the best beaches (but quite nice ones), not the most spectacular cliffs (but quite nice ones), but very nice colors with the brown heather, the green grass and the blue lake and seas (neither Sanday nor Stronsay are very heathery) but best of all a great ranger called Jenny. She showed us more wildlife than we'd seen on the other islands, she knew all the birds, shells and footprints. Even though we are still missing an otter sighting we are now proud otter footprint and poo viewers. She also got us addicted to looking for 'Groatie Buckies' (a shell called Cowrie outside Northern Scotland). It's supposed to bring good luck and we found 7 of them, so we're now expecting permanent sunshine until we depart Orkney.

We stayed at the Eday hostel which was very nice because no one else did and we had the whole place to ourselves. Very close to it we were lucky enough to see two short eared owls on our drive back from dinner (which we had pre ordered in the only make believe bar there is on the island) and from the big farm of our babysitter’s parent’s farm. There the kids were allowed to feed the newly born calves and we all got a tour of the whole farm! The last day of our stay, Jenny showed us (and 8 (!!) other tourists) around the prehistoric sites in the north of the island. This included the Stone of Setter, the highest standing stone in Orkney with 4.5m. There was also another Neolithic tomb like the one we also visited in Sanday, where you had to crawl to get in. It had four side chambers (now empty) where the bones were kept. There are so many of these tombs (or sometimes called Cairn from Gaelic) in Orkney but we can never resist crawling through the narrow passages. Of course it was another beautifully sunny day with incredible colours only spoilt by some late afternoon rain, but we had already got ready to leave the island to go back home.

So that was it, one more island to go in these holidays. We are leaving for North Ronaldsay on the 7:35 plane tomorrow morning.

In the meantime there was another article in the Swiss newspaper about our stay in Orkney (only in German).

Can’t believe it’s half time already! Matt’s blog has shocked me! But, apart from that, life is good (despite me not getting that job I had applied for) and we’re enjoying our stay here to the max, so there’s not much else we can do!

So, we’ve just come back from Hoy. And like (nearly) every other place we’ve been to, we’ve fallen in love (again... I know!) It’s another magical place, and one thing we really liked about it, is that it’s a love you have to work for! It’s not the island for everyone, because (apart from the war museum) there’s no place you can get to easily!
We took the morning ferry, had a lovely passage, trying (and failing) to see any seals, dolphins or whales and started off with the first of our three “most does” on Hoy: The old man!


Nope, not this one, but the sea stack! When leaving the car park you are warned that you need to calculate at least three hours until you are back. And that’s about what it took us, but it included some time marvelling at the sea stack, the cliffs, the seagulls and the shags, and then a nice leisurely picnic with all the delicious leftovers from our fridge, fresh bread and many deserts.
It was amazing (the old man, not the picnic) and well worth the walk!

Once again, please look at our flickr page (link on your left) for some of the photos. Even the kids didn’t complain (except from a small tantrum at the beginning of the walk, which ended up in Maleah and me singing the first few verses of 100 green bottles - luckily giving up before we got to ninety...)
Despite the long walk we were up for more fun, so we went to Rackwick beach. Matt and the kids had fun on the beach (and again, it’s quite a walk to get there, so I opted for a snooze and some quiet reading in the car) and they came back all excited and full of tales of blue, red, orange and yellow stones, so that I was a bit jealous. But no time for resting! Off we went to the 5000-year-old Dwarfie Stane, which is a huge rock that was carved out!


Then we were ready for our hotel and enjoyed a good meal and an early night! Next morning, after a delicious Scottish breakfast we headed to some old war towers and the museum, which should have opened the day before, but which was closed for another week. So the children enjoyed climbing on the old canons and carriages before it was time to get the ferry home. And this time we even DID see a seal!

Now we’re home for a day, just enough time for us to wash our clothes and repack before we head off again tomorrow.

By the way, this time it might be worth reading the German blog, too (that is if you understand German) because Matt is upstairs writing the German version, while I’m down here writing the English one. His will probably be quite different, giving you more details about the sights, but probably less about our songs and the delicious food :o)

Finally our holidays have arrived. Don’t know if they are well deserved, but whether they are or not, they are here and we’ll make the most of them. Initially we wanted to go to Shetland over the holidays but some insiders told us that Shetland in April may not be the best choice. So we decided to stay in Orkney. To people from the South, this logic is probably beyond comprehension. Orkney, Shetland, it’s all the same! It seems I am from the South, too, because in hindsight I have to say, if you’re brave enough to enjoy winter in Orkney, an April in Shetland wouldn’t have killed anyone. Anyway, we still decided to go North, if not quite as far as Shetland, but we’ll be spending a few days on North Ronaldsay, Stronsay, Sanday and Eday. To balance it out, we decided to go South, too, so we went ahead and booked two days on Hoy. So plenty of adventures coming our way and there will probably be plenty of blogs in the next two weeks.

After the holidays the visitors (mostly from Switzerland) will start coming in. We’ll be playing hosts to 21 visitors on about 45 days starting at Easter. Actually Orkney will be playing host because none of our visitors will be staying with us permanently. One reason for it being the quite small house we’re living in, the other to keep some independence and a little bit of our everyday Orkney lives. But of course we’re very much looking forward to showing them all around our favourite sites in Orkney and also to do some accompanied island hopping. We’ve already booked Westray, but Rousay and Shapinsay are certainly also on the agenda as well as Hoy again and hopefully Copinsay.

Our children are starting to pick up a bit of an Orkney accent and we can certainly hear more and more of the Orkney sing-song, even sometimes when they speak German. One thing that has started to stick out the most is the pronounciation of the ‘i’ (like in ‘wind’), which in German I would say sounds like a mixture between an ‘ä’ and an ‘e’. Also, Maleah came home the other day, telling us about the ‘troots’ they saw in school. It took me a while to find out she was talking about ‘trouts’.

Natalie and the children are at the last craft club right now. There is a big buffet at the end and kids certainly didn’t want to miss that. A lot of indoor activities stop here after spring because why would you want to spend your time inside when it’s light outside for most of the night!