So many things we do now might be the last time we do them: cycling the scenic route to the shop, talking to the nice man, who is always in a rush to get home as he’s left the washing out (but always has time to chat), watching the curlew following me, ...
But, even if it is the last time, the happy feeling of Orkney will follow us for a long time - and we’re hoping to come back soon - maybe even another (shorter) house swap?

But, among all these lasts - there is also a first: When you go on youtube and look at all the happy videos from places all over the world, now Orkney is among them, too!
Just put ORKNEY and HAPPY in (or click on the links here and here) to watch our happy films of Orkney. You’ll probably figure out quite easily which one is mine and which one is Matt’s!

Nanouk was part of an amazing concert at the St. Magnus Festival! I’m sure you all know who Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is and Nanouk was part of the concert celebrating his 80th birthday! We had front row seats and enjoyed the evening enormously!
Even the Telegraph wrote about it today. Read the article here. Luckily, althought the Telegraph just cut off Nanouk from the picture, we’ve got some (many...) with both of them:

(Can you find Nanouk?)

Maleah also had a very emotional last riding lesson on „her pony” Rosie Gold and was allowed to brush her afterwards, which she did for nearly an hour, enjoying a bitter sweet farewell...


Apart from that nothing really interesting has happened. Luckily we had planned our last month with loads of “free time”, which we are now cherishing, meeting up with friends, playing outdoors and enjoying life!
We’re also trying to plan a little farewell party, which has not been easy, as we’ve had to postpone it twice due to the Swiss Football Team being so good :o) but we’re hoping to see a lot of people and get a chance to blether a bit, before we leave...
But, of course, we’re also planning a return trip - maybe even a (much shorter?) house swap again? Just to meet up with our new friends and get back into the “Orkney Feeling”, which we are afraid of losing when we get back to busy hectic Switzerland...
Maleah has given her address to all the children of her class - and many other pupils, too, and she is hoping for a lot of mail! Nanouk only wanted to put our skype name onto his cards, as he doesn’t really enjoy writing :o)

And as the sun has just come through the clouds, the sea is sparkling in the distance and the oystercatchers are calling (even that sound has become dear to me...) I think I’ll take the paper and a cup of tea outside and enjoy one of the many hidden (from wind and sight) secret places in the garden and enjoy some afternoon peacefulness!

It’s hard to believe that our last guests have left and we only have one more month left!
My friend Andrea (who has been my friend since Kindergarten, and who is a farmer’s wife, with hardly any holidays) came to visit me with a friend and I was delighted, not only to share this beautiful place with her, but also to have four days together!
They were so excited and enchanted by Orkney and the Orcadians and have totally fallen in love. The start was a little rocky, as the B&B we had organised was not ready, but then we found lovely Sidney, who put his caravan up to the Community Centre and they had a great stay there!
The weather was not the best, but will still had some sunshine now and then - and they made the most of the long days, visiting Mull Head once after leaving us at 9pm (as we went to bed) and then again, on their last day at 5am, just because they wanted to see the lovely cliffs one more time!

We went to Yesnaby and Marwick Head and waited for the fog to lift, which took a while but then was well worth it, as they did not only see all the thousands of birds but also some puffins!


Sunday we went to watch Matt being a long jump official at the Junior Inter-County. This is a big weekend in which junior athletes, netballers, swimmers and footballers compete against their “rivals” from Shetland. It is an amazing event with many talented young people - and Matt probably was the only official with his own fan base!
He received a “coach” pullover in return and was over the moon!
(And it made up for him missing the Hoy Marathon which he had to cancel because of his aching foot...)


(Can you spot the most handsome coach?)

Continuing the sports Sunday we headed over to our friends to watch Switzerland beat Ecuador. We do miss our large screen at home - and all the friends coming over to watch games with us - but we did enjoy sharing this with our new friends and will head over again tomorrow - and of course we’re hoping for another victory!
Our visiting Swiss friends also came by to have dinner with us and see the amazing buffalos, who we have all fallen in love with - they also visited some other farms and were amazed at the differences between Swiss and Orcadian farming.

Now that we only have one more month left (and no more visitors) you’d think life would be a little quieter. But far from that! We still have soo many things we’d like to do:

Visit the Orkneyinga Saga Centre, the Unstan Tomb, eating a Stenness Monster, climbing the Mountains of Hoy, visiting Happy Valley and exploring the closest (but still unvisited) site to our house: Mine Howe. There are still some islands we want to see: Egilsay, Wyre, Auskerry and the one closest to our house: Copinsay. And there is one more location for our music video we want to film at: St. Magnus Cathedral. Matt is a little shy about filming when other people are there, so this might be a tricky one. Although, we have filmed at the Ring of Brodgar and were asked by a ranger what we were doing. She now wants a copy of the video when it’s finished :o) We are thinking of a very early film session, but we will see how it goes!


But realistically we will have to postpone some of these things to future visits, which we hope will lie in the close future...

We have all fallen totally and utterly in love with this place and are hoping to return soon and regularly!

Summer has arrived in Orkney. Somehow we didn’t expect the weather to be this nice in summer. We have had so much sun in the past two weeks and temperatures of nearly 20 degrees, which is perfect for us.



The 30-35 degrees in Switzerland we read about just make us think that we’d like to stay here for a little longer. The colours of the sea, the grass and the heather are so intensive when the sun is shining. We wonder if one ever tires of looking at them.

Deerness as a place to live has taken a bit of beating in our minds because occasionally the sea haar (fog that builds up as the warm air moves over the cold water) just lingers around here while in West Mainland it’s sunny and warm. Especially when visitors are here, it is really annoying having to tell them that, down there would be the sea. On the other hand, we’ve also had a few days when it was pouring down in West Mainland and it was beautifully sunny in Deerness. Because Deerness is so far east, the thunderstorm clouds that build up over mainland Scotland don’t touch this part of Orkney when the wind is from the South or Southwest.

The last visitors arrive tonight. It’s been great showing everyone these great islands, but it also took away a lot from our everyday lives. Today is only my second completely free-to-do¬-whatever-I-want day, if you include mowing the lawn under that category. We haven’t done anything new in the past couple of weeks, but there are still a couple of islands we’d still like to visit and a few other things that we would like to go and see.

What really has changed in the past two months is the amount of tourists everywhere. In April it was not unusual to be completely alone in a top notch tourist attraction. Now you have to be lucky to find parking. And you can hear the annoyed German tourist silently bitching about the stupid idiots who spend too much time in the centre of the standing stones and why don’t they get the h*$! out of there so she can take a photo. It’s tough to tour Orkney in a day ....

Last weekend we helped our neighbours with their Open Farm Sunday. There wasn’t really anything planned for us to help with. In the end Natalie spent about 5 hours in the catering trailer selling drinks and cashing in money, Jenny, her sister, spent 4 hours frying onions and I spent just as much time running between the kitchen and the trailer and to the shop to get more, yes, onions. It was still a lot of fun to be part of such a successful day. The weather was absolutely breath taking and the cars kept coming and coming. We could hardly believe our eyes when saw how many cars had parked in the field and the queue to get food was incredibly long. But, in the end everyone agreed that the food was worth waiting for.



In other news I have decided not to run the Hoy Half Marathon. My Achilles tendon has been bothering me for a while and my training sessions have been few. I don’t even feel too bothered about it because I’ve seen it coming and as an alternative I can now help officiate the long jump at the junior inter county athletics Orkney against Shetland. I’m looking very much forward to being part of that.

There is also a new newspaper article we wrote here (German only).

Can’t believe our time here is slowly drawing to an end. But then again, we have written more than 40 blogs (and that’s only the English ones!) so we must have been doing a lot of things!
We are still in the middle of our “tourist season” with our US friends having just left and my sister arriving on the ferry on Friday!
So, of course, with Dean and Mary we did all “the sights” and I will not bore you with them, as you will probably know them nearly as well as us after all our pictures here in the blog, our blog photos and our facebook pages. But, what you probably won’t realise from our pictures is that it’s different every time we go there! I think I could go to the Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones every day and always see something different!
Especially after our two fantastic tours by historic Scotland! We happened to stumble upon the first at the Standing Stones and then decided to change our plans, not visit the ring that day but wait for the next day and visit it with the ranger - and how that was worth it! So many new aspects - and seeing it from a different angle, too!
Very recommendable!

Other highlights of the week with Dean and Mary were the children getting hooked on Yo-yo-ing and throwing some Baseballs, which we had neglected a little in the past! And a delicious BBQ at the Buffalo Farm and some glorious hikes in the sunshine (even seeing some puffins!)


And if you asked Nanouk and Maleah they would probably (hopefully) tell you, that their highlight was sleeping in their secret den! (But, unfortunately I can’t tell you more about that, as that would take away from the secret!)


We also managed to do our “Happy Dance” in the Ring of Brodgar - thank you Dean and Mary, for doing it with us! We want to have a Dance Video at the end of our stay with as many friends and visitors as possible in it. We already have a few good clips from Westray, the Ferry, the beach, the Buffalos and now the Ring of Brodgar. We certainly want some from the Cathedral and the Standing Stones but are also open for other suggestions - and we would be delighted if you’d like to join us in our video (this only applies if you’re living in Orkney, of course - or if you will be visiting within the next month... Sorry...)

I went to see a neighbour yesterday (that is already one of the great things I will miss when we go back to Switzerland: visiting friends for a cuppa and a biscuit) and on the way back I was accompanied by storm, the dog and then went to say hello to the buffalos. Now, before we moved in next to the buffalo farmers I would never have believed how docile animals they are! Last week I saw our neighbour stroking Mr Bull and he just loved it! Closing his eyes and cuddling up to her and then trying to get more when she moved on to the next buffalos... Amazing!

So, as I was passing the field of the young buffalos, I went up to stroke one. As soon as the others saw what was going on, they all came close and tried to shove past the others to be next! Needless to say I stayed there for a long while just so all the buffalos got their portion of TLC before I moved on. But, I had not considered that the sheep in the next field would feel left out and also wanted to be stroked, so I did that too!
What a wonderful place we are living in!

Then today, cycling to the shop I was wooed by a Teeoo (Lapwing), scared off by an oyster catcher and then watched a rabbit while being pushed along by the wind! Life is just great!

Unfortunately the weather was not too good for when my in-laws were visiting and we went to see a lot of indoor places: Highland Park Distillery, Orkney Museum, the school, the Cathedral, St. Magnus Visitor’s centre (where I volunteer) but also the “normal tourist places as the Ring o’ Brodgar, the Standing Stones and Skara Brae.

One of the best days was our hike around Mull Head (a lovely hike around the cliffs on the east of our peninsula) and luckily someone had packed a huge picnic because - tadaa! - the sun came out and we made a day out of it!
We went down to one of Matt and Nanouk’s favourite geos and had a picnic down there! Heidi even took off her jacket and pullover - and it takes a lot for that to happen!
Nanouk and Maleah took off their shoes and wanted to paddle a little, but it didn’t last very long... And, of course, we had tea and hot chocolate from my favourite toy: the Kelly Kettle!


One of the highlights was Nanouk finding a message in a jam jar, which had travelled to Deerness from North Ronadlsay! It was from an elderly lady looking for a penfriend of about the same age - and telling us, if we did not fit the profile to pass the letter on to someone who does!

But, most of the time we just enjoyed having the grandparents here:


On Sunday we went to Birsay. This is where we’d seen the puffins up close nearly four years ago - and we were hoping for the same again, but unfortunately they were quite a lot lower down. Still, we did see them - and we had fun watching the gulls flying really close to us and trying to suss out if we were enemies or prey, lying on the floor like that!

Matt and his parents then went on to Yesnaby hoping to see a Primula Scottica for Oswald and Matt’s Flower Homepage, but unfortunately they didn’t succeed. But, of course, they were still awed by the cliffs and the scenery there!

And then, all too quickly, the week was over and it was time to say goodbye again. Luckily it will be less than two months before we see them again - and it is mainly our families and friends who are persuading us to go back home - and the promise we gave to Mim and Jeremy that we certainly would clear the house at the end of our six months...

Then, Monday evening, sitting in our living room with the sun shining in through the window we did feel a little cheated, but hopefully it will be back to normal (or even all sunshine!) for Mary and Dean, who arrive on Friday!