'Yes', 'No', Puffins, hats, burgers and dancing.

There's more to Orkney than Fudge, day 2 - 15 September 2014

Carefully made plans were partially successful today.  After a delicious breakfast we went into Kirkwall and had 40 mins to spare before the bus to Stromness was due so we went into the Kirkwall museum.  It reminded me a bit of the Horsham museum, small but interesting and not too challenging.  We discovered that the ba is an event that happens on Xmas day and New Years Day each year when all the boys under 16 play a type of street football competing for a leather ball stuffed with sawdust.  There are no rules other than to score the goal the Doonies have to get the ba into the salt water of the bay or the Uppies have to get it to a specified part of the city.  At 1pm the men do the same.  Most Orkney hotels are closed during the winter so this is something that remains largely a local spectacle. 

The bus dropped us off at the Stromness ferry terminal and while Adrian was on the phone to Tina our builder I amused myself reading the notice board and saw this flyer and as our dinner plans had fallen through (restaurant not open on Mondays) we decided to have an early dinner and go.

Whilst the south of England was enjoying a late summer heatwave Orkney was having its own unseasonably warm weather, but Orkney warm required the purchase of a hat and the wearing of jumpers and jackets.

Under my new hat to protect me from the Orcadian wind we headed off to explore downtown Stromness.  We had seen lots of puffin stuff (tea towels, pictures, models etc) so we asked a bird artist where we might see some actual puffins, his advice was to look in Sussex so we didn't buy one of his puffin pictures.
Three days to go to the referendum and campaigning was in evidence.  We stopped and had a lovely chat with a 'no' campaigner who shivered through an impassioned explanation of why maintaining the union was the sensible option.

A little further along the street we came across the Stromness office of the 'yes' campaign and had quite a long conversation with a chap who had spent a long time living and working in London and although I didn't agree with all of his assertions it was clear that he was very committed to his cause. He was charming too and the most interesting part of both sides of the debate is that everyone we spoke to was clear that this was not in any way an anti English decision.  When I said to the 'yes' man 'I would be very sorry to see Scotland go' he replied 'we won't be going anywhere, we'll still be friends and trading partners'.
I also got the impression that Alex Salmond is not as popular in Scotland as he would like to be, or thinks he is.

One of the 'yes' man's points was the focus on renewables, which is ironic set against the more frequently mentioned north sea oil and gas.  We asked him what the big metal donuts we had seen across the bay were (pictured here) and he said 'if you see something peculiar that you've never seen before its probably something to do with renewables' so does anyone know what these are?  

After a long and chilly day that left me feeling that the 'yes' and 'no' were quite evenly balanced and the referendum could go either way we were greeted by this cheery pair on our bed back at the hotel.

We had an early dinner at Buster's diner, an American diner with huge portions and friendly service and ventured out to find the dancing.  After a false start at the wrong venue we arrived 30 mins late. It was a really great evening, only one dancer was wearing their referendum opinion (it was a 'no' badge) and we joined in and felt quite at home.



Of course we didn't have a clue what we were doing and everyone was very patient with us.  Fortunately we sat out the most complicated dance of the evening which even half of the Orcadians seemed to have difficulty with.  We chatted to a chap who worked as an air traffic controller at the airport who told us the air traffic in the area was actually surprisingly busy as it included all the inter island traffic and the helicopters out to the oil rigs as well.
One of our new friends offered to take our photo.
The warm welcome, the dancing and laughing made this one of the highlights of the trip for me.