Any day with a nap

Is a perfect day.  We didn't have to get going too early today, so we had a leisurely breakfast at Graemeshall House B&B.  This place is beautiful, and really makes you feel like you are living like the upper crust.  We tried something different this morning, and had omelettes.  They came out open-faced like a beautiful egg-pizza.  We went through two pots of tea, and some lovely fruit and yogurt.  The sky was overcast, and looked like we might contend with rain today, but it was an amazing start to the day.One interesting feature of the island is the Orkney craft trail.  If you know Carrie, you know she is a sucker for craft stores.  These are mostly run by the artists themselves.  We started off at Celina Rupp Jewelry.  I like to buy Carrie some jewelry from each of our trips.  We spent some time chatting with Celina, and admiring her work.  She was super friendly, and we could have stayed longer.  We have seen Orkney jewelry in many places, even on the ferry shop, but this work was on a higher level.  It was all inspired by different motifs and themes from the island, and nearby parts of Scotland.  We found some lovely items, and Carrie was happy.We went from there into the larger town of Kirkwall.  One thing we had asked our B&B host was, is this your high season?  It was so different from Edinburgh and Inverness...empty roads, available parking.  He said that it was, and that if we were around when a cruise ship was in town, we would see the busyness.  Kirkwall is the port for the cruise ships, and when we topped the hill coming into town, we saw two ships in port.  He wasn't lying, Kirkwall was crawling with people - walking willy-nilly all over.  Stopping in the middle of streets to take selfies.  An exasperated driver motioned to me like "Can you believe this baloney? (well, they might have used a more Scottish word, but you get the picture)"We negotiated the newly crowded streets to drop off some laundry.  Carrie had planned this into our trip, and it is nice to have someone catch us up with clean clothes.  After receiving wrong directions, we headed into the right direction on the street.  We passed the nice older Scottish lady who apologized for misdirecting us.  "I do believe it is down this way, I'm terribly sorry."We dropped them off, and initially, they told us they could not be ready today.  They open at 10 in the morning, and if we left there right at 10, we would probably miss the ferry.  So, she offered to have them ready by closing time at 4, which was our original request.We left the laundry and went to explore the area.  There is a beautiful old Cathedral that is still in use, St. Magnus Cathedral.  It was lovely, with lots of indications that it is actively part of the community.  We left there, and left Kirkwall to leave the thronging cruisers.  We continued down the Craft Trail, and stopped at a wood-turner.  Michael Sinclair is super talented, though he was not in when we stopped by.  We got a lovely bowl, and were given a tour of his shop.  We even saw the rest of the trunk where our bowl came from.We skipped the next shop, Harray Potter, a potter, probably just because Carrie didn't want me to channel Hagrid the entire time we were there.  We did stop at a craft shop that had items from many crafters around, and found a few nice gifts.  Then, it was time to continue on, and drive a loop around the coast of the northern part of the island.Carrie got to converse with cows and sheep, and a particularly uncooperative seagull.  While looking for a location mentioned on the map, we ended up in someones very long driveway.  But once committed, you just gotta follow it to the end.  Thankfully, this wasn't rural Alabama, and we didn't find the business end of a shotgun.We safely made it back to the main road, and soldiered on.  However, now, though we were less than 100 yards from the ocean, the weather had darkened, and we couldn't see the sea.  Hey - a homonym! We found The Woolshed, and carrie got a handmade, hand-felted mouse.That was the last craft store, and we ended up at a neolithic ruin, that was pretty impressive.  The Broch of Gurness is around 2500 years old.  It is in amazing shape, and you could walk all through it.  There were staff there in restoration work, and it was very cool.  A broch is a hollow, drystone structure.  Drystone, because there is no mortar used, simply stacking rocks on top of each other in such a way that it keeps water and wind out, held in place only by gravity.After we left there, it was time to head back to Kirkwall to pick up our laundry.  We had a little time to spare, so we found a teashop that was still selling food.  We had a very satisfying light lunch, and relaxed for a bit, then picked up our laundry.  We still had some time before our 8pm tour tonight, so we headed back to the B&B to rest for a bit.  The rest turned into a solid nap - glorious!Once we were up, we decided we would look at some standing stone sites before our tour.  There are three very close to each other.  The first were the Standing Stones of Stennes (feeling particularly alliterative, are we?).  They are probably older than Stonehenge.  In fact, it is thought that the building of stone circles probably originated up here, and migrated down to Britain.The next one that was open was the Ring of Brodgar.  From quite a distance, you could get an idea of the scale of the site.  In its day, it would have been quite impressive.  It still is.  Due to some erosion, we could only walk the perimeter of the site, but the standing stones, still standing after all this time, were really evocative, especially with the moodier Scottish weather we've had today.  Nearby there was a field where cattle were grazing.  Well, they eventually grazed.  There was a concrete post in the field, and they all made a bee-line to scratch on the post.  There were a few that came full-tilt towards it, and though we were behind an electrified fence, seeing that many pounds of beef in a full gallop directly towards us was a little disconcerting.  I did add some verbal commentary, though since these were all female, my very low, almost Brooklyn, voice was probably inappropriate.We packed up in the car and headed to the visitor's center for our 8pm tour.  We were early.  An hour early.  So, we were going to have to kill some time.  When we entered the center, the guide said the 7pm tour hadn't left yet, and would we like to join that one.  Well, yes!  We were able to join that tour of Maeshowe Chambered Cairn.  It is one of Europe's finest chambered tombs, and was built over 5,000 years ago.  Like Newgrange, in Ireland, it is only lit by the sun around the winter solstice.  Though, it has a bigger window of opportunity - 20 days before and after.  Orkey has had a significant Viking presence throughout its history, and some Vikings did shelter in the tomb almost a thousand years ago.  They left behind some runic graffiti.  One set was written in a very cryptic style and also in the more normal style.  Both say "These runes were carved by the man most skilled in runes in the western ocean."  I guess ego is not a modern creation.  It was pretty interesting to be standing in a chamber that old.  We left the chamber, and had to bend over pretty far to make it out (like we had to do when entering).  We had a nice walk back to the bus to return to the visitors center.On the way back to the B&B, we stopped off at Aldi to buy a few snacks for the evening.  Carrie couldn't believe how cheap it was.  When she told me how cheap the food was in Scotland, the clerk corrected her - "it is cheap in Aldi, not Scotland!"  We spent the rest of the evening packing up and posting pics and words.  While we don't have to leave early, we do have to make sure we are at the ferry in time.  At least we are on a small island.  It has been an awesome day.