
I worked in Orkney thirty years or so ago and had often fancied going back for a holiday. My current job has an ideal combination of a month-long summer holiday and then generally working from wherever I want the rest of the time. This meant that we could head north for three and a half weeks and spend some time there.
We spread the driving to the north of Scotland over four days and initially broke the journey on the way up by stopping at Grinsdale, near Carlisle. This allowed us to do a little bit more of the Hadrian’s Wall National Trail. It wasn’t an ideal section, with some uncertainty over the temporary rerouting of parts that had been closed. The next day we did a few more miles of the West Highland Way near Drymen. That one wore the Beagle out for a while.

Despite having four days to reach the ferry terminal, I almost messed it up by arriving in Scrabster where, upon attempting to check in, we were told that our ferry went from Gills Bay instead. A hurried half-hour drive later we boarded the boat to St Margaret’s Hope.
We passed the island of Flotta, where I could see the flare stack and the oil storage tanks. I first went up there in 1995 and worked at the terminal for the next seven years. It’s a lot quieter these days, with a much-reduced workforce.

The next day we did a few touristy things, starting at the Italian Chapel. This was built by prisoners of war who were working on the causeways that link what were then separate islands towards the south of the Orkney mainland.
Dogs weren’t allowed, so Jen and I took turns to have a mooch around.

We had time to visit some of the older attractions too. Jen called into the neolithic chambered tomb at Maeshowe and then we took the dog to the Standing Stones at Stenness. Whilst that sounds like a pub, it’s simply what it says on the tin, some stones, stood up. Like Maeshowe they have been doing it for five thousand years. Not that their age prevented the dog from cocking his leg against one of them. There was also a Bronze age house nearby and he pissed on that too.

After buying The Orcadian newspaper the day before, I had discovered a football game going on that I’d been unaware of. Futbology has very limited coverage of Orkney, so it’s like the olden days. Not quite neolithic, but it feels that way when you have to search the inner back pages of the local printed press for fixture news.
The game was in the Parish Cup, which is a big deal in Orkney. It’s a competition where you play for the parish in which you were born or live. I’m not sure which, maybe both. It’s been going on for almost a hundred years and judging from the coverage in the paper, is much more highly regarded than the local league or playing for the Orkney representative team. Games are played over two legs with the final usually taking place on County Show Day.

The fixture we were going to was a semi-final first leg between Holm and St Ola. It was played at Holm’s Rockworks ground, next to one of the causeways and with the Italian Chapel visible in the distance. Rockworks has a pitch that looks as if it was dug out of sloped ground. That meant that if you parked your car on one of the two higher sides you had a view from an elevated position.

We got there just in time to park up behind one of the goals. There were around a hundred cars parked up, so probably three hundred people or so in attendance. There was no charge for admission, but I dropped some cash in a bucket collection. Nothing to eat or drink either, although a lot of people had brought picnics.

Holm are the current Parish Cup holders and took an early lead in what was a scrappy first half. St Ola had a chance to equalize from the spot, but the Holm goalie got down well to his left to keep it out. I thought a St Ola player following up was bundled to the ground, but the ref was well placed and saw it differently.
With twenty minutes remaining in the second half, St Ola equalised with a well-placed shot across the keeper into the corner of the net. Holm regained the lead with ten minutes left on the clock with a header at the back post to take a single goal lead into the second leg. We set off to Kirkwall harbour to catch a ferry to Shapinsay, where we would be staying for the next week.






















































