arwen_lune

Got home last night after a 7:40 flight from Kirkwall and then on to Edinburgh, Gatwick and Amsterdam. Amazingly, my bagage made it home with me on the same flights. Impressive.

Road trip was nice - could have been nicer if we hadn't both been ill. Was good to have 3 days for it. Orkney itself is really beautiful, and the weather was blowy but clear and I found I really liked it there. Just seemed to have a good atmosphere to it. Reminded me of Vejer somehow. Maybe it's that small community feeling.

I was amused to find myself looking at house placement etc from a very Dutch point of view - ie wondering why people had houses so close to the sea, "What if there's a storm tide or a buildup" etc. Yup, that whole 'sea can be big and bad and you need to be prepared' thing sits deep.

We ran out of North, so we had to take a ferry to find more.

The ferry was interesting in itself - you go past Stroma, which is a very small, very barren island about a mile off the mainland. There are two mini villages of completely exposed houses, and I could not help wondering who lives there and what that life is like.
We past more interesting and remote places and then finally came into St Margaret's Hope. The islands made us feel welcome with sunshine as we drove all the way around to Stromness. The views are really interesting, you often cannot see what's part of this island and what's part of the next.

Simon's new place is a really nice little flat with wonderful views onto the harbour and bay. We've shuffled furniture around to make space for his desk, and gone to Coop for some cupboard staples, and he's now unpacking and settling in while I fight with the internet-onna-stick with is apallingly slow and disconnecty. As in, I've been trying to get to the lj update page for about 30 minutes now. Oh well.

1) Leaving on friday the 6th, meeting up with Flexor, taking the overnight ferry to Harwich
2) going to Slough for a cuppa
3) taking the train into London & probably meeting up with Simon
4) exploring Notting Hill (I've never been!)
5) meeting up with Pol & Random for the drive oooop north
6) being in Manchester
7) flying home on the 17th of feb

still in Manchester ish, still having a great time. All good.

My state of being right now is probably best described as 'flailing idly'. My bag is pretty much packed (needs some toiletry tomorrow morning), the travel food is made, the kitchen is cleaned up, my room is not in a great state of disarray. I'm pretty much good to go. Which means I'm both bored and flaily.

Aaargh.

I was going to England for Christmas, but the plan has been changed to stay until after New Year :-)

I'm leaving on thursday morning - flying to Oslo, where I will meet up with S (well, hopefully - I arrive way earlier than he, so we need to figure out where and how). We'll take the train to Bergen the next day, and the ships will be arriving as we do. Then I am signing onto the Stavros on sunday afternoon, and he flies back home.
I'll sign off in Den Helder on the 21st.

I haven't packed at all yet, though most of the sailing specific stuff is still in my bag from last time...

Saw shiny people and hugged them and wandered over Camden market and fitted shiny tops and coool boots and didn't buy them and had yummy cocktails and food and rode the zooooomy riverbus and saw more shiny people and hugged them too and got ohWOW things for my birthday and had yummylunch at Ping Pong and rode the zoooomyboat again and and and...

Home now.

*thud*

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gnorkney

Yay for travel plans

still here

Flapperdeflap!

Changed plans

Off to sea

London

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July 2011

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