Showing posts with label Orkney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orkney. Show all posts

My Map Pins (23): Skara Brae, Orkney (Posted March 2021)

 




Skara Brae is Europe’s most complete Neolithic village. It is older than Stonehenge or the Pyramids and was occupied for about seven centuries which is quite a humbling fact. It was built around 3,100 BC - so if you trace your ancestors back for 200 generations the chances are pretty good that someone in your family line helped build it. Why would Neolithic people choose to live in this windswept bleak corner of the British Isles? Why wouldn't they just set off south and make a home in Cornwall? Who knows? But it is truly an amazing place. I’d recommend a visit. It is a fair old journey to get there mind. We drove to Thurso on the very north tip of the Scottish mainland, and took the ferry. We might have seen an orca. Some passengers did. But what we saw might just have been a wave. Never mind. We always need to remember, as TS Eliot said, ‘It is the journey, not the arrival that matters.’ That is especially true of Orkney, but mainly because the journey there is so beautiful. If you’ve never been to Orkney, add it to your wish list. 

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The Wager and the Bear [Posted 29th Feb 2024]

  It's leap-year day so I have an announcement. My climate-crisis novel, 'The Wager and the Bear,' is to be published by Fly on ...