Did you truly waft here from paradise?
A regular sight on TDC trips . . .
Friday 7th May 1999
Both alarm clocks went off at the appointed hour. Martin was the first to surface, with a very sleepy Sara emerging from her domain ten minutes later. She then wandered around in a haze, "faffed a bit" (her words again!) and finally brought her kit downstairs.
With the car packed, we set off for the airport at 5:15, with Sara barely staying awake - a trend that was to last until the middle of the afternoon!
Did you truly waft here from paradise? |
A regular sight on TDC trips . . . |
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We got to Luton, parked, took the bus to the terminal, checked in and made our way to the departure lounge, although not before Sara had set off the metal detectors and had to be hand-searched. Once in the departure lounge, Sara made the first of her spontaneous crashes, with a half-hour nap before our flight to Aberdeen. Hot chocolate and a Danish pastry revived Sara enough to get on the plane, whereupon she immediately went into low-power mode again. Luton had been bright and sunny; Aberdeen on the other hand was very grey and very wet. Getting off the plane and getting into the terminal was a wet experience! We then had to collect our baggage from the baggage reclaim, walk round a column and book it back in for our flight to Kirkwall. After a quick look around the airport shops, which were much better than those at Luton, Sara resumed her horizonal position for another hour's sleep. UK Barbarians rugby tops make great pillows! |
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Eventually, the monitor in the corner of the lounge announced a departure gate for our flight, so Martin woke Sara and we made our way through, although not before Sara had been hand-searched again for setting off the metal detectors a second time.
The plane from Aberdeen to Kirkwall was a British Midland 30-seater twin-prop buggy, which made for a flight that was both exhilarating and noisy, which did serve to keep Sara awake. The air stewardess had her work cut out to get meals out to everyone, serve drinks and clear it all away before we landed, but she managed it smoothly and effortlessly. We got some good views of Kirkwall and the surrounding countryside/coastline/islands as we landed.
 Orkney from the air |
 Just arrived |
June was there to pick us up in probably the smallest airport in the UK. Baggage reclaim consisted of a shelf onto which the baggage handler chucked the bags through a hatch from the outside, and we retrieved our kit as it landed. June very kindly drove us into Kirkwall, past the familiar sights of the pool, school and playing fields, to our B&B in Papdale Close, just a stone's throw away from the pool. June then had to go back to the school to teach.
Mrs Hume made us very welcome and showed us our clean comfortable accommodation. We revived ourselves with cups of tea and coffee (Sara *still* had "that glazed look") before walking into town in search of shops and lunch.
The weather began to brighten up as the day progressed, so that the afternoon gave us sunshine and clear skies by which to see Kirkwall. We walked down the main shopping street to the harbour, buying postcards and in Martin's case a joke Scottish "Jimmy" hat with attached orange hair to add to his growing collection of hats. Lunch was taken at the Queen's Hotel, as recommended by the proprietor of the postcard shop. It was obviously popular with the locals, which was a good sign. We placed our orders - steaks all round - and wrote our postcards while we waited for our meals to arrive.
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Postcards were then posted, and photos were taken of the harbour, then we went into major shop mode, as Sara had by then fully woken up and was making up for lost shopping hours spent sitting on planes here, there and everywhere. Martin narrowly avoided spending a lot of money on three different sculptures he saw in various art shops. "I'll think about it and leave it until Monday", he said. How he would get them back as hand luggage would be a different matter, but as one of them was a huge wooden carving of two leaping dolphins, Sara had no doubt that by Monday he would be trying. However, some prints were bought as momentoes of the Orkney Islands. |
We started to head "home", but realized very quickly that we needed food and found a shorter route back into town. We found a small supermarket where we bought sufficient provisions for a bite to eat that evening and also to cover the next day's tournament. We then headed back out of Kirkwall again, this time finding an even shorter short-cut, and headed back to the B&B.
Sara was totally pooped, and Martin was starting to feel the effects of only two hours of sleep, so both headed their respective ways and grabbed a couple of hours of sleep.
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Suitably recharged, Martin then tried to get in touch with Keith who, as usual, had been impossible to get hold of before we left Buckinghamshire, although we did later find out that that was because he and his girlfriend Gill had left Alnwick on Wednesday. Moreover, we did not know when they would be arriving, and had not made any arrangements as to where and when we would meet, and so on. The only snippet of information that we had had from Keith was that they would be staying with "Mrs Atkins", so the Orkney travel guide that June had given to Martin at the Nationals in April was then pressed into service, and as luck would have it there was a guesthouse listed with a proprietor of Atkins. We rang the number listed and, success, found them. Alastair had told us that there was a practice session that evening at 8-9:30pm, so we arranged to meet at the pool at 7:45. |
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We duly met at the pool, but Keith said that he would not be taking part in the training session, as he and Gill wanted to go out for a meal. June told us that there was one particular pub that was the "local" of the Octopush club, so we arranged to meet them there after the session. The session itself was enjoyable, and gave Sara and Martin a chance to get used to the pool, to each other's style of play again, and to the orange Australian puck with which we would be playing the next day.
After the session Alastair gave us a lift to the pub, where we joined him, June and a couple of the other Orkney players in a few bevvies. Despite a thorough search of the place there was no sign of Keith and Gill, but they turned up after we had been there for about quarter of an hour, having obviously not lost any time in sampling the local alcohol themselves!
 Martin with Alison, Alastair & Malcolm of the Orkney team |
 A joyful reunion! Keith's not so sure . . . |
The drinking continued, and moved onto shots of "Aftershock" (aka liquid toothpaste!) before we all walked home to bed.
