Monday 10th May 1999

Sara and Martin got up at half past seven, and packed their things, ready for breakfast at eight and collection by Keith and Gill at nine, so as to be at Maes Howe for half past nine. Bags were duly packed, a scrummy-as-always breakfast was eaten, and bills paid. However, no sign of Keith and Gill . . .

At quarter past nine Keith's car drew up outside and honked. "I was allowing an extra fifteen minutes for the Martin factor" said Keith, with a slightly sheepish expression. Stale excuse, Keith! Sara and Martin bundled into the car and we set off for Maes Howe. This time we were in luck, as the facilities were all up and working, and we set off up the footpath towards the large burial mound in the distance.

Just before the tomb we stopped as usual to read the information boards. This one was particularly interesting, as Maes Howe features the most comprehensive set of Viking runes to be found anywhere in the world. Instead of phrases worshipping gods, however, many of the phrases showed a decidedly anarchic sense of humour with the likes of "these runes were carved by the man most skilled in runes in the Western Ocean" and - positioned about twelve feet off the ground to one side of the entrance passage - "these runes are high up"!

Our guide met us a few minutes later, and took us up to the tomb. She gave us a superb insight into the construction and positioning of Maes Howe, both by itself and in conjunction with the other nearby stones, such as the the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar. It turned out that Maes Howe had been constructed in such a way that on the Winter Solstice the sun would shine directly down the entrance passage and trace an arc along the back wall of the tomb. It did make us wonder that with only one chance per year to test out the positioning of the stones, just how long it had taken to get something like that right.

We then went back to the visitors' centre, watched a 13-minute video on the history of Maes Howe and the history of the Orkneys, had a coffee and made a few purchases from the Souvenir Shop. We then headed back towards Kirkwall and to the boys' "spiritual" home, the Highland Park Distillery. Sara made sure she got some photographic evidence.

We had timed it well, as the next tour was due to start in ten minutes time, so we went into the visitors waiting area and watched a constantly-running informational video. Our guide then appeared, introduced herself and took us round the distillery. She explained the various elements of the whisky-making process as she took us to a series of large rooms in which each stage took place. It was a curious combination of old and new, as some areas seem to have been refined with the benefit of modern technologies and techniques (particularly process-control areas), while others seem to have remained unchanged over the 200 years since the distillery was first founded.

The tour ended in the visitors' centre / souvenir shop (smart move!), where we were each given "a wee dram" and shown to a small cinema, where we watched a short film on the history of Orkney and the inception and development of the Highland Park Distillery. It was suggested to us that we added an additional third (33%) of water to the existing volume of whisky, and this simplest of secrets opened a whole dimension to the whisky that none of us had ever tasted before. Mind you, the whisky itself might have had something to do with it . . .

At the end of the film we went back into the souvenir shop, where between us we bought up a representative selection of most of the items on offer. We then crammed ourselves and our acquisitions into Keith's car and made our way back into the centre of Kirkwall, where we replenished our collections of Scottish banknotes and said our goodbyes, as Keith and Gill had to make their way back to the port on the south of Mainland in order to catch the 3pm ferry back to Scrabster.

Sara then decided that she wanted a hat, so we went round a few of the handcraft shops in search of one. However, she was unable to find one that was "just right", so we retired to the Queen's Hotel for lunch, We then did a final burst of shopping, making final decisions on the things that had caught our eyes on Friday. Sara found a hat she liked, while Martin didn't buy either the leaping dolphins or the goshawk, but settled for the girl on the rock, which Sara said was her favourite of the three.

We then returned to the B+B, where we got our stuff together and had a final cup of coffee, before being picked up by June at half past four and taken to the airport. It was there that our troubles began . . .

We were hardly through the door, when an announcement was made of a fifteen-minute delay to our flight to Aberdeen. Ten minutes later a further fifteen-minute delay was announced, and suddenly our one-hour stopover in Aberdeen was looking very short indeed.

Martin phoned easyJet's central number to let them know that yes we were booked on their flight from Aberdeen to Luton, and yes we were intending to be on the flight, but that we were dependent on the timeliness of the flight from Orkney. He received a fairly curt response saying that nothing could be guaranteed if our previous flight were not an easyJet flight, but at least the message had been got through.

He then phoned Servisair, EasyJet's agent in Aberdeen, to give the same message, and we then settled down with crossed fingers to wait for the arrival of our incoming flight, as there was now nothing more we could do.

A few minutes later another passenger arrived at the check-in desk and started asking the same questions that we had been asking, so he was obviously in the same boat as us. He introduced himself as Derek, and told us that he had come up for the weekend to check over a house he was buying on Holm (pronounced "Ham"), one of the other Orkney islands.

Eventually the incoming flight arrived,and after what seemed like an eternity we were let on board. The crew seemed to be in no hurry to get us airborne, although it was probably mainly our own agitation levels that were making us think that. By the time we got underway for our one-hour flight we had fifty-five minutes before our easyJet flight left for Luton, and the thought in all of our minds was "we're not going to make it".

We landed in Aberdeen, burst out of the plane as soon as the doors had been opened, and made a mad dash through the airport from the arrivals area to the departures area and the easyJet check-in desk. At one point Sara tripped over and went flying headlong, but resolutely picked herself up, ignored the carpet burns on her hands and we sprinted on.

Sara took our three tickets to the check-in desk, while Derek and Martin went to the baggage collection belt to pick up our incoming luggage so that we could then check them in again for the flight to Luton. With this done, we made a further mad dash through departures & baggage checking, where Sara set off the metal detector again!

We got to Gate 2 gasping for breath to find a great long queue of people waiting at the gate: the flight had not even started boarding. Sara was furious!

Derek bought three much-needed orange juices, while seats 1-30, 31-60, 61-90 and then finally "all remaining passengers" (i.e. us in 114-116) were called.

On the plane, after the odds had been seemingly stacked against us all the way down, we hardly dared to breathe until we were actually in the air, but we were finally in the clear and suffered no further incidents, although the landing in Luton was probably the roughest anyone on board had ever experienced.

easyJet stewardess: "Well, ladies and gentlemen, as you can tell, we have definitely landed . . ."

We retrieved our baggage, made our way to Martin's car, and from there back to Sara's, where Martin dropped Sara off and then went on to Octopush for his first Chesham session since the previous October. As it was the first time many of the team had seen him since he had cut his hair and shaved off his beard in February, it was probably no surprise that nobody recognised him . . .

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