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| Iona abbey |
On our circumnavigation of Iceland, on the small island of Grimsey in 2019 I bought my favourite sweater. It was a rainy day and the air had a chill in it. There was a small gift shop next to a cafe that served tea, coffee and hot chocolate. Walking into the gift shop, I saw all manner of knitted pieces of clothing, mitts, scarves and, of course, sweaters. There were sweaters of every colour combination imaginable and I began my search by trying on the ones with the colours I liked best. There was one I really liked but it was too big so I settled on the one that has been my trusted companion ever since. I debated about whether to take it to Scotland or not and, in the end, decided not to so I could have room to carry sweaters that I hoped to buy during the trip.
I knew we would be visiting many places in Scotland where I could buy woollen goods. I looked around in Edinburgh when we were there and there were a few sweaters that looked promising but I held out for the Scottish Isles. Once we left port we visited Islay, Staffa and Iona, Skye, Lewis and Stornoway, Foula, Orkney and Faire Isle. I kind of had my eye on Faire Isle as a purchase point, although the prices were reputed to be quite high.
There were many things to see and getting a sweater took a back seat for a few days.. On the visit to Staffa and Iona we saw a variety of bird life and were fortunate to have a Scottish ornithologist with us. Dolphins swam alongside the ship as we moved between islands, and although the sea was too rough to get into Fingal's Cave, we did get as close as we could to the entrance on one of our zodiac excursions. On Iona we paid a visit to the abbey, which has been restored by a group of dedicated people and is now used as a retreat centre. The carvings on the pillars drew my attention and a fair number of pixels on my camera and phone.
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| column detail Iona |
On our way back to the ship we stopped in front of a tiny shop in whose window was a lovely turtleneck sweater. I pointed it out and my friend urged me to go in and have a closer look. I asked if I could try it on. It must have had my name on it because it fit perfectly, and even though I had forgotten my wallet on the ship, the shop was equipped to take tap payments In amounts that allowed me to complete the purchase with my phone. I returned to the ship quite pleased with myself. I know a lot of people can’t wear wool and I went for a lot of years wearing fleece and cotton instead of wool. Recently, though, I have gone back to wool sweaters. There is something cozy and comforting about a wool sweater. Maybe it reminds me of the many sweaters Mum knitted for me when I was a kid. I know when I put on the Grimsey sweater It’s like a nice warm hug. The Iona sweater is a bit itchy at the neck, possibly because it is so high. I can fix that easily by wearing a neck tube underneath it. Richard was also struck by Iona and he composed a song for ukulele called “Isle of Iona.” I need to practice it more regularly so I can play it without stumbling over my fingers. I’m very fond of the song and it, along with the sweater bring back good memories.
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| Iona sweater |
It was definitely sweater weather on Lewis when we visited Gearrannan, the black house village. These houses had thatched roofs, thick walls, and low doors. I’m not that tall and I had to duck my head a few times. The black houses got their name in the late 1800’s when newer houses, those that separated people from their animals, were called white houses.https://www.isle-of-lewis.com/information/history/ We also visited the standing stones at Callanish. These stones are older than Stonehenge and one legend says that the stones are men who were turned to stone by an enchanter while another suggests the men were turned to stone because they did not adopt Christianity. https://scotlands-stories.com/fascinating-stories-from-the-calanais-standing-stones/
The main attraction on the island of Foula was birds and I saw a number of different species. On the second last sailing day we visited Orkney. It was a full day with visits to Kirkwall, the main city; Skara Brae, the settlement built underground; the ring of Brodgar, and the Hall of Clestrain where John Ray lived. John Ray was the man who acquired news from the Inuit about what happened to the Franklin Expedition. He was shunned in Britain when he returned with information that Franklin’s men had likely resorted to cannibalism. That idea was completely unacceptable to Lady Franklin as was the idea that Franklin had failed to find the Northwest Passage. John Ray is responsible for mapping much of the northern Canadian archipelago.
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| Skara Brae |
When we landed on Fair Isle I got distracted from my sweater hunt by puffins. The ornithologist instructed us to go quickly past the nesting puffins to a place higher up the hill where the juveniles hung out. There, he told us, we could watch them to our heart’s content which is exactly what I did. It was one of the most memorable stops on the trip. The puffins were unbothered by us and some of them came up to investigate people’s boots as they sat on the grass. I have no award winning shots of puffins but I have fantastic memories of the time I spent among the less-than-graceful little birds.
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| Puffins! |
Eventually I realized that if I was going to make a visit to the community hall where the Faire Isle crafts were being sold I was going to have to leave the puffins. I packed up my camera and headed inland.
When I got to the hall it was clear that a lot of the sweaters had already been sold and there was nothing that really jumped out at me. Then I saw a couple of vests hanging on a rack. I wear vests. A knitted vest would be a good insulating layer under a wind shell and the vests had the advantage of being about half the price of the sweaters. The vest I settled on didn’t have all of my favourite colours in it. In fact, it had a mustard yellow in it that I wasn’t fond of at all. It did have a blue and a raspberry shade in it so I figured it would go with most of my clothes. I tried it on and the woman who made it pointed out that it was a little big in the shoulders. That didn’t bother me particularly so I added another item to my island collection. Fair Isle was the last stop on this part of the trip before we landed in Aberdeen to offload the folks from the Scotland Slowly trip and to pick up the folks for the next trip that took us to the Faroe Islands and on to Iceland.
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| Scored a Fair Isle vest |
