Leah turns 3 on the Orkneys

St. Magnus Cathedral

June 1 is Leah's birthday, and she turned three today. We spent the day in Kirkwall, visiting the St. Magnus Cathedral and the Bishop's Palace, then had a lunch of cheese toastie and sweet potato cake at a cafe across the street. Since we are just about to pack everything up to leave St. Andrews, we kept the gifts on the small, portable side, but as we walked through Kirkwall we did manage to find her two stuffed Elsa and Anna dolls, and a Gruffalo matching game. We also stopped in at the Kirkwall leisure center for an hour on the indoor toddler play area, and another hour in the leisure pool. This pool was a bit smaller and less well-equipped than the one we usually visit in Dundee...only one small slide here, and no wave pool or current river for the big kids. Also, the water was a bit...cool! Leah didn't mind, though. She was chuffed that there was a big box of rubber duckies available to borrow, and so she and I spent most of the hour lining the duckies up and having them discuss their upcoming birthday parties in turn.

We stopped at the Tesco for a birthday cake and candles, and for Leah's chosen birthday meal: macaroni cheese and cucumbers. We found a cute sparkler candle shaped like a "3" along with party hats. Tesco gives away free bits of fruit to kids who are shopping, so she was thrilled to have a handful of strawberries and blueberries to eat as we shopped, and even more thrilled that when she went back for more, one of the employees gave her a small box of plastic jewelry with a plastic key. That left a huge impression on her, and when we got in the car for the ride home, she quickly put all the jewelry on, then promptly fell asleep.

When she woke up later that evening, she was a bit groggy and grouchy but did come around when she saw her birthday cake all candled up. She was completely shocked when we lit the sparkler, as I don't think she had seen that before, but when she realized that we didn't find it alarming, she started to smile, and even managed to blow out all three candles as well!

A cold foggy hike to the Broch of Birsay

It's quite cool and windy here, and our itinerary is getting smaller and smaller as a result. Not much sense in spending the day at the beach when it's freezing!

This morning, we took a drive across the northern part of the mainland towards Birsay. At the tip of the island, there's a wee dot of land that was inhabited by the Vikings, where there's the foundational remains of a small settlement. When the tide is low, you can access the island by walking across the rocks, but when the tide comes in, it's an island once more. We checked the tide times before the visit, so when we arrived we could walk right out. The island is very close to sea level on one side, but much higher on the other, so there are some seriously dramatic cliffs full of blooming flowers and nesting sea birds. It was lovely, but a bit too vertiginous for me to stand at the edge for too long!

On a related topic, I am starting to get a bit worried about our upcoming trip to Rome. We haven't experienced temperatures much above 60 degrees since we have been in Scotland, and it's going to be in the high 80s in Rome next week. I'm afraid a sudden 30 degree swing is going to make us wilt! So, prepare yourself for various sweaty photos of us panting and draped over Roman ruins!