My social life on a small island in the North Sea

So the question I get asked the most while I'm out here is 'What do you do in the evenings?' and I often get comments like 'You must be so bored/lonely/depressed living out here totally on your own. I mean your completely ALONE aren't you. So lonely and alone'. And I'm like, 'Well, thanks for your encouraging comments there, but actually I have a relatively busy social life up here!' There's the coffee morning each Wednesday, where I catch up with the islanders, meet some of the visiting tourists and recruit people for my guided walks, all whilst consuming copious amounts of cake and coffee! There are cinema nights some Friday nights (more often outside of the busy period), and the pub on Saturday nights, usually with live music! I've probably mentioned all of these activities before, but as well as these social activities, there are also the big events each year. In my last post I spoke about the Great Auk weekend and the Orkney Nature Festival stuff, but there's also the Papay Fun Weekend - the highlight of the social calendar! 

Every year in July, the whole island celebrates how awesome island life can be with a big party! There's loads of activities going on all weekend, from craft afternoons to races to eating, drinking and dancing! And of course, it's part of my job to help out with community activities like this, so my usual Saturday tour was cancelled and off I went to help out with Fun Weekend activities!It's definitely a busy weekend for everyone involved, and I got pretty involved with it all this year! It was a good weekend, with amazing weather, made all the better because a few of the RSPB staff from Mainland and a couple of other islands came up to enjoy the weekend too!

Friday - I made dragonflies at the craft weekend, which turned out to be a pretty popular event! Then it was dinner and a dance in the evening.

Some happy customers making draongflies!

The finished result! Pretty good for some pipe cleaners and beads!

There was also T-shirt printing at the craft afternoon! Mine's the one with the Black Guillemot - I ended up doing quite a few for people!

Saturday - Saturday is sports day! There are all kinds of races, from tattie and spoon to sack races, with a football match and tug-of-war afterwards, plus lots of food and cake to be had all day! I didn't really experience much of the races though, as I was painting faces all day! Plus another dance with more food in the evening!

I volunteered to make sandwiches for Saturday lunch, so me and Lorna spent all morning making 2 loaves of egg sandwiches!

Some of my face painting work

Catching some rays out of the wind!

'HEAVE! HEAVE!'

Sunday - More food, more fun! Home-made carty races 'doon the brae', pipe bands, sandcastle competitions and a concert in the evening!

The carty's! Only 3 rules, they must have: brakes, steering and a helmet!

Carty's coming back up the hill after the time trials - now for the one-on-one races!

Some of the visiting RSPB staff were used as judges and got to present prizes for the best looking carty's!

One of the RSPB's contributions to the sand castle competition - a dragon!

Mine and Amy's contribution, and the winner! A Walrus in honour of the one that visited North Ronaldsay over winter

All accompanied by the pipe band of course! A really great weekend!

The weekend after this it's the Westray Regatta! A sailing race between Westray and Papay! Last year I went along with a little RSPB stall at the pier, but this year we decided to skip it out, so I did my regular tour duties instead. But that's not all! On top of this, it's the County Show this coming weekend, so I'll be off to Kirkwall to help out in the big RSPB tent there, selling tombola tickets and encouraging people to roll up, roll up and play our games! In between eating lots of Orkney Ice Cream of course!

In addition to all of this, I do lots of little social things week to week. I go to dinner with the islanders, I go to people's houses for other little social gatherings and things, I go in to Kirkwall for events and to go on nights out, and to catch up with staff and go bird ringing! 

My visit to the club in Kirkwall...the only club. It wasn't amazing, but not too bad.

Walking home at 4am. Yes, it really is that light at 4am here!

Socialising with the Captain and ferry staff in the wheelhouse on my way to Kirkwall

Terrible photo of a Storm Petrel (left) and Leach's Storm Petrel that we recently caught. They only come close to land at night and have great night vision which I didn't want to ruin by using the flash! This is my first ever Leach's Petrel!

And when I'm not out doing social things in the evenings, I'm ususally doing surveys, writing up reports, sorting out plans for the coming week, painting the house, fixing up the inside of the house, doing general housework, or just relaxing! Watching films, reading books etc., there's always something for me to do, so I'm rarely bored here!

P.S. - Thinking of you Nana, hope you get well soon. Love you xxx