Le Cycliste

His Lordship and I swapped Shank's pony and the four wheels of yesterday for two today when we hired bicycles and did a circular tour by Dounby, the unlikely sounding village of Twatt and the Ring of Brodgar. We did not stop at the latter. as it was hard to see the stones for the tourists emptied out of two buses.

Cycling in this area is one of the reasons we come back to Orkney every year. The roads are so well maintained with not a single pothole to catch us out, and the traffic, although increasing year by year, is light by our standards.

In addition there are views of lochs and fields at every turn in the road, with colours from lime green newly cut grass fields to dark green meadows, and verges full to bursting with scarlet and mauve poppies, red campion, yellow buttercups, purple geranium type flowers with bursts of white which may or may not be shepherd's purse ( I am ignorant of so many things and the naming wild flowers is one of them).
And all the way there is company from the crying of peewits above us to the curious well fed cows watching us with their huge eyes over the tops of dry stane dykes as we cycle past.