Kierfiold House Garden

I imagine it’s quite unusual when you are sitting on your stoop enjoying a quiet morning cup of coffee on a Sunday morning for a passerby to stop and ask if the labrador lying beside you is called Zoe. Fortunately it was, which led to my introducing myself as a friend of friends. I had been told that they were GPs from Fife who came up every year to do a locum stint at the surgery in Stromness and would I look out for them. Had I not been forced to walk to the Co-op this morning because Argo’s didn’t have eggs then I might never have met them, or Zoe. Fate surprises me all the time.

After lunch, EllyJay, Neil and I went to see the garden at Kierfiold House, once the Dower House for Skail House. It was a walled garden, part of the Open Gardens scheme with borders bursting with flowers and shaded  by trees. Little paved paths lead to a central small pond which was being stocked with water lilies and other oxygenating plants. The whole garden seemed like a magical  oasis in the midst of featureless farmland. Because the house and garden  belong to a Selkie and her husband, I saw many of my co- dippers visiting too, almost unrecognisable with their clothes on.

Neil drove us home by a convoluted route taking in quiet roads I had never been on in areas I’ve never seen, out of sight of sea or loch. We even managed to find a lovely little sitootery at the Orkney Dairy cabin with drinks and cakes and an honesty box. 
It was a fitting end to an eventful Sunday.