My Week In Pictures – Sea, Shells and Spring

I hate to be a cliche but Spring has finally sprung. I can’t say we reached the dizzy heights of basking in the bank holiday sunshine like the rest of the UK but it has been quite nice today. That’s as far as it goes really but any sunshine is welcome. Stromness really lends itself to sunshine and today I even managed to take my coat off.

The days are lengthening beautifully and our evening dog walk recently was littered with the last of the cheery daffodils and the wonderful Orkney evening skies I love so much.

The week got off to a flying start as I was sea swimming at 7.30am on Monday morning. Yes true! My enjoyment and journey continue so I was up with the lark and swimming in a local spot before work. We were joined by seals and swans and mermaids in bobble hats. Oh wait, that was me. 😉

A well-loved pass time in Orkney is Groatie Buckie hunting. Groatie Buckies are little cowrie shells (you can see some at the centre of the picture below) and considered to be a lucky find as they are less common than other shells. I’ve always loved picking up shells and little finds on the beach. Sea glass can be pretty and I REALLY love to find little pieces of crockery like that pictured. I love to think of the story behind it. How it began a journey somewhere in the world and ended up washed in by the tide to end up in its final resting place in a jar in my home. An hour at the beach raking through shells is an hour well spent in my book.

A311B65F-0534-46A2-99B3-06F50805E421 — A selection of my beach all treasures

My lovely niece Becca is visiting from the States at the moment and like all people of her age, lives in a whirlwind of technology and apps. Stick me next to a millennial and I feel like an absolute dinosaur. Becca was last night showing Orkney Beef the ropes on how to make a Bitmoji. If you don’t know what that is then there’s probably no point me trying to explain and to be honest I don’t really know myself. But in brief, it’s a little cartoon character of yourself – Orkney Beef’s has a beard naturally but no grey which is a falsehood in my view. Anyway, I can’t thank Becca enough because since she taught him how to do it he’s done nothing but spam us all to death with endless pictures of his cartoon self. Scrap that, I don’t thank Becca at all.

I enlisted the help of a millennial this weekend too as Miss Lashes was giving me lessons on Instagram accounts. I realized that my sea swimming passion was taking over and she suggested I make a separate account for my specialist subject. That way people who didn’t want to see pictures of it all the time didn’t need to and those that wanted to could follow that account. She told me some of my name suggestions were ‘lame’ and banned me from using capitals and underscores. I have no idea…… anyway joking apart I appreciated her help and permission was finally granted for me to set up an new Instagram account called seasaltandsarah where I can waffle on about sea swimming until my heart’s content whilst still maintaining my other account for the regular day to day waffling. Sarahknorquoy

If you’re interested to see more photos then follow those two accounts and say hi. Sorry guys, it’s the modern way.

Thanks as always for reading and sharing this blog. It is so heartwarming to read lovely comments from people. Have a great week all. Mine’s a short one thanks to a bank holiday where the first thing I’m going to do is treat myself to new car tyres and celebrate half price easter eggs. Woohoo!