#19 - Tuesday 1st

giggling

Trip to Occupational Health, needed some verified bloods or something doing. Aunty B look-a-like greats us on the ward: “Most importantly…first.. would you like some eggs?”. She doesn’t know how many hens she actually has… but anyway a dozen eggs later we were told that before doing any work we had to try and book our flights to North Ronaldsay…. After each of us in turn spoke to Loganair (we three are peas in a pod, apparently smart medical students.. but really pretty ditsy, giggly girls who haven’t a clue…) and booked a room at the hostel… Rebecca was sent away to buy a coat from the local charity shop before our expedition north. Rosie and I took some medical photos of a patient and emailed them – took all morning, we had a wander and left our mobile numbers in various departments… visit to HDU – absolute grilling from a consultant, who then suddently switched to mr nice guy – telling us all about his sheep (of a rare breed with only 350 breeding ewes in the world – he has 10!) Half an hour later made it back to the Drs office for a lecture about India… I thought I’d fooled everyone and looked vaguely interested… however Rosie said she was just hoping I didn’t fall asleep I was so glazed over… oops! Didn’t really do much else, by two o’clock it was essential we bought some wool for North Ron as one of the nurses had said “why are you going there? There is nothing to do. You’ll need more than one bottle of wine… you want rural? Just go and lie down in a field!” Feeling a little more hesitant about North Ron (but having promised the lovely friendly foreign man at the airport we’d see him later) we ventured into ‘town’ and back to tesco for the essential supplies (see below).

 

Nicola one of the junior doctors had decided to come too – resulting in yet more phone calls to loganair and the hostel.. She picked us up – auntyB-look-a-like thowing her out of the hospital too – nipped to hers for clothes and sped on down to the airport! Rebecca, the friendliest person I think I’ve met introduced us to the foreign airport check-in guy “we are the four ladies”… he told us “he could see that…” made our way to the tiny plane – stopping for a photo outside (contrast to the I’m-a-local-here-vibe I was going for last time). The plane was absolutely stunning, the sun was out over the horizon and it was incredible. Landed on North Ron, Rebecca managed to wangle us a lift with a GP’s children – kicking the poor schoolboy (Gavin) into the open back of the jeep. We had our first look at the famous North Ronaldsay seaweed eating sheep! “Feral”. Walk on the beach – honestly looked as though it could be in the Bahamas (pretty chilly sea though). Made it back and chatted to Gavin for a while – he pointed out the islands to us, Rosie fed the North Ronaldsay lamb ‘Sprout’ and we considered bird ringing later that evening… Courgette curry (also made it into Rebecca’s food diary) and a few glasses of wine later we went to see the sunset… there wasn’t really one… Sampled the local ales… and then back to the hostel for profiteroles, a ‘cheese board’ and more chocolate… very posh up here you know…. So many laughs – my sides were hurting and struggled to breathe a fair bit – how did we get there?!