This is going to be busy!

The next couple of weeks, that is... on the ship tied up in Kirkwall and all. I will say no more about that right here and now, but it started off badly, and will probably get worse over the next few days. 

I know... there's dust to be found if you look carefully. Of other things you see the most powerful, swedish champion and olympic team member in karate doing a quick training pass of around 150 of these things after finishing work for the day. He used to be my first engineer not to long ago. I don't know which part was the strongest, his mind or his body, but I've never met anything like this bloke. Period!

Anyway... I'm still here, and I still got my few cameras which I have not been able to put into any great work as for yet this trip. I will though, when all the rumble starts in town during the festive days coming up. Christmas is allways a special thing over here in this small town. The Ba game to be played, and what have we all.

The streets of Kirkwall. The battleground during the Ba-game two times each year where the Uppies and the Doonies clash together measuring strength and bodyweight just up the street here. You see the point where they throw up the Ba up there, where the cars are parked. This snap must have been taken a day or two after the battle. There will be no cars in the streets during the game, but a few more people will be seen around this place. 

I've seen it before, and I really love it for some reason. Actually I've seen it quite a few times concidered the fact that I'm a norwegian and should therefore normally have stayed at home with my family at the time this game is being played each year. Or, they actually play two times each year. The 25'th of december, and the 1'st of january. One week between the games, or 51 weeks... depending a bit how you usually counting the days. 

Still in the streets of Kirkwall, but a bit further down the road where the Ba rarely shows up. Still you never know, of course. This is a game with no rules, which means there's a million more or less dirty tricks invented over the last hundreds of years to get the Ba transported to your goal. It's interresting, if you care to follow the game for some time.

I wish I got some film snaps from the Ba-game for you to show up here on the blog, but as for yet I have not managed to bring a decent camera to any of the games I've watched over the past five years. That will change a bit now though, as I'm armed with a couple or more fine snappers that should manage to do the trick neatly enough should the operator be able to point them in the right direction at the right time. That could, at times, be difficult enough though, so we'll just have to wait and see what we end up with. 

Nothing to do with the Ba-game, mind! It's just a fence-scape from Orkney. Out there at Yesnaby somewhere out west. See, it still stands upright for some reason, even though the wind out here is getting crazy at times. It looked quite new though, which probably means it leans a bit inwards from the sea today. If you care go have a look at it.

Well... there's still a few days to go before the good old Ba-game starts, which means I got loads of work to get done until then. We are just now tied up alongside in Kirkwall and ready to start a major overhaul on one of our big diesel engines. That's going to drain some energy from me the next few days, I suppose. 
See you again, some day soon!