Happy Valley

 It has been rather a busy month here, with not much time left to blog at the end of the days. My Sons are visiting us for the summer ( although the whole of august has felt like autumn, awful weather ), on Sunday we took advantage of a spot of rare sunshine and visited some outdoor places before going to Gerri's ice cream parlour for sundaes, mmmm.

First up was the Ring of Brodgar and the standing stones of Stennes, before heading a couple of miles up the road to Happy Valley. These photos were taken last October, I forgot to take my camera out the other day, oops. Anyway Happy Valley is a sweet place which was created by a gentleman called Edwin Harrold. Orkney doesn't have many trees, and certainly not many which grow as they would naturally, the cold sea winds twist and stunt them so much that in winter it is very difficult to identify species.
But Edwin created the miniature woodland in his sheltered valley garden where visitors were welcome. He died in 2005 but the garden was left in the care of the local council and is open to everyone to visit still.