Orkney Image Library

I love this photo!

Someone likes it - that's great! Thank you Vivienne. I suppose I wouldn't have submitted it if I thought it was total rubbish, but the thick frame around it is deliberately intended to help keep the image small; blowing it up exposes its serious shortcomings.

I would love it hanging on my wall!

Never be too critical of your own photos Ian. Every picture tells a story!

The story some photos tell, Neil, is just 'What a mess he/she made of that!' but thanks for the kind thought. This one perhaps narrowly escapes the 'mess' category, but Vivienne you can judge for yourself; I'll pop a small print in the post. Don't think you'll want to hang it on your wall.

Before someone else says it, I'd better add a postscript: this photo wasn't taken from the very top of the hill, where the cairn is. There's an old Orkney question that goes: 'You can see every inhabited island in Orkney from the top of the Ward Hill - except one. Which one?' It's Graemsay. The hill is rather flat on top; its shoulders prevent you seeing what lies closest to it at sea-level, and that includes all of Graemsay.
In this shot Graemsay is in plain sight, so I'd obviously moved a little down from the cairn to get a better panorama.

Ian, I don't think you can see Rysa Little from the top of Ward Hill

As I have heard the saying it is Rysa Little that can not be seen from the top as it is under the foreground from the top.
I am not prepared to go up to prove my point.

Ian, many thanks for your very kind gift. A pleasant surprise when the postman arrived the other day! I love it, thanks again.

You're very welcome Vivienne.

Is Rysa Little inhabited in the usual sense of that word? Unless my memory is even worse than I thought, I'm sure I checked that Graemsay was out of sight from the cairn; but like you John I'm not going back to double-check. Maybe a Graemsay viewer will pop out for a moment and see if the Ward Hill cairn is visible.

Oh yes the Ward Hill cairn is visible from Graemsay - well I'm guessing the pimple on the top of the hill IS the cairn - but I have no intention of going up there to find out either!

Thank you Sian, even though your observation, if accurate, blows my long-held pet notion out of the water. I think I'll keep my candle (for the candle-lit supper) in reserve for the moment, pending corroboration. Hope you don't mind.

[This quest reminds me of Captain Cook heading to Tahiti to witness the transit of Venus in 1769 - Steven]

Steven, I'm not going to the South Seas to check out an old Ford van, even if it does belong to a namesake of mine. Besides, Capt Cook got himself murdered, which is decidedly not on my agenda; I must stay alive until the key question of Graemsay's visibility is incontrovertibly settled one way or t'other. If Graemsay IS visible from the Ward Hill cairn, some viewer is bound to have a photo of the cairn with Graemsay in the background. Do submit it whoever you are - if you exist.

Next time Graemsay folk are going up the hill I'll ask them to take a picture. confirmation from on the ground that the pimple IS indeed the cairn on top of the hill....and clearly visible from my house on Graemsay. Sorry about that ;-)

Not at all Sian. Thank you.

picture #21536 has reminded me that there are several cairns up there. Obviously the only one that counts in the present context is the one at the very top.