Diary of a Shopkeeper, 26th April

 Sunday turned out to be an interesting day, starting with spears and ending with gears.

As long-term readers may remember, April is one of my favourite months, as it’s now that British asparagus starts to become available. If we don’t care about air miles, and don’t mind chewing on fibrous green twigs, then we can buy Peruvian asparagus all year round. But one of the great glories of seasonal eating is the arrival of the first British asparagus each spring. The colour, texture and flavour are immeasurably better than the imported stuff.

Best of all is Orkney asparagus, freshly cut. “Where can I buy that?” you ask. Nowhere that I know of. But the shop is lucky to have a friend, Jane Cooper, who not only looks after a spectacular flock of Boreray sheep, but is also an expert asparagus grower. “Help!” Jane emailed us this week. “I have too much asparagus and can’t eat one more solitary spear. If you want some, take a run out to Rendall and cut yourself a panful.” I did as she suggested, spent a happy half hour snipping away in her Polycrub, then headed homewards, my head full of dreams of the feast to come: steamed asparagus, an hour out of the ground, with a knob of butter melting on top. Maybe shavings of Parmigiano…or grated lemon…or a dollop of garlic mayo…

I admit it, I wasn’t paying much attention to the road. And my journey home from Jane’s small holding in the hills was a lot less straightforward than it should have been. As I drove westwards towards Harray, I rounded a bend at the Burn o Swartgeo, and the afternoon sun suddenly dazzled me. Instead of veering left, I turned right and ended up driving down a narrow road I barely knew.

A farm called Farrafetched on my left was followed by Lower Nobody on my right, names I didn’t recognise at all. And the road wound on, taking me ever further north. If I was going to make it home in time to cook some of Jane’s asparagus for tea, I had to get back on the right track. Up ahead was a broad opening into what looked like an old quarry. If I could pull over there, check my phone for directions, and turn around, all would be well.

Except, when I steered into the opening in the dyke, it proved not to be a worked-out quarry, but a small, jam-packed carpark. And at the head of it, hidden from the road by the slope of the hill, was a tiny wooden building with a corrugated iron roof and a sign above the door: Droothydale Community Hall. I thought I’d played third-on-the-bill in Folk Festival concerts in every hall in Orkney. But this one was new to me.

Overcome by curiosity, not just about the hall itself, but about what had brought so many folk here on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I squeezed the van inbetween an old grey Fergie and a Morris Traveller (the one with the wood around its windows like a greenhouse on wheels.) From inside the hall came a babble of voices. I crunched across the gravel towards the front door, my footsteps echoing against the bedrock climbing like an amphitheatre all around. It really was an abandoned quarry. Who plonks their hall in a hidden-away spot like this? The good folk of Droothydale, that’s who!

The mystery of what was going on thinned a little as I approached the door, which was standing open in the balmy spring air. To one side a large chalk board proclaimed: “Antiques Fayre Today! / Buy and Sell / All Proceeds to Sleet Moss TT Fund.” Everyone likes a rummage around a tabletop sale, which explained the crowd. What the Sleet Moss TT was remained obscure, but someone inside would no doubt clue me in.

I walked in, not to a bare wooden hall, but into an Aladdin’s Cave. One entire wall was hung with Persian rugs, another with Japanese kimonos. Up and down the middle was a row of timeworn Orkney chairs, and behind them a parallel row of sea-chests, which looked like they’d been around the world twenty times. A dozen or more easels were filled with oil paintings, and a series of bookshelves overflowed with old leather-bound volumes. Scores of West Mainlanders in their Sunday best pored over piles of old magazines and peered into thick glass bottles labelled Crystal Clear Lemonade and Old Orkney Real Liqueur Whisky. I noticed a vintage delivery bike, rather like the 1950s Kirkness & Gorie one we get out on sunny days. The sign filling the space in the frame read, “Droothydale Stores. Prop. Jas. Swordie."

As I stood there gaping, wondering whether to start flicking through the shoeboxes of old postcards, or examining the table of Clarice Cliff ceramics, I suddenly became aware that the babble of voices had fallen to a whisper, and then to silence. All eyes were on me in the doorway, and a strange chill ran up my spine, until…I realised I was mistaken.

It wasn’t me the good folk of Droothydale were staring at after all, it was the open door behind me, and the carpark. And what had caught their attention was a most unexpected racket: a tumultuous revving and roaring that reverberated around the walls of the old quarry…

TO BE CONTINUED.

You can read more about Jane Cooper and her Boreray sheep - but not her asparagus - here. Jane is also the mover behind the plan to set up a much-needed mobile abattoir in Orkney.

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 30th April 2026.. A new diary appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations, and occasional small corrections or additions.