The little green Tardis of the north

A visitor said to me last year, "Orkney is bigger on the inside", so I thought I would start this blog about our beautiful green Tardis by pointing out a connection with one of Doctor Who's best known adversaries, the Cybermen.

  I took this picture last Saturday on South Ronaldsay, the southernmost island in the group. In the spring sunshine, the name of the headland seemed fantastically inappropriate: Grimness.

Most of our place-names are a reminder of our Norse heritage and 'ness', meaning a headland, is very common.

  This name is probably what caught the eye of Gerry Davis and Kit Pedlar, creators of the Cybermen and writers of the TV series Doomwatch, when they wrote a novel in the 1970s. In Brainrack a light water reactor has been built on Grimness but it contains a fatal flaw and the hero has to try to prevent disaster.

  The walk around the headland is perfect for a relaxed seashore outing. There are no steep climbs and the walk forms a natural little loop of about a mile.

Spring squill

Sea Pinks, also called Thrift