An Evening at Ordaal House

Thursday, October 26, 2016

When we pulled into the driveway marked “Ordaal House,” we looked around for a logical place to park so my Mom could knock on our hosts’ door and let them know we had arrived. She knocked, but there was no answer. We waited and there was still no answer.

With Airbnb, hosts decide how they want to let you in to their guesthouses, and let you know via messaging on the website, depending most on whether their own house is located near the guesthouse or not. They might tell you to knock or call when you arrive and expect them to show you to their guesthouse, or tell you where the keys to the guesthouse are located, or give you a keycode to open the guesthouse door. Most of our hosts on this trip have personally let us into their guesthouses and shown us around. We thought that was the case with our stay at Ordaal House, but double checked what our hosts, Rob and Catriona, had said since they didn’t seem to be around anywhere. Just then, a silver car came speeding in to the driveway, and a middle-aged kindly looking man with a scruffy, graying beard jumped out of the car and came to meet us. He apologized and said he had to run and get his daughter from school.

We followed him around their house and to the guesthouse entry, which shared an enclosed porch with their back door. The enclosed porch was full of clothes drying on racks and other odds and ends. It seemed to be their storage place for stuff they didn’t know what to do with.

The guesthouse was nice, with a sitting area, full kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms. It was another place with little heat, but he assured us that if we needed more heat we could simply flip a couple switches on a tiny metal stove with an artificial fire. We did need more warmth, especially after carrying our luggage in through 50mph winds and very cold, damp air. The stove did create a bit of heat, as it must have had some type of heating element and a fan.

With the butternut squash, red onion, penne pasta, dried sage, Double Gloucester cheese, and Shetland Dairies butter we had purchased at the local shop, my Mom started making supper. It was the first meal she had cooked since we started this trip, and it was delicious. The smell of red onion sizzling in butter filled the kitchen, and it was rather nice to not have to depend on just snacks for supper.

After supper, we eventually sat down to do some blogging and look at what we wanted to see the next day, our full day on the Isle of Unst. We heard a knock on the door- it was Rob, telling us that we might get to see a bit of the Northern Lights! We were excited because when we had first arrived, he told us that they had seen the Northern Lights the past two nights, but tonight would be too cloudy to see them. Well, it seemed that the clouds had cleared for us, because the dark blue sky was full of stars. It was extremely cold and windy outside, and I was already in my pajamas so it was even colder. We managed to stick it out for a while, and my Mom gave me her sweatshirt since it was so cold. I had brought my phone with for a flashlight, which we definitely needed as we tried to make our way around the house, hoping to see some of the lights on that side. We waited, but couldn’t really see anything but beautiful constellations and the occasional shooting star. Because of the wind and cold night air, we decided it was about time to head back inside. Upon entering the enclosed porch and shutting out the vicious wind, we turned around and saw what we thought was a greenish glow on the horizon. It was so hard to tell because our eyes were having a hard time adjusting in the dark, but we think we did get to see a bit of the Northern Lights after all! We also got to see a freakishly large, dark cloud zooming through the sky and changing shape as it moved. It was quite the experience.

I kept an eye out the windows the rest of the evening in case there was more to see, but it clouded up soon after we went inside. We worked on our blog again for a little while, then made our way upstairs to get some sleep.