DON’T MISS

Skara Brae (historicenvironment.scot; open daily 9.30am-5.30pm till end Sept, then 10am4pm: £7); Stones of Stenness and Ring of Brodgar (both free); Maeshowe (open daily 10am-5pm till end Sept then 10am-4pm, on pre-booked guided tours only: £9); the Italian Chapel, two Second World War-era Nissen huts converted into a Catholic chapel by Italian POWs (orkney.com/listings/ the-italian-chapel); open daily, 9am-6.30pm in summer: £3; the ancient shoreline of Rousay (including Midhowe Broch); St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall (stmagnus.org);

Stromness Museum (stromnessmuseum.co.uk; open daily 10am-5pm till end Sept: £5). Westray Heritage Centre, open May-Sept, Mon 11.30am5pm, Tues 9am-12pm and 2-5, Sun 1.30-5pm: £3. Westray islands being the “World’s Shortest Scheduled Air Service” (I have the certificate to prove it). These small, low islands are rinsed with light and exfoliated by wind. The sun shone through scudding clouds, the ocean was topaz-blue, a solitary phone box the reddest red you have seen. And up on the cliffs in the north-east corner, beyond a settlement called Windywalls, a gale whipped up off the 100ft cliffs and lifted me by the armpits.

Back in Pierowall, Westray’s main “town” (a crab-processing plant, a straggle of grey houses), I came face to face with the enigmatic features of the Westray Wife, aka the Orkney Venus, a tiny sandstone figure that is the earliest representation of the human form yet found in Scotland. Since her discovery on the island in 2009, she has had a triumphal tour of Scotland and now enjoys a happy retirement in a glass case in

Westray Heritage Centre.

Aside from that brief sojourn on the mainland, the Westray Wife has lived on Orkney for 5,000 years. Another Westray wife, Lorna Brown (pronounced Brooooon), my Orcadian guide in Mainland, feels just as anchored: “We Orcadians, we’re quite a contented lot,” she told me. “We’re proud of where we come from.”

TWO OF A KIND A pair of puffins on the island of Westray