Neil Stevenson and the Grooves team
Visiting Grooves, the most northerly record shop in the UK, is an adventure. It involves flying to Aberdeen before changing to a much smaller plane for a short fiight to Kirkwall. I was told it could be a bumpy, turbulent fiight and was advised to take a travel sickness pill. Should I take the ferry then, instead? “Oh no, That is 10 times worse”.
ATher a pleasant, not-at-all turbulent fiight, passing over many of the smaller islands, I landed at Kirkwall airport, an experience as far removed from arriving at Heathrow as I could imagine. The luggage was placed on the runway, no queuing at the baggage carousel, and as I walked to the terminal, I noticed a double rainbow in the sky. The bus journey into town was an ornithologist’s delight. The island was teeming with seabirds and geese, and a flock of swallows Thew in a V-formation overhead. The bus contained even fewer passengers than the plane. The driver asked why I was visiting. I said I was there to meet the owner of the most northerly record shop in the UK. “Oh, That will be Neil Stevenson then,” he replied.