A musseling we did go..!
The joys of finding mussels…
When we first moved to Orkney we certainly overdosed on shellfish due to the excitement of being able to easily get mussels, cockles, scallops, crab, lobster & those strange razor clams known locally as ‘Spoots’! What we should have realised was that we didn’t have to gorge ourselves on a combination of at least 3 types of shellfish in a meal! So we haven’t had any shellfish for a while. Recently some friends told us of a place to get lovely mussels, so off we went..
We left home fully waterproofed due to the fact the wind was a blowing, it was drizzly & low tide was between 6.30pm - 8pm! However, when we arrived there was a break in the weather & it became calm & fair. Having not been to collect mussels before I think we both envisaged clambering over rocks, slipping & sliding & hunting for these delicious bivalves. Selkie was the first one to find a mussel & brought it to us & dropped into our eagerly awaiting bucket. What a great hour we spent gathering mussels off rocks whilst stood in a few inches of seawater. It was so easy & plenty of them. Joyously we threw big mussels into our buckets & looked forward to going home to have ‘moule mariniere’..Selkie enjoyed pottering around in & out of the water, her favourite past time.
When we arrived home Roger set about cleaning them which was definately the hardest job! We then sat down & enjoyed delicious plump, sweet mussels fresh from the beach, thinking how great it was to be living in a place where we are able to go & gather our dinner with little effort. Enjoyed all the more with a lovely bottle of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc!! Here’s to more meals like that…
See more photos in Flickr.
Ohh mussels, Selkie!!