It’s the last day of Orkney, if there could ever be such a thing in somewhere so seemingly eternal and ethereal. Yesterday, a friend who’d also recently visited the islands, said it’s the most civilised place she’s ever been to; in so much as there’s so much civilisation that we know or understand so little about.

On the last day of our sojourn, we’re taken to the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar. On later relating this, my son said it sounds like something from Lord of the Rings. Well, guess what: Tolkein was here gaining inspiration.

Firstly, we’re poured out of the minibus to look at the Stones. Orkney was kind to us in foregoing the rain and mist. Had we had either of those two unwanted drudges in attendance, we’d have been unable to experience any comprehension of why these magnificent sites were constructed at this point. The landscape is all consuming: I don’t know what to look at first. In the distance, the black hills of the island of Hoy loom both menacingly and temptingly. Look at us, they whisper quietly: can you see that gap in between? Nearly as conspiratorial as a white picket fence in downtown Dallas.

When I walk in the Stonehenge landscape, which was constructed after the Orkney architects had been to work, I sometimes don’t even visit the stones. The surroundings seem more important. It’s the same here: something hidden in plain sight that we’ve all failed to identify.

At the entrance to the Ring of Brodgar, my phone croaks an alert to someone calling from our time – not from the past. Sorry. I’m embarrassed for the crassness of the temporal. It’s hard to believe there’s so much inexplicable pre-history extant. Our lives are so temporary and insignificant compared with what’s here.

I’d like to share it all with someone I love, but I’ll take these new friends in the meantime.