In Scotland's wild northern isles, the weather bites but the welcome warms

I am eating ice-cream in Kirkwall on Scotland's Orkney archipelago and it's blowing a gale outside. It's 11 degrees - the height of summer, mind you - and drizzle begins to fall as I tuck into my scoop of Orkney ice-cream - lemon-curd flavour.

My sister and I have been on a tour with a local guide, learning about the area's ancient civilisations. But now, with a few hours to kill before getting back on our ship, we're doing what any self-respecting women would do when faced with such a cute and cosy town: we shop.

Ice-cream under our belts, we hit the cobblestoned streets and find ourselves in the Orcadian Bookshop where I buy a tome of local fairytales for my partner back home. The tragic story of the Selkies tells of seal folk who live in the sea but can shed their skins and walk as humans on land - but if someone steals their skin, they can be trapped in human form forever.

With the weather worsening, we hit an old-fashioned sweet shop where I buy a packet of Orkney tablet - a kind of fudge made on condensed milk and a shed load of sugar.

We have traversed the Norwegian Sea for two days in giant swells to get to Orkney, part of Viking's 15-day Into the Midnight Sun cruise. We have travelled up the coast of Norway and had beautiful weather, so Orkney's blustering wind is a shock.

But despite our layers - including puffer jackets and rainwear - Orcadians are some of the warmest people we've met. Our tour guide, Helen - a quirky archeologist - is no exception as she strikes out through the grass ahead of us towards the Neolithic Ring of Brodgar.

Helen is passionate about this circle of ancient stone - not least because she married her fellow archeologist husband here.

"The thing about marrying an archeologist is the older I get, the more interested in me he becomes!" she laughs.

The Ring of Brodgar is a marvel. This is "bigger, better and older than Stonehenge," says Helen.

Though we know little about what the stones are actually doing here, Helen says it was likely the start of solar religion. The location is everything: grassy hills covered in purple bell heather surround our group. As sideways rain pelts us, Helen describes the site as "being cupped by a pair of nature's hands."

But standing in this natural cauldron isn't how we begin our tour of the Scottish islands. We actually sail into Shetland first, docking in the maritime town of Lerwick.

It is here that another tour guide, also called Helen, drives us past yellow Mimulus flowers and a wee Shetland pony scratching its head on a fence, to the prehistoric Norse settlement of Jarlshof. As we tour a remarkable sequence of stone structures that are more than 5000 years old, the location - set atop a hill on the edge of the sea and exposed to the fierce wind - could have been warmer, I think.

Back on the bus, Helen describes how she once had to crawl to post a letter, it was that windy. "Everyone ties everything down in winter ... Sometimes you can't go outside because you will fall over when you lift a foot," she says.

The tour is followed by another knitwear stop at a twee town called Hoswick, where I buy a beautiful burnt orange fair isle jumper from the Shetland Woollen Co. Now I know why they are always rugged up in the BBC murder mystery drama, Shetland.

Back in town, my sister and I leave the group and head straight for a warm-looking pub called Thule Bar, overlooking the water, and it is here we meet an affable local resident who joins our table straight away.

"That's what life is all about, talking to people and meeting new people," he says.

Oh, and he hates the BBC series based in his town because there have only been three murders in Shetland in his 64 years.

I show him my Shetland jumper and he approves.

When we emerge from the cozy pub, we are ruddy faced and warm.

The writer was a guest of Viking