Childish excitement day

Friday 10th December 2010
Today was a really exciting day for those of us with small childish minds. I think that Pam thought I was being silly but you, dear reader can be the judge of that.

We've got a leak in the porch roof which I will have to fix but that is not very exciting.
Pam had a check-up at the surgery and they took some blood from me so Pam gave them a lovely home made christmas cake to share but that's not very exciting.

It blew a bit of a gale later this evening but that's not all that exciting either.



What is really exciting is that I've got some tickets for a cruise on a tall ship next summer.
One leg of the Tall Ships Race next year goes from Shetland past Orkney and, as it is not a competative leg, some of the ships are stoping off here. (17 I think). Orkney Ferries have organised some places on 3 or 4 of the ships for a 6 hour or so trip from Kirkwall, round South Ronaldsay, through the Pentland Firth and up to Stromness. They had originally only chartered places on one ship and I was sure thatthey would have sold out but then they chartered another three ships so I managed to get tickets.

This is The Sorlandet, a Norwegian ship which is one of the ships that has been chartered.


I always thought that the tall ships look beautiful but I never thought that I would get a chance to sail on one. I have therefore spent all day like an excited child, telling everybody how lucky I am.

Now dear reader, isn't that more exciting than a leaking roof.

On Saturday we nipped into Kirkwall to pick up the tickets for the tall ships trip and get a few Christmas presents. We will have to post the presents down south, probably to Gareth's and then sort them out when we get there. We can't take them down on the plane or we would be right over our baggage limit.
It was a bit windy in Kirkwall but I was surprised when I came round the side of the Kirkwall Hotel and got spun round and nearly taken off my feet by the wind. The wind gets channeled down the side of the hotel but I was not expecting it when I got round the front.

David and Claire came round in the sfternoon to admire Pam's new floor in the extension and to fetch Christmas presents and my birthday present.
(For those of you who have not yet bought me a fantastically expensive and highly derireable birthday present, my birthday is on the 20th so you have time yet. Further reminders will be posted on the blog at regular intervals.)

Food, Great Music and No Snow

Thursday 9th December 2010
It rained overnight and almost all the snow has gone so I walked with Molly down to the village and came back with the car. Molly was not impressed as she hates the car but as it is only about a mile back home, she managed it with only a medium calibre drool instead of the full blown drooling and throwing up that she normally performs in the car.

We went to the Kirkwall Hotel for the U3A Christmas meal at dinner time (When I use the term "dinner time" I mean mid day and not evening meal time which to me is teatime 'cos I am a peasant) and it was very good. Fortunately, Pam and I were sat next to some people that I know who are very chatty and interesting. The U3A up here is quite active, having lots of different groups and it is a good way of getting to know people.

After the meal, I went to The Reel to see if they had any tickets left for the do tonight and fortunately they had a few so we are in luck.

Home, then back to Kirkwall for 7:30PM at the Reel. It was a superb do. Saltfishforty were on first and were great, everybody was saying "That will take a bit of beating" but "Begley, Edey and Henderson" were as good or better. At the end, SaltFishForty came back on and the whole lot jammed it up for the last bit.

I couldn't find a video of all of them together but this is Kevin Henderson playing at a tutors concert in a fiddle school.

They are all brilliant musicians and really fed off each other in the jam session. Then thay all had to rush off as they were supposed to be catching a ferry to Shetland for their gigs tomorrow and they had left it a bit late.

"The Birds"

Wednesday 8th December 2010
More parcels to take down to the Hope for posting so I walked down the hill to the car and there were no problems getting to the Hope. On the way back, the road along the South Ronaldsay side of Water Sound was covered in gulls. There were hundreds of them. All that I can think is that because the road was clear of snow and was black, it had warmed up and the gulls were taking advantage of the heat.

Whatever the reason, it was something like Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". They stayed on the road until the car was only 4 or 5 yards from them and then took off and swirled round the car on all sides. For about 400 yards the car was surrounded by birds and I could not see properly. Weird but they did not actually attack me.

Discretion being the better part of valour,I decided not to attempt to get the car home and left it down Burray village and walked home. The electrician tried to get up but fauled and had to get Duncan to tow him up.

There is a great gig on at The Reel in Kirkwall tomorrow night with local duo SaltFish Forty and "Begley, Edey and Henderson" (an Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman) who are supposed to be very good.
If there is no more snow overnight, I will book some tickets, assuming they have some left.

Snowploughs polish ice beautifully

Tuesday 7th December 2010
I had a look at the roads this morning when I took Molly for her walk, and though there was a lot of snow, I thought that I would be able to make it out from home and back again. On the way back from our walk however we met a snowplough coming back from up by our house. It had done a wonderful job of going down the hill and leaving a 2 inch layer of really well polished compacted snow on the road.

At least the views were still nice, there was no wind and the snow was still clean and white.

I went to the Hope anyway to post some parcels but there was no chance of getting back up the hill. I tried 3 or 4 times but gave up and left the car at the bottom of the hill.

As we are going back down south for Christmas, I have bought a big outdoor feeder for the ducksso that I can ask Duncan to just fillit up a couple of times while we are away.

I thought however that I had better have a shelter to keep it out of the worst of the weather. As I was wanted a shelter for the food then it may as well be big enough for the ducks to use for shelter aswell. I briefly looked at duck houses and then decided I was to mean so I gathered together some old pallets and bits of chipboard that the builders had left lying about and behold, we have a very ugly but very cheap duck house. I even managed to find a piece of chipboard with a duck sized hole in it so we now have a door firmly tied on with string. (I had no baling twine handy).

We have had no hot water today because of a snag on the heating system but at 6:30PM after walking up the hill because he could not get his van up, the plumber arrived unexpectedly. Apparently it was just a thermostat fault that he fixed no problem but I thought it was good of him to turn out at that time in that weather. We could have managed until tomorrow.

Christmas lights and Cheap heat

Saturday 4th December 2010
Its thawing a bit this morning so fingers crossed.
Molly and Swona (The collie pup from across the road) met up today and got on well. Previously Swona has been put off by Molly being to bouncy. Maybe they will be friends when they are both bigger and more obedient.

We nipped into Kirkwall just to get a tub of paint for Gavin the decorator and came back with not only a tub of paint but also 4 expensive curtain poles. Still Pam does so enjoy buying bits for her house. It's justa pity that I can't get her interested in a shed.

We were back in Kirkwall later for the christmas tree lighting. (We go to all the exciting things here) The Kirkwall pipe band were playing there and the Guiser Jarl and his crew from the Shetland Up-Helly-AA were outside the cathedral brandishing their axes at everyone who went in.


Sorry about the fuzzy photo. I think that it is a mixture of long exposure time in the dark and an old shaky body.


We were going to drop into the Commadore in Holm for a meal on the way back home but we had forgotten to check and found that they were closed so we ended up at The Sands in Burray again. Having said that, I like The Sands, nice bar, friendly folk and a good atmosphere.
I was very good and tried to be very diplomatic when Evelyn, the owner of The Sands, asked how Molly had got on in her obedience test. (Evelyn owns a beautiful but huge and disobedient japanese Akita called Amy and had to employ somebody to handle Amy in the dog obedience classes as Evelyn could not hold her. Apparently Amy was naughtier than normal in the test. I didn't really gloat very much at all, so maybe the price of my beer will not go up.

When we got home I checked the meter on the heat pump and rather surprisingly it seems to be using about the same amount of electricity as the manufacturers said that it would. If this works out to be true then all the heating and hot water will cost about £1300 per year and we will get about £950 back from the Renewable Heat Incentive Scheme, so it will end up only costing us about £350 per year. Not bad.


On Sunday the roads were at last clear so we decided to go nowhere. As we live in a nice place, then why should we bother to go anywhere anyway.
I did do my normal dog walk which was very pleasant. There were 2 seals and 3 Red Breasted Mergansers in the bay by Burray pier (See I am learning very slowly to recognise some of the multitude of bird species up here.) and another 6 seals just of the shore at the bottom of the hill on the way home.

On Monday just because I was gloating about the snow having gone yesterday, we got about 5 inches of fresh snow. I had to walk down to the village shop for some onions but it was a really pleasant stroll with no wind and not to cold. Everybody seemed to be in a good mood, possibly because they were snowed into the village and could not get to work so there was a very christmassy atmosphere.
The new extension is looking decent and there is not much left to do to the outside except fit the chimney cap after the flue is in properly.





Duncan, showing off with his big 4*4, came up and fetched Jock with him so I took him and Molly into the field (Jock and Molly, not Duncan and Molly). Unfortunately (or possibly fortunately from the dogs viewpoint) I could not throw a ball for the dogs as it would have got lost in the snow so they just had to amuse themselves. This is where Jocks natural talent as a rapist came into its own. Molly however was, true to type just being a tease and every time Jock got randy she just sat firmly on her backside. One-Nil to Molly.

We have heat and the world is beautiful.

Friday 3rd December 2010
We had to go to Kirkwall to pick up the flue pipe and fittings for the new stove and some light fittings. I managed to persuade Pam to go to Lidl instead of Tesco's. Shearer's would have been better but at least Lidl is a small victory.
On the way back, we stopped at Dave and Claire's in Holm. Dave and I decided to take a stroll to the loch at the end of the village. There has been a "Lesser Scaup" on the loch for about a week now and I thought that we may as well take a look. Now, you may be wondering "what is a Lesser Scaup" (Or maybe you are wondering "what is he rambling about now".) Anyway I am afraid that I can't help. I don,t even know what a normal or standard Scaup is. Apparently the Lesser version is a rare american vagrant. (I assume that this does not mean that it is a transatlantic seller of the Big Issue)

We had gone about 20 yards when Dave got a text message saying that the bird was now on Graemshall Loch, about a mile or so away at the other end of the village. Dave, being a proper birder who can recognise a Scaup, subscribes to a local rare bird text alert and then I think he ignores most of the messages.
After getting the text we thought "sod it I am not walking all that way for a bloody bird" and continued to Ayre Loch. There are plenty of birds on Ayre Loch that I do not recognise anyway. There were seals in the bay next to the loch and otter footprints in the snow. Another of those "Aren't I lucky to live in such a beautiful place" moments.

After having a cuppa at Dave and Claire's we got back home to find that our nice shiny new air source heat pump was up and running. The underfloor heating in the extension was warming nicely and the fancy fan radiators in the kitchen and living room were working. Oh I do feel very environmentally thingy, smugly self satisfied and warm.

Every dog has his (or her) day.

Thursday 2nd December 2010
The plumbers and electricians were back today and the plumbers were doing their wheelbarrow racing down the hill to their van and back up.

It was a beautiful day, no wind and it was pleasantly warm in the sun.
Molly and I disturbed some jack snipe and snow buntings on the way down to the village. I have never seen either of these birds before and the snow buntings were very pretty little birds.

I should have taken a camera down with me, not so much to photograph the birds on the way down but to take a photo on the way back.
We were just leaving the village when I heard the sound of an engine coming fast down a hill on a side road. I pulled Molly in to the side of the road in case we got run down by somebody skidding round the icy corner at the bottom of the hill. All of a sudden a very large Kawasaki quad bike hurtled round the corner with a 70+ year old very sweet looking, white haired granny riding it. I don't think that I could handle a quad that size with such confidence on ice.
I bet that she is one of those sweet little old ladies who beat up hooligans with their walking sticks.
There is hope for all of us as we get older. When I am 70 I am going to buy a big quad.

We managed to get into get into Kirkwall to do a bit of shopping and as they were selling off peanuts in their shells for dirt cheap, I thought that I would get some for the birds. After spending hours shelling peanuts, i decided that in future I will lash out the cash and buy ready shelled peanuts. Unfortunately the birds here are not used to them and can't shell their own.

In the evening it was the beginners obedience test for the disobedient dog. She had her car sickness tablet (maybe there will be a dog doping scandal) and we went down to Kirkwall early so that we could have a good walk round before her test. It took Molly a minute or two to settle down in her test but then she did very well. (I had a chance to let her walk round for a bit before her test but I didn't wait long so it is my fault that she wasn't settled at the start of her test.)

We had to go out and kick our heels for just over an hour while the others did their tests. When we got the results, not only had Molly passed her test but she got 62.25 points out of 70 and was third out of 12. There was only 1.5 points between the top 3, so if I had settled her first then she would have won. So now it is "clever dog" and "stupid human". Molly even got a little shield. All we need now is for Molly to decide to come back when I call her at home instead of just in the hall in Kirkwall.

Nothing ever happens on wednesday.

Wednesday 1st December 2010
Well nothing happened this wednesday anyway.
There was more snow this morning but once again Mr Scott from the farm at the end of the road made it down the hill and more impressively he made it back up again. (This is not to imply that Mr Scott is a doddering old man. What I meant was Mr Scott drove his car down and up the hill) I think that he has a secret 4 wheel drive in his car.

Unexpextedly the plumbers came up. I didn't think that they would chance it and I think that perhaps they wish that they hadn't bothered. They got one of their vans up here but had to leave the other one at the bottom of the hill. They then had to take a wheelbarrow down to the van and fetch some stuff up the hill. I would think that it must be an interesting experience trying to push a heavy wheelbarrow up a steep, ice covered hill.

The tug was in Water Sound again so I suppose they are going to shift the rest of the salmon cages from the village to Hoy. They have made them very quickly, working 7 days a week but then the general consensus is that they are Polish. At least they speak in a funny language and work hard 7 days a week so they must be Poles.

I noticed the scallop boat going out this afternoon but thought that it was probably not worth breaking bones or worse just for a few cheap scallops so they will have to wait for a bit.

Everything is shut and we are old.

Monday 29th November 2010
There was more snow overnight so all the schools are closed and most of the bus services are cancelled or restricted.

Our road is still impossible without a 4*4. Fortunately we have a builder with a 4*4.
Although he was not due up here until this afternoon, Duncan came up to see if we needed anything from the shops. All we wanted was milk but it was very good of him to be looking after the old folk stranded in the snow. The fact that when he came back, he had forgotten to get the milk in no way detracts from his very good intentions.

Again it was a lovely morning and the walk with the dog was a real pleasure. When we were down the village I noticed that the big Burray wind turbine was turning again.
It has been out of action for 3 months or more. I am told that there was a gearbox fault but why it took so long to fix it I do not know.
They must have lost a lot of money. Burray Community Association get £30,000 a year from the turbine so presumably they have lost about £7000. As there are about 350 people in Burray then that is about £20 each. I had noticed a huge crane at the turbine a couple of weeks ago but I haven't noticed it working until now.

Tuesday was another lovely day. Just after dawn the shades on the sky and the sea were spectacular. I took a photo but it does not really do it justice.
It makes me realise how fortunate we are to live here. Most days when I take the dog into the garden first thing I just look round and feel lucky (then there are the days when I tell the dog to hurry up or I am going back inside without her).

On Radio Orkney this morning they announced that some schools were open. They listed them all and then said that although the council site said that North Ronaldsay school was shut, it was in fact open. This announcement struck me as a total waste of time. There are I think, only 2 children in the North Ronaldsay school and they are both from the same family. They also live close to the school so probably already knew or had recieved a phone call. Come to that why would North Ronaldsay school shut anyway it's a small island. You can get anywhere in a tractor and most people have one.

As it was so lovely again and as Duncan forgot the milk yesterday, Molly and I went down to the shop for a couple of things. Molly made a new friend of a golden retriever that she met in the shop. None of those silly rules about "No Dogs" in the shop. Even the shop owners dog is often in there on a little dog bed in the corner. Molly made a bee-line for a box full of tennis balls but I restrained her.
I should have taken more notice of her as it must have been a premonition. When she was playing with Jock in the field late this afternoon, we managed to loose our last 2 tennis balls in the snow.

Snowed in!

Sunday 28th November 2010
There was more snow overnight so there was no chance of getting out in the car.
It was really calm with hardly any wind and not to cold, so when I went for a walk down to the beach with Molly, it was really pleasant. Nobody was about and there were no cars on the roads.
Sometimes there are 2 or 3 cars that pass us while we are walking down to the village so it was nice not to have to be listening and looking out for cars and dodging traffic.

As we were snowed in and couldn't do anything, Pam had me making merangues with some egg whites that she had left over from some baking. I got the Kenwood out and started to whisk them up when I smelt a burning small followed by a loud Pop. It is sods law that I have had no problems kneading loads of bread dough with it but a few bits of egg and it breaks.
I had a look inside and checked on the internet and it seems that it is probably just 2 capacitors (whatever they are) so I will have to take it to OTE who assure me that they can fix it.
No more bread until the snow stops then.

Snow place like home.

Saturday 27th November 2010
This morning everywhere was covered in snow. The views from the house to The Hope and across to Flotta and Hoy were great.

If you were feeling really festive then you could say that the flare on flotta was reminiscent of the candle on a Christmas cake.


It was not possible to get up our road so I thought I would drive to The Hope to post some parcels. On my way down to Burray village I met some people who had abandoned their car because it wouldn't get up the hill. It was however, to late to change my mind so I carried on.
Just across the barriers there was a 4*4 parked upside-down onits roof on top of a stone wall,(another hint about driving conditions).
The car had been driven by a young girl from The Hope but she was not badly hurt which is surprising.

Surprisingly I managed to get back home in the little Yaris although the last 1/4 mile was in first gear. I think that if I had touched the accelerator or brake on the last bit up the hill to the house then I would have slid all the way back down the hill. However, all's well the etc.

After all that excitement I just sat back and watched Babe, Pig in the City. That's one of the advantages of being old. You can watch kids films on telly and nobody takes the piss.

Would I whinge about prices?

Friday 26th November 2010
First things first. Pam has complained that I did not put up a photo of the back of the house without the scaffolding, so here it is.

Note the green and environmental brownie point earning air source heat pump on the back wall. I should now have a guaranteed ticket to Greenpeace heaven (If they forget about working on nuclear bombers in my sinful past).

We ordered the flue pipes for the stove that is going in the new living room today. Now you may think that 5 metres of flxible pipe and a few other bits should not be to much of a drain on the poor old bank balance. Oh how wrong you would be.
£361, I repeat £361. The £61 I can understand but where they get the other £300 from is another of life's unfathomable mysteries. One bit of flexi pipe, a bit of tube, a couple of clamps some cement and glue. The first house that we lived in was originally built for less than that. I wouldn't mind but we allready had the bloody chimney, all we needed was something to stick up it. I think that we ended up being the ones who had something stuck up them.

It's a good job that at least we got the stove cheap. When I say cheap, it was not really cheap, it was just cheaper than the extortionate price that they were originally going to charge for it. The reduction in the price of the stove was supposedly because it was an ex-display model. I have yet to understand why they knocked about £250 off the cost of a sodding great lump of black painted cast iron just because it had been on display. Has the price of scrap cast iron suddenly plummeted in the last few months? Certainly not by that much. Anyway if they want to knock the price down then why should I argue. (Unless of course it was vastly over-priced to start with.)

The brickies finished dishing the floor for the shower and drilled the hole in the wall for the aforemnentioned expensive flue and Duncan went to Kirkwall and ordered the timber flooring. I think that Pam knows how much the flooring will cost but she hasn't told me. I suggested painting the concrete floors. We do not need any sort of covering as there is underfloor heating but apparently we still need to put something expensive on top of the concrete.

At least I think that we are nearly there and next week may see a lot of changes. Then we can probably live in it for a few weeks before it is repossesed to pay for all the "little extras" that we have.

End of whinge for today. You will have to wait until tomorrow for the next installment of superwhinger.

We're getting there

Thursday 25th November 2010
Today was a landmark day for the extension. The scaffolding finally came down so that we can get an idea of what it will finally look like.
I think that it looks OK and it will blend in a bit better as it ages. At least it is beginning to look less like a building site.

In the evening it was Molly's obedience class. She has not been for two weeks. Last week the barriers were closed and the week before that the trainer was sick. Because of this I thought that we may have missed something and she may have forgotten some things even though we had practised at home.
There was one new thing that the others had done last week but Molly learned that in 2 goes and then proceeded to do everything better than any of the other dogs. (If she keeps that up I shall have to stop referring to her as "the disobedient dog" or that f****** dog"). At the end of the lesson the instructor came over to me to make sure that we would be continuing into the next class next year. She said that Molly has real potential for dog agility, so I gave her an extra bit of raw sausage meat but she didn't want it so I gave it to Molly instead.
It is Molly's beginners test next week so she probably peaked today and it will be all downhill now and go pear shaped next Thursday.

They told me lies. It does get cold in Orkney.

Tuesday 23rd November 2010
People always say that Orkney doesn't get cold because the tail end of the gulf stream get up here. They tell lies. There was snow on the top of the Hoy hills, some heavy snow showers and it definitely was not warm. However, having said that it doesn't get really cold, well not upto Staffordshire standards but I am getting old and do not need temperatures of minus 10 degrees.

We won a boat trip on the Children in need last friday and went to Radio Orkney on monday and paid for it but I had to contact the boat owner to arrange when to take the trip.
On Wednesday I phoned him up to see if there was any time limit on when to take the trip. Fortunately I can take the trip any time that suits me and I can leave it until next spring or summer so will probably use it when either Barbara or Gareth come up. The problem then (which I should have thought of before bidding on the auction) is that I will now have to pay for another boat trip for whoever comes up second.

Anyway, back to the plot. While I was chatting to the boat owner on the phone I asked what the boat was normally used for. It turns out that he dives for scallops and will sell them live in their shells from Burray pier for between £3.50 and £4.50 per Kilo (about 10). We can see the boat going in and out from our front window so next time I see him coming in I shall have to rush down to the pier and buy some. I love scallops but when you get them from a restraunt they cost a fortune and you only get 3 or 4.

Opening Hours

Monday 22nd November 2010
A very Orkney sort of day today. I didn't get much done but I went to post some parcels this afternoon. Unfortunately I had forgotten about it being half day closing at the Post Office. Many shops up here still have a half day closing. A thoroughly good idea as far as I am concerned.
I used to work in a shop when I was younger (many many moons ago) and for the convenience of customers we were of course open all day on saturdays. Some customers however seemed to think that for us to take half a day off in the week was very selfish of us. They would of course never think of working on a saturday themselves, especially if they did not earn any extra money for doing so. We even had customers wanting us to be open christmas morning so that they could collect meat for their festivities. As it was we had worked about 100 hours in the week before christmas and slept in the back room of the shop because it was not worth going home.
(Whinge Over)

The other side of the coin here was illustrated when Pam dropped into the dentists this afternoon. She wanted to make an appointment to replace a filling that had dropped out. The dentist told her to come back at 7:15PM and he did it then.
I don't think that many dentists down south would do that. The doctors here have the same philosophy. Patients are treated as individuals to be helped if possible and not just inconvenient work unitsthat must be endured.

Innactivity rules OK

Friday 19th November 2010
The house was full of a seemingly random collection of several building trades all day. I hope that Pam has allowed for the cost of tea, coffe, cakes and biscuits in her budget for the extension or we may go bankrupt.

When I refer to Pam's budget for the extension, this is not a hard and fast budget that bears some resemblance to the expected costs. I feel that it is more like a government estimate in that you know right from the start that there is no chance of it costing less than this amount, it is probably going to cost a great deal more than you are being told and the final bill will have very little to do with the original figure.

It was Children in Need today and Radio Orkney had an auction in the evening. We bid on a few things and won a boat trip round Scapa Flow and a week in the kennels for Molly.
The whole auction raised nearly £19000 and they are expecting more donations in the coming week. With all the other fund raising things going on, the total raised in Orkney will be between £25-30,000. That's about £1.50 per head of the population of Orkney. If the rest of the UK did as well then they would raise about £80-90 Million.

Having spent so much money on the auction, I went into withdrawal and did nothing except walk the dog on Saturday or Sunday.

A marine engineering company has been working down on the links in Burray village making huge circular things out of big lengths of plastic pipes. I was mystified as to what they werebut I have been informed that they are cages for a fish farm.
They have been put together very quickly, just like a giant welded Lego set.

On Saturday morning while walking Molly, I was talking to a man down the village and he says that the cages are for a fish farm in Hoy but he doesn't know where.
(It's surprising who you talk to and how much you find out when you have a dog with you. Perhaps the CIA should send people out walking dogs all over Russia.)

On Sunday morning, while doing my nosey parker bit out of the front window, I noticed a strange boat in Water Sound.
It turned out to be a tug which was to take the bits of the salmon cages to Hoy. When it came back up the sound towing 5 or 6 of the cage frames, it looked like a mother duck with a row of little ducks following her. They still have some bits down the village that they have not finished making but I suppose they thought that they may as well get these ones out of the way while the weather was good for towing them.

Windy and wet but contented.

Wednesday 17th November 2010
It was a nice traditional almost gale force Orkney morning and the forecast was for worse so I decided to go on a U3A walk in St Mary's. Just to make sure that we would get exposed to the full force of the wind, the walk was round the coast.
I have seen bunches of crazy old people wandering round the countryside in all weathers before and now I am one of them. Oh the joys of senility.
It was actually very enjoyable and I was surprised that there were some lovely little coves with shingle beaches so close to St Mary's that I had not seen before. I was quite surprised that there were no seals on the beaches as these coves looked ideal but then the beaches were rather shallow so maybe they are under water at high tide. Several people commented that they thought that it would be a very pleasant walk in good weather. Damning with faint praise. Still it was better than sitting around the house.

The forecast was right and later on the weather got worse until they closed the barriers at 5:15PM, just in time to stop all the people returning from work in Kirkwall from getting back to Burray and South Ronaldsay. Some people had already decided not to try and cross anyway and 3 people had sustained damage to their cars while trying to cross, mainly damaged windscreens. (I don't think that windscreens are designed to take a few tons of water descending from 10 feet above the car when a wave comes over the barrier.)
A lady in Burray shop said that she got across but lost all control of her car on the barrier because it was just aqua planing all the time.
Maybe they let people off work early if they think that the barriers may be shut. Otherwise half the population of the two islands would be stranded in the bar at The Commodore waiting for the barriers to re-open.

Thursday dawned even worse. Force 9 south easterly gales so the barriers were shut again and presumably nobody got to work. After the wind eased off a bit I decided to go and have a look at the barriers like a well behaved tourist.

Number 3 barrier from Burray to Glimps Holm was OK but No 2 barrier from Glimps Holm to Lamb holm is always the bad one and it was this one that was shut. The weather had been improving for a few hours and the tide was half way down but it was still having waves breaking right over the top. Even if it had not been closed, it would have taken a suicidal idiot to try and cross it. There are plenty of them round here though.
They opened the barriers later in the afternoon and I was supposed to be taking Molly to her obedience class in Kirkwall at 6:30 but I decided against it as high tide was due about 8PM. This proved a sensible decision as the barriers were shut again at 7:30 so I would have been stuck until midnight when they were re-opened.

The waves had also badly damaged the road on the other side of Holm Sound so the council have shored it up with sandbags. The waves move 125 cubic foot concrete blocks off the barriers so I do not think that the sandbags will be overly effective.

Nothing but builders and dead seals.

Sunday 14th November 2010
A lovely day so we took Molly to the beach for a run. (Loose again with her string). She was being much more obedient than normal, even fetching the ball back instead of running off as normal. Just as we turned back Molly legged it off all of a sudden at a great rate, ignoring her ball altogether. I assumed that she had figured that we were going back and was going to abscond before we could get her in the car but when I got closer to her I saw that she had found a dead adult seal on the beach. Fortunately I managed to get to her befor she had a good roll in it. (It had been dead for some time and had a really fascinating aroma according to Molly.)

Monday had a fantastic dawn and was another lovely day (that's 2 in a row, and in winter too) Molly won out all round as she was out with Jock twice and also had a walk to the village.


Duncan stripped the plaster board from the corridor before insulating it so now even less of the house looks fit to live in. When you see the bare stone walls you realise why they built them 2 1/2 feet thick. It was because they were fishermen, not builders and there was more chance of a wide wall standing up. Very little mortar and a lot of stones just balanced. If you keep it thick enough then there is very little skill in getting the wall to stay up.

On Tuesday we had a full house, Duncan and Hamish, Brickies, Electricians, Heat pump installers, plumbers and Gavin doing the decorating. It cost us a fortune in tea and I had to go to the shop to get another couple of litres of milk.
They all got a lot done though and at last it looks as though things are coming together. Duncan was so rushed that he couldn't spare the time to go to Kirkwall for plaster board and insulation so I had to take hisvan down and pick it up for him. What is the going rate for van drivers?

I was going to go to the RSPB AGM in the evening but the weather was worsening and I was not sure if the barriers would be open for coming back so I gave it a miss. I will no doubt get my wrists slapped.

Waves, Tides, Seals and Dogs

Saturday 13th November 2010
When I took Molly for a walk down to the beach this morning there was a seal quite close inshore near the village. It is the first time that I had seen one in Water sound. Duncan informs me that every now and then there is one there and that Jock jumps into the sea and swims off to try and catch it. He is a very nice dog but labradors are not the world's cleverest dogs.

Pam and I went to an exhibition on wind and tidal power in Kirkwall. I expected to just drop in for 15 minutes or so for a quick look round but we ended up staying for about one and a half hours. In addition to the renewable companies, the national grid, The crown estate, Marine Scotland, The Orkney Islands Council and others had stands explaining what they were doing.
It seems that whatever happens there is going to be a lot of money and development coming into Orkney in the next decade or two.

We had a nice lunch at The Strynd and came home to see Scotland had been trounced by the All Blacks and to watch England beat Australia. (I thought that I must remember to mention this to Duncan)

All was not bad for rugby in Orkney though. They won their match against Cumbernauld today and this puts them second in their division. This is not bad as they only went up to National division 3 this year and they have to play most of their away games with weakened teams as not everyone can always get time off to travel.

Another Stony Faced Wife

Friday 12th November 2010
Friday was a calm but overcast day. I heard on the radio that that today was the last day that the Westray Wife was to be displayed in Kirkwall museum so I thought I had better go and have a look at her.
This is not some sort of island voyeurism. The Westray wife is a 4500 year old venus figure found on Westray earlier this year. She has been on display on Westray during the summer and in Kirkwall for the past couple of months.
Maybe she is not your idea of the ideal woman but 4500 years ago they didn't have Playboy or Penthouse and there were not very many women about anyway. She was probably the height of desireability to stone age man. As a bonus, she is very quiet.
Fortunately we already knew that she was only about 2 inches tall but apparently some people have been disappointed because they had only seen photos with nothing to give a sense of scale and expected a large statue.

I must admit that I did not think that she was particularly well made but then if you are trying to carve one rock with another rock and a bit of bone then the amount of finesse that is possible is probably somewhat limited.

At last the Northern Lights (but we missed them)

Thursday 11th November 2010
Thursday was a beautiful day so i took Molly down to the beachand sat about on the sand throwing balls for her. It is the first time that she has been loose on the beach since she started refusing to come back. The string with a stick on the end works wonders. She knows that I can catch her easily by standing on the string so she doesn't bother to run off and even comes back when she is told to.

Thursday night there was a splendid display of the northern lights but as is the norm, we missed it. I did not know anything about it until I read Radio Orkney's Facebook page on Friday morning when they had a spectacular photo of them. I suppose that there will be others so no panic. Next year is supposed to be a peak year in the solar activity cycle so there should be lots of good chances to see them.

A trip out for Pam

Sunday 7th November 2010
When I was down at Windwich yesterday I noticed a path across the fields which I thought Pam may be able to make even though she is still recovering from her op.
We went up to give it a go and apart from one dicey bit on an awkward stile, Pam managed OK. So she finally got to see some seals and pups. I was pleased as I had begun to feel guilty about going off and seeing things when Pam was stuck in.

To make Pam's day even better, we went to Kirkwall where they were having a "Girls day out". Most of the shops had opened especially which they do not normally do on sundays. They all had their prices reduced and so I went overboard and bought a pair of warm gloves (Men were also allowed to buy things). I do not know what Pam bought and I am much to tactful to ask.

At night the wind came up very quickly and by midnight it was a force 9 severe gale. The noise of the wind howling outside and rattling the door of the porch and the letterbox scared Molly the brave dog. I had to go and let her in from the porch so that she could sleep in front of the stove in the living room before she scratched the door down. As soon as I opened the porch door Molly shot into the house with her tail between her legs as if the devil was after her.

The gales lasted all day on Monday and were from the south east so the barriers were shut until 3:30PM so loads of people from Burray and South Ronaldsay had an involountary holiday. It stayed dry though so Molly and I had a very bracing walk down to the village and back. Fortunately the wind was with us on the way back which is uphill.

On Tuesday the gales stopped so we thought that we had better get out while we could. We just toddled off to Stromness for lunch but then that's what you are supposed to do when you are retired.

Wednesday was Molly's day. Not only did she get taken for a walk but Jock came up, so she went out into the field with him twice. To top it all, when we came back in from the field the second time, Duncan had gone off to Kirkwall for something so we got Jock into the house. This is not as easy as it sounds as Jock will not even go into Duncan's house. I am not that Jock will ever come in again after being bounced at incessantly for about 20 minutes until Duncan returned and rescued him.

Seals, seals and more seals

Saturday 6th November 2010
The Scapa Flow Rangers have an organised walk on South Ronaldsay to see the beaches where the seals are pupping down so I decided to go along even though I had found some beaches with seals at Burwick.

The walk started from Windwick where we had been before and seen no seals but half a mile further round the coast there were several bays covered with seals. The seals were very tolerant.

The ranger reckoned that they may all dive off the beaches into the water when they saw us but they were not really bothered. I should imagine that they see enough people wandering up to look at them to realise that people will do them no harm.
It is a long time since there were any seal culls on Orkney so they have no reason to be scared. They did keep their eyes on you as we walked round but when we sat down they just got used to us and ignored us.


We must have just missed a pup being born as the mother was still covered in blood and gunge. Some of the other pups were quite well grown and one was having swimming lessons. Its mum was encouraging it and was sheltering it by putting herself in between the waves and the pup. When a bull seal came near she gave it a real telling off and ushered her pup back onto the beach.



When the pups were suckling, I was surprised at how far back the teats were. Judging by how long it took some of the pups to find the teats, they were probably as surprised as I was.

I even managed to try the video bit on the camera. Not brilliant but maybe better next time.


After I got back from Windwick we went off to the Burray Community Cafe where they had a Pre-Christmas sale of local crafts. I will not say if Pam did or did not buy several expensive presents just in case, dear readers, one of you should be the fortunate recipient of any such items at Christmas.
Somebody in the cafe said that it was compulsory for all Burray residents to attend and it did seem a bit like that. At least I am getting to know who a lot of them are, mainly because of Molly the dog.
It is surprising how many people stop and chat when you are walking a dog. There are some though who do not know my name but do know that I am Molly's owner.

Another week whips by

Friday 5th November 2010
Well it is a week since I put anything on the blog but then not much has happened.

Well, when I say "nothing much has happened", I really mean that nothing that I consider fascinating has happened to me in my isolated little life. People elsewhere will have been born or died and no doubt great events have occured but they have all passed me by without leaving a ripple.

Insular little sod aren't I.

Last Monday was not a bad day for the start of November ( see we are getting towards winter so days are not now "nice", they are sometimes "not bad"). Anyway, it was not a bad day so when I took Pam down to the surgery in The Hope for routine maintenance, I had a wander round and up to the pier. As you will have come to expect, there were no waxwings.

On the subject of nature, Orkney must have a reasonable number of otters near us as there were 3 run down by cars last week. Two of them near the barriers and one further away in Kirkwall. Admittedly the otter population is now three less than it was but if otters are becoming normal road kill then they must be reasonably common. Well that is my logic anyway. Of course, like waxwings, the place could be littered with otters but I would never see one.

The RSPB have caught three stoats in the past couple of weeks but as there are not supposed to be any stoats on Orkney then that is not quite such a welcome sign. They have been humanely shipped off to somewhere in Fife and released. Orkney bird watchers have been asked to keep their eye out for stoats and photos of stoat footprints have been put on the internet. I would think that it is very unlikely that a birdwatcher with his/her eyes to the sky would see a tiny stoat footprint in the sand. Even somebody wandering along looking down at the sand all the time would be hard pushed to see them.


Tuesday and Wednesday were windy and wet. I don't mind the wind to much but I do not like driving horizontal rain so we stopped in most of the time. I just took Molly out into the field for a play with Jock a few times during the dry intervals. Jock was confused as he normally guesses where the ball will go and gets there before the ball lands. Today however, it was anybody's guess where the ball was going once the wind got it.


Thursday was supposed to be even worse. The forecast had given force 9 gales but it turned outto be a pleasant day.
It was the birthday of our friend Dave from Holm today so we went down to drop off his card and a load of definitely unhealthy cakes that Pam had baked for him. As we were in Holm, I had a quick wander round the loch and round the bay a bit. I think that the path goes a long way round and it seemed as though it may be a nice walk with plenty of waders and ducks if you like that sort of thing. I will have to go for a longer walk round sometime.

Friday was the second day on the run that Jock has not been up so Molly was pining away. I have sorted Molly now so that she can not run away in the field. I have a long piece of string with a lump of wood tied to the end. When this is tied to her collar she can run round towing the lump of wood and I can stamp on the string to catch her.

You have to give it to Molly though. She figured out straight away that when I bend down towards the string, I can reel her in so she comes to me. If I do not bend down then she just legs it.

Pam got some new lights for the living room the other day and I had to put them up today. Previously we just had bare bulbs dangling and glaring bright light everywhere. Now we have two pretty ornaments on the ceiling that Pam likes but the room is darker so I will have to get a table lamp to go next to my chair if I want to read (or eat a lot more carrots). Heigh Ho.

In the evening there was a bonfire down on the beach by No 4 barrier. We did not go down but saw some of the fireworks from the garden. Molly was definitely not impressed. She was not frightened but was fascinated by the lights and wanted to get over the gate to go and see what they were but she was annoyed by the bangs.

Seals-R-Us

Sunday 31st October 2010
A lovely morning so Molly and I had a good long walk across the beach and down to the barrier.

I got Maddy's baby tractor out and shifted several loads of reasonably sized stones from the pile of rubble that the builders had left after knocking the door and window out.
The builder is supposed to be removing the rubble next week and I thought that it was a waste to just let him dump all the good stones in with the rubble so I will save them for something.

After dinner we went down to South Ronaldsay again on a seal hunt. This time though I had looked on the aerial view on multimap. Ithought "If I were a seal, where would I go to have pups". That is assuming that I was a female seal as male seals do not have pups and I am a male but you get the idea. Anyway I was right so I finally found some seal pups.

There were about 10 pups on this beach with another 70 or so on another beach across the bay but they were at the bottom of sheer cliffs so I could not get down to them.


There was a way down from the top at this little beach so I could get near enough to get a decent photo.



I could have got right down to the beach but did not want to disturb them to much in case I upset the mothers. In addition I always think that although they look sweet and harmless, seals are very large carnivores with very big sharp teeth and they may resent me being to near their pups.

The return of Jock

Friday 29th October 2010
Friday morning and Molly was happy. Jock came up to play today for the first time in several days so she was bouncing all over him.


Duncan tells me that Jock is just as bad and if Duncan goes round to his parents in the morning then Jock will not eat his breakfast because he knows he is coming up here and he gets to excited.

The plumbers finally got round to fitting a stop cock to our water supply after I have been asking for 2 months. They had to turn off the supply to Mr Scotts farm up the road because our supply is taken straight off his water pipe. I duly went up and told Mr Scott what we were doing and explained that the water would be off for 10 to 15 minutes. The plumber then cut the pipe to fit the stopcock and found that the one he had was the wrong size. He therefore had to shoot of to Kirkwall to get the correct one and I had to go to Mr Scott and tell him that his water would be off for about one and a half hours just as he was having his dinner. Hopefully he had a full kettle of water.
However all's well that ends well and I now at least have a stopcock.

On Saturday we went down to the garden centre in Kirkwall where the RSPB were having a "feed the birds day" with info on what to feed and so forth.
We were looking for some plants and shrubs for the garden but there was not much there. I suppose they may have some more stock in next spring.

I got a big ball of string and made a lead for Molly. It is about 20 yards long with a lump of wood on the end so I can let her go and if she won't come back then I can just stamp on the string and reel her in.

No waxwings either

Monday 25th October 2010
I had to take Pam down to the surgery in The Hope so I took the opportunity to wander out towards the pier where the Pentalina docks as there had been reports of waxwings there.
You may not be surprised to hear that all the waxwings had left as soon as they heard I was coming.
From Pier Road it is a nice view across Water Sound to Burray and you can't see all the scaffolding on the house so it doesn't look bad.

Tuesday was a really nice day so Molly and I had an extra long walk right round the beach. The world and his dog (literally) seemed to have the same idea so Molly was chuffed as she got to see 3 dogs that she likes and have a good sniff while the humans chatted.

We went for a meal with David and Claire to the Skerries on South Ronaldsayin the evening. From the car park you can see the lights from houses on the scottish mainland across the Pentland Firth. The Skerries is just a few hundred yards from The Tomb of Eagles, one of the more famous neolithic sites on Orkney. Earlier today the archeologists had started a dig just outside the door of the restraunt. A few weeks ago somebody had moved some stones from the top of a mound and had found themselves looking into a hole with a skull looking back at them from a pool of water. The county archeologist was informed and they decided to dig it straight away, probably because of the risk of water damage to the bones.
If they get it excavated and roofed over then it could make a good attraction for the restraunt next season.

Wednesday morning was overcast, wet and windy and when I looked out of the window at about mid day I though that something had happened to the pier down at the village. I could not see the landward end at all.
It then dawned on me that it was still there but was almost covered by the sea. It must have been a particularly high tide and with the stiff south westerly breeze, the swell was covering the pier.
I nipped down to the village later but the tide had begun to recede so the water was not quite making it over the pier.



Thursday dawned beautiful and sunny with no wind and surprisingly it stayed that way all day.
We had 4 or 5 people (plumbers and electricians) working on the extension all day and it is now covered in pipework and has bits of wire poking down from the ceiling and out of holes all over the place.

Duncan was only up breifly with Jock which did not go down well with Molly. She saw Jock out of the window but by the time I got her out he had gone.
She had her dog training in the evening so at least she managed to see some dogs including a new one that she had a good sniff at. Having a new dog in the group threw her a bit and she ignored me for the first 10 minutes but after that she did OK. I however did not do so well and was told that she was doing everything right and quickly but that I should have been more strict with her. I thought "Why be more strict if she is doing it all properly and fast" but I suppose I will have to raise my voice a bit in future.

First snow on the tops of Hoy

Thursday 21st October 2010
A cool morning but quite pleasant. I went down to the tip at The Hope and looking back, all the slopes of the Hoy hills were covered in snow for quite a way down from the tops. Very picture skew it was to. A much better view than that from most rubbish dumps. Unfortunately I did not have a camera with me and I am to old to use a mobile phone for taking photos. If I start down that road then the next thing will be talking into the camera. I already talk to the television, so it wouldn't be long before I got locked away.

On Friday we went to the dreaded shop again. Hurray!! We also went to several other places to get very interesting things for the extension.
I can not remember what all the interesting things were but Pam assures me that they were interesting.

On Saturday there was a model show at Firth community centre in Finstown. I asked Pam if she wanted to go down there but she declined. I don't think that I will ever understand women. She was all excited about sinks, showers and wooden floors and yet today, she is not even a bit excited about going to a model show at which there were several model railways amongst other things. Perhaps as she is still convalescing after her op then that may account for her otherwise unexplicable behaviour.

We went out on another fruitless seal hunt on Sunday. It's a good job that we are not eskimo's, we would have starved to death by now. It was a nice day however and we got round several places that we have not been before.


For those of you who are convinced that Orkney is a cold and desolate place, I took a photo looking down towards Herston. Note the palm trees. Considering the fact that trees of any sort are not exactly common here, palm trees can be seen in gardens all over the place. I assume that they are sucessful because we do not get many frosts and palms are built to cope with high winds.

Who needs birds?

Wednesday 20th October 2010
It was supposed to be a wet and windy day today and there was a U3A old farts bird watching walk on. As the day actually looked as though it may not be as bad as they forecast I thought that I would give it a go.

The weather forecasts up here are notoriously innaccurate. It is probably not the forcasters fault. I think that Orkney is often on the edge of a lot of the weather systems and a few miles either way and they either hit or miss us. The weather also changes so fast. The local saying is that if you don't like the weather then wait 5 minutes and it will change.

I do not normally like paying for clothes but I have lashed out and bought a decent weather proof insulated jacket, a good pair of waterproof over trousers and a decent set of boots. I think that the winter weather here makes it worth having a good set of outdoor clothing or I would have to either stay indoors or just get cold and wet.

Anyway, back to the plot. I got all dressed up and insulated better than the space shuttle and so of course the weather was really pleasant with just 2 or 3 light showers. Although it is supposed to be a bird walk we did not see many birds,a hen harrier and a brambling being the highlights.

As we are all, including myself, old and slow, I was not quick enough with the camera to get a decent photo of the harrier so just to add a bit of interest and colour,this is somebody else's photo of a male hen harrier so that you know what they look like.
Impressive birds eh!



These U3A walks are really just an excuse for a load of oldies to get together and go for a reasonable stroll in good company. They do this very well. Although we are new up here i am welcomed and get on well with all the others and it is nice to have a reason to go for a bit of a walk in various places that I may not otherwise get to. The walks are normally only about 5 miles so it is not to demanding so suits me well. It's nice to see a few birds and adds interest to the walks but they are really just incidental.
One of the ladies on the walk is very knowledgeable about birds but another two people seem to know half the people in Orkney and who lives where, who's cows are in this or that field and all the local scandal so we just wander round chatting like a bunch of old farts which is where we came in.

These seals are rubbish

Sunday 17th October 2010
Not to be defeated in the search for seal pups we took another trip out round Windwick and Burwick as I had heard that there were pups at Burwick.
It will come as no surprise to you dear reader, that we did not find any of the damn things. But this time I did not even see or hear any adult seals.

On Monday things went from bad to worse as the new Tesco store opened in Kirkwall.
Now you will know that Tesco's is to say the least, not my favourite shop and the idea of going round the new one on the first day of opening was to my mind only marginally better than castrating myself with my teeth and no anaesthetic.

So of course we went to Tesco's. It was the first time since moving up to Orkney that I have felt my heartrate rising and I do not think that it was because I was excited by the prospect of shopping there.

It is not that I don't like shopping. Shearer's is a nice shop. They sell everything from bread to beachcaster fishing rods and from baked beans to wood burning stoves. It is almost a pleasure to go there. Fighting my way round a supermarket full of crazed women who look one way and push their trolleys the other way while we buy stuff that we either don't need or could have got from Shearer's strikes me as little short of masochism.

If we needed to have a selection of 43 different types of pasta then maybe we need to go to Tesco's but we don't.

Tuesday came as it often does after Monday and the builders started knocking the window out of the old bedroom wall. When the new window is fitted then that will be almost all the external work done.

In the afternoon Pam thought that she was getting a bit of an infection in the wound from her op so I managed to persuade her to phone up and make an appointment to see the practice nurse on Wednesday. It was 5:15 PM when she phoned but this being Orkney instead of England, the doctor told her to come straight round and he would see her as soon as she got there instead of making an appointment for sometime in the next few days.
We shot round to the surgery and he checked Pam, took some samples and started her on antibiotics straight away.

Even Pam thinks that the standard of care up here is much better than down south even if we do have to travle to Aberdeen for some things.

Where are all the seal pups

Thursday 14th October 2010
Pam was feeling a bit better today and was getting bored at home so we went out to Windwick on South Ronaldsay to see if there were any seal pups as it is pupping season for the grey seals.
There were no pups yet at Windwick although I could hear a seal calling but we couldn't go far as Pam is not up to walking far yet.

Maybe we just looked in the wrong place as the Autumn Watch team from BBC television are up here at the moment to film the seal pups but they have gone to Stronsay.

At least Pam had a nice trip out so it will stop her going "stir crazy".

On Friday Pam went down to see the surgery practice nurse to get her stitches out. I didn't realise that many of them were staples. I thought that they looked like a zip and wondered if it was some NHS scheme to make any future operations easier.

She has just told me that it was 35 staples and 12 stitches over 5 incisions so she looks like a noughts and crosses board.

This photo from this morning just proves that it does sunshine in Orkney in October. There are at least 3 places where the sun is shining.

When we got back from the surgery the builders had begun to knock through the end of the house to create a doorway into the extension. Looking at the wall when they knocked through it is fairly obvious that the house was built by a fisherman and not by a builder or mason. It is plainly OK because it has stood for 100 years but he probably got it right by luck more than judgement. Almost all the houses here are single storey, maybe they tried 2 storey houses and decided that as they all fell down it was better to stick to single storey houses.

As Pam says that I have not put any photos of the progress of the extension up for a while, here are two.
One looking from the house through into the extension and









one looking from the new bedroom to the new lounge.

Pam's return

Monday 11th October 2010
Molly and I were uip early so that we could tidy round before I had to collect Pam. Unfortunately Molly's efforts did not seem to be aimed at making the place look any more tidy but we eventually managed then I shot off to the airport.

Pam was the last one off the aircraft as she had to wait until all the other passengers had disembarked and then one of the staff pushed her to the terminal in a wheelchair. I am sure that she will not have liked the indignity of being pushed in a wheelchair as she is to independent for her own good so I took a photo.


It was lovely to have her back and she was equally pleased to be back.
At home she slightly overdid it and made herself knackered (no surprise there then)

On Tuesday afternoon the phone went off, probably as a protest at being over used since Pam returned. I checked with the builders who swore blind that they had not pulled at the wires. I phoned Sky and they said that they would get back to us within 72 hours but on Wednesday morning BT came to check it out so 10 out of 10 for BT.
The problem was of course that a wire had been pulled out just where the builders had been working but they said that it was not them so it was obviously just a coincidence and the wire had fallen out all by itself.

Domesticity

Saturday 9th October 2010
After taking Molly for a walk down to the village to tire her out (It did not work), I thought that I had better get some of the domestic chores done before Pam returns.
After looking at my instuctions I decided that doing some washing was possible so I sucessfully got a load done (Is there no end to my talents). There was one minor problem. When I hung the washing out on the line, the line was covered in cement dust from the rendering on the extension and so all the washing had a nice grey stripe across it. I blame Pam for this as her instructions said nothing about wiping the washing line down. Anyway perhaps she will not notice or maybe all the dust will fall off.

On Sunday I was surprised on my return from dog walking to see Duncan and Hamish on the roof doing some tiling. Duncan said that it was because he could charge double time for sundays but I think that it is because he knows Pam is back tomorrow and he is scared.

I did lots of domestic things like vacuuming, washing, making bread etc so that it is not to bad when Pam gets back. (See I am scared of Pam also).

Pam is chomping at the bit to get out of hospital and I have told Molly that she is not to jump up at her but we will see.

Back home again

Friday 8th October 2010
Well maybe the prayers or whatever worked.
I returned from Aberdeen today. Pam had her Op on Monday and though there were complications, all went well and she is due home next Monday.

I picked Molly up from the kennels where she has had the lady who owns the kennels eating out of her hand so to speak although it did seem to be the other way round as she was getting loads of tit bits.




When I got home the builders were here and Duncan and his dad were on the roof doing the tiling.
The extension is beginning to look like part of the house instead of a shed (Shame).

The blockwork is up for the walls and is cemented over, the velux windows are in the roof and most of the roof is tiled.

It took me about 30 minutes to actually get into the house as Jock was here and Molly was going demented so I had to take them both for a play in the field first but I suppose that she is entitled to a bit of a play after being in the kennels for a few days even if she does seem to have been spoiled in the kennels.

Say a prayer or whatever you believe in

Pams Op today as I write this. I am off to Aberdeen in a few minutes.
Say a prayer for us please.

Pam leaves me.

Saturday 2nd October 2010
Up early this morningg to go to the airport as Pam is going to the hospital in Aberdeen today prior to having her Op on Monday.
I am going down on Monday as we can't get Molly into kennels before then.

Even so I have been left enough food to feed an army, all with full cooking instructions. I have 4 A4 pages of instructions ranging from where everything is, to how to work the cooker, dishwasher, washing machine and drier. I even got a note telling me that the washing machine was in the kitchen and the drier was in the bathroom. Just because I made a simple mistake a couple of times.

I have also got a list of instructions for Duncan the builder. The main instruction seems to be that he is not to do anything that I tell him to do.

Sunday just seems to be a dog day. Took the dog for a walk and did a bit of training with her. She is not doing bad.

After two goes I finally found the kennels that she is going into tomorrow. I thought that I had better not leave it till the morning as I have not got much time spare after dropping her off before I have to be at the airport so I do not need to get lost.


I do feed and water Molly properly but why is it that she seems to think that this is the best place to drink from. She always has a bowl of fresh water but it is not good enough. If she ever finds the bathroom door open she is in there.

Last blog entry for a few days as I am off to Aberdeen to see Pam tomorrow.

Orkney's weather wins and I learn to embed videos

Friday 1st October 2010
The day started a bit breezy but the forcast is for gales later.
We have tickets to go to a "Help for Heroes" concert in Kirkwall tonight. It should be a good one.
The weather stayed reasonable until about 3:30PM then it started raining which with the high winds was a bit uncomfy outside.


"The Chair" and Saltfishfourty both playing along with some other good singers and groups.



I thought that it would be a nice night out for Pam before she went into hospital tomorrow morning.
Unfortunately Orkney weather won again.

During the afternoon the wind got up to force 9 (severe gale) and although we got over number 3 barrier with no problems, when we got to number two barrier it was closed. I think that even if it wasn't closed I probably would not have attempted to cross it. Our end was OK but we could see the waves at the far end crashing right over the top of the barrier. It may or may not have washed the car off into the sea but it would certainly have done severe damage as a few tons of water descended on the car.

Deciding that discretion was etc etc, we returned to Burray and went for a meal and a jar at the Sands. At least it did not feel to bad wasting the tickets as the money we paid went to a good cause.