Beaches and singing seals.

Sunday 7th August 2011
 A bit overcast and cool today so of course we went to the beach at No4 barrier.
Weather doesn't seem to matter to children if they have sand to play with. The rain kept off all morning though and in the afternoon Babs, Harry and I went down to Bu Sands on the other side of Burray. There were a few light showers but not enough to stop such intrepid souls as ourselves.

 There were plenty of rock pools along the side of the beach towards Burray Ness but either there wnothing in any of them or we were to slow to catch or notice whatever was in them. Harry however seemed to be happy with a net full of seaweed.


While there may have been nothing in the rock pools, there were loads of seals out on some of the rocks in the sea. Some of them were singing and it is easy to understand how people used to think that somehow seals could change into people and back again. It is especially spooky if you hear them singing when it is foggy and you can just hear their voices drifting in from the sea. Of such are legends of mermaids and selkies made.

East Mainland Show

Saturday 6th August 2011
 The show season has started. I think that the Shapinsay show was the first the other day and it all builds up to the County Show next saturday.
Today it was the turn of the East Mainland Show.
We had nothing entered in the show as it is for east Mainland rsidents only but we toddled over to have a look round especially at the poultry to see what competition we may be up against at the county show.

Somebody who shall not be named (but who is my daughter), rather foolishly bought Harry a bubble gun so that everyone within range got covered in bubbles.

Fortunately after a while it ran out of bubbles before Harry found the tractor display. He was very taken with the tractors because the children were allowed to climb into the cabs and mess around.
He was however very disparaging about a little grey Fergy that had done a charity run from Lands End to John o Groats for a local charity. The boy has no taste.
Why is it with kids that bigger is always better.




We were a bit encouraged that our chickens would compare well with those at the East mainland show.
We are taking an Orpington cockerel and hen to the Burray and South Ronaldsay show on Wednesday. The cockerel has already had a good bath to get him nice and clean but we have not yet done the hen as we were not sure which one to take. We have now decided, as all the others are moulting it was an easy decision and so she has had a bath today after we got home. She only had a quick rinse as I did not want to take the oil out of her feathers because she will not have time to re-oil herself before the show.

No Swona but sand castles in Burray

Thursday 4th August 2011
 Not a very good day today. Cloudy, dull and misty with a few showers.
 I got a phone call from Dave Wakefield to say that the bird ringing group were going to Swona today to ring fulmars but I thought that I had better give it a miss. I've already been to Swona twice anyway so it would not add to my island bagging total although it is a beautiful island.

Pam and I took Harry down to No4 barrier beach where we had a good time building sand castles and jumping on them. Either I built a castle and then Harry jumped on it with great mirth or Harry built the sandcastles and I jumped on them with equal glee. Why is it that children like destroying things. The more complex the castle that I built, the greater the pleasure that Harry got from destroying it.




We got a phone call later from Claire telling us that Dave had broken his leg while on Swona. last year on Swona Dave was climbing over precarious tall cliffs and came to no harm but this time he jumped over a tussock of grass and broke his leg.
 They considered calling for a lifeboat or the helicopter but fortunately they managed to get hold of Hamish, the boatman who had taken them out there and he came back. They managed between them to support Dave back to the beach where the dingy came in to take him out to the boat. getting him from the dingy into the boat with a broken leg must have been difficult but they managed and he was safely taken to The Balfour and back home later.The rest of the team managed to get all the young fulmars on the island and Dave seems to be OK.

We may have found Harry's vocation. He likes chickens, so long as they do not peck at him, so maybe he is going to be a chicken farmer although I think that Babs is thinking more along the lines of Prime Minister. I personally think that wanting to be a chicken farmer is much more laudable than wanting to be Prime Minister.

 On Friday Pam and I took Harry to the soft play area at the Picky centre while Babs finished her assignment. Now at least Babs can start to have a relax now.

In th afternoon we all went to Deerness where they have the "Deerness in 100 objects" exhibition in the community centre.I had been there the other week with john and Alex but Pam had not seen it and it is a really good exhibition so I wanted to go round it again anyway.

They have a nice little play park outside the community centre with slides, swings and such like so Harry enjoyed himself aswell.





In the evening Ivan Drever, a local lad who now lives in Norway had a concert in The Sands Hotel in the village so Pam and I went down. I like his music and it was a free concert so I  bought a CD instead and had Ivan sign it with an apology for forgetting the wedding anniversary so maybe I have earned a little forgiveness.
Ivan has a couple of friends at home in Norway who lost children in the recent massacre there and although Orkney has close links to Norway and have sent official and unofficial condolences, it somehow makes it seem closer and more real.

I am in trouble again.

Wednesday 3rd August 2011
 Today is our wedding anniversary. Pam tactfully reminded me of this in the morning and i  supposed to get a card.
We were out all day with  Harry and I forgot the card so I am in the doghouse again.
In my defence, we were busy all day and I am still not really feeling 100% but short of being actually dead, I don't think that Pam will take any excuses. (Even if I were dead, I think that I would probably be expected to have bought a card before exiting this mortal world.)

 We took Harry to Breck Childrens's farm to give Babs some time for her O.U assignment. The children's farm opened about a year ago and we had been before with Harry. Last year it was a bit basic but I thought that as they had just opened then they needed a bit of time to get things together and build up their stock, penning and buildings etc it would be much better this year.
 I was wrong. It is really just a collection of their pet animals, a play area and a cafe all in the same barn. The cafe is new  but everything else is just the same as last year. The place has a lot of potential and it is a shame that more is not being made of it. Harry enjoyed it though although he was not to sure about getting to close to the animals. The chickens were OK but I think that the larger animals were a bit to much for him. He enjoyed the play area which has a track with a load of little tractors to scoot along. If he goes into farming then maybe he has decided to go into arable rather than livestock farming.

 I would have taken some photos as I almost always take my camera with me when I go out but unfortunately due to a certain small boy thinking that the camera is a really good thing to fiddle with, I have taken to keeping it in a drawer. This means that unfortunately with my advancing years and consequent bad memory, as the camera is not in front of my face then I forget to take it with me. You dear readers will just have to put up with the lack of the usual astounding photos for this week or until I find a cure for old age. 

A bad start to Bab's holiday

Monday 1st August 2011
I have been feeling a bit rough for a few days and this morning I woke feeling terrible with a few symptoms which we will not go into at the moment in the interest of good taste.
I decided that i had better go to the doctor, so I rang the surgery and beetled off down there. (This is Orkney and we don't do making appointments for hours or days in the future)

I went in to see the GP but he just seemed horrified and sent me straight to hospital. Fortunately he sent me to The Balfour, not to Aberdeen hospital.
The hospital did loads of tests and samples and kept me in overnight (A brilliant start to Bab's holiday.)
I was X rayed, scanned, sampled and scanned again before they decided that I had a Kidney infection and possibly kidney stones.
This is the first time that I have ever stayed in hospital (I don't suppose that it w be the lastas I am getting older)

I was very impressed with the Balfour. it is only a little cottage hospital but they were extremely thorough and careful. All the staff from the tea ladies and cleaners to the doctors and consultants were bright, cheery and friendly and the wards were kept spotless. The food is cooked on the premises and is very good, so except for being bored, it was not an unpleasant introduction to hospitals.

In the end they gave me a whole load of antibiotics and allowed me to go home on Tuesday afternoon but I have to go back in a month for them to check me over again.

All this has unfortunately meant that Babs could not get all the O.U. work done that she had hoped but we can look after Harry for the next couple of days so that she can get it finished.

While I was lazing about i the balfour Pam and Babs took Harry down to the beach by No1 barrier so at least they could have a holiday even if Babs couldn't get her O.U finished.

Babs and Harry arrive

Sunday 31st July 2011
Babs comes up today. She was to have been fetching a friend but the friend dropped out and so Babs has had to drive all the way up by herself. I was a bit concerned as it is a long way to drive with a bored child in the car with you but she managed it in very good time.
She had one minor problem. When she was almost at the ferry terminal in the north of Scotland, a lorry came round a corner on the wrong side of the road, smashed her wing mirror off and scratched the side of her car. I must be a bit scary being a few inches from being wiped out, especially when she had Harry with her.
All's well that ends well though and she arrived OK, if a bit shaken up.

We met Babs and Harry from the ferry in St Margarets Hope and managed to negotiate all the Orkney traffic to get back home with no further drama.
babs was still a bit shaken by the near miss with the lorry so I made her a cup of tea (My cure for everything) and we had a slump so that she could have a well earned rest. We then took Harry out into the field for a bit in an attempt to run off some of the pent up energy after being cooped up in the car all day.

Babs, being Babs, has fetched a load of her O.U. stuff here and has to get one of her course assignments done in the next few days but hopefully we can occupy Harry while she finishes it and then she can have a much needed and well deserved rest and relax. She may be 35 but she is still my little girl and she has been pushing herself a lot recently so i wanted to give her a chance to rest and recharge.
We will have to let her do her assignment though, as she has a deadline and will not relax until it is done anyway.

Tidy lawns make good holidays.

Saturday 30th July 2011
Babs and Harry are due up tomorrow so I was wondering what to do to make their holiday more enjoyable. Pam suggested, rather forcefully, mowing the lawns. This did not seem to me to be the most critical part of a holiday but then I am not female and so do not understand these things.
I dutifully mowed the lawns and I will now ait until Babs tells me that the neatly mowed lawns were the highlight of her holiday.

I was feeling a bit rough later on but I put this down to sitting on a lawnmower for hours bumping over our not to level lawns.