It's a bit draughty again.

Tuesday 25th October 2011

 It's been a bit breezy all of the last week, so being very nesh I have not done much outside.
The wind is south easterly so it is not cold but there is a lot of it and it is not very comfortable. Nice to look at the sea out of the window but having said that with several days of southerly, salt laden winds and no rain, the windows are all isted over with salt crystals and I can't see out properly.
It is the first good blow of the autumn and it is not really supposed to calm down for a few days yet but at least it is all dramatic and impressive.
There is nothing more guaranteed to put you in your place and feel very small and puny than watching the sea in a good storm. It's surprising that these islands have not been blasted away long ago.

The barriers were shut for the first time last night and again around high tide this morning sa as we had to go to the shop in "The Hope" we took a couple of detours to do our touristy bit and watch the sea.



 First at Honeys Geo just over No4 barrier on South Ronaldsay. This is normally a nice sheltered little beach with loads of birds and a stream entering the sea. All nice an picturesque but for some reason today there were no little wading birds on the beach.

 I was a bit surprised to see so many gulls flying about but they often seem to like it when we get really high winds. I am sure that they can not be hunting for food in these conditions. They must just be enjoying the experience.

Then we went over to No 2 barrier where the police had parked across the road to stop anybody attempting to cross. Only a suicidal idiot would have attempted to cross anyway but I suppose that the police even have to protect idiots from themselves.
On the way back I noticed that the pontoon that is used for mooring visiting yatchs by No3 barrier was cst right up on the shore. I am not sure if it had broken its moorings and washed up there or if it had been towed there deliberately to save it from the waether. (I think that it would sustain less damage in the bay than being smashed against the shore). It did not look as though it was in a very good state of repair and there was a coastguard van nearby so maybe they were checking to make sure that it was secure and not going to be washed into the nearby boats or out to sea where it would be a danger to shipping.

Earlier in the week, on wednesday I went on one of the U3A birdie walksround Ayre Loch and the nearby coast. This walk had been posponed from 2 or 3 weeks ago because of inclement weather. In fact the day that it was postponed from turned out to be sunny and calm and Wednesday was very windy but Hey-Ho at least the rain held off until just as we got back to our cars.  There must have been shoals of small h in the bay as there were loads of gannets diving dramatically as only gannets can. We all just stood around ignoring the wind and watching them for about 15 minutes just like little children, pointing out to each other as another gannet dived and trying to see what they were catching.  That's what retirement is for. To be able to stop and watch things for no other reason than that it makes you feel good.

 
There were quite a lot of grey seals about including these two who conveniently posed on a pipe close into the shore. This pipe seems to be a favourite place for the seals. Maybe it is smoother and comfier than the rocks.
It is getting close to the seals pupping season and maybe that is why there are so many about  but having said that, they do not pup near St Mary's even though there are quite a few nice small sheltered little coves near there.
 They have started pupping down on South Ronaldsay so wh the weather improves I will go down and get some photos but I am not clambering around at the top of the cliffs in gale force winds at my age.

  I had another of my keyboard lessons on Wednesday evening at The Reel. I think that I said before that the lessons were very informal which suited me fine. Well this lesson was more informal than most . I learnt about Ivan Drever going drinking instead of queuing up at the american embassy for his visa then going home, getting a phone call from an irate promoter in the USA (who fancied him) asking where the hell he was, making up an excuse about his accompianist being inured in an accident and finally having to go over to the states by himself.
Also several other stories about people mainly from Kirkwall or Stronsay, most of whom I do not know. We also managed about 20 minutes keyboard practice.
Altogether a much more relaxing music lesson than the traditional sort. I may never learn to play a keyboard but I will enjoy myself.

Thursday was the best day of the week, although a bit cool but the air was beautifully clear and I could see the snow on the top of Ben Griam Mor near Altnaharra about 55 miles away on the scottish mainland.
There was a U3A meeting on Thursday in Kirkwall and I had to leave early to make sure that we got there as they were putting more blocks on the barrier presumably to replace the ones washes away last winter. After seeing the waves hitting the barriers later in the week I think that they may have known something.

An unkindness of ravens but still no whales.

Monday 17th October 2011
 Another fairly quiet week but there was one piece of excitement for the general population of orkney.

 A sperm whale was found swimming on the surface close in to the pier in Kirkwall harbour. These are deep water whales and it was assumed that it was very sick and in imminent danger of death.
Of course we did not get to hear about it until to late but we have come to expect that.

At least we were not as bad as Helen and Jimmy who were parked up by the bay having a burger from the burger van. Helen commented to Jimmy that there were a lot of people and cars about and wondered why they were all there but did not bother to get out of the car to see.
 What was drawing the crowds was in fact the whale on the surface about 50 yards from their car.
 There have been some NATO excercises round here and it has been suggested that the whale may have been disorientated by noise from submarines or surface ships.

 There seems to have been a good outcome in the end though as a boat managed to shepherd the whale to deeper water where it suddenly dived and did not reappear. It has not been seen since so is presumably alive and well.
I think the council were relieved as they are responsible for disposing of whale carcasses and this one was about 50 feet long so would have taken some disposing of.

 The skies this week have been full of activity. As well as aircraft taking part in the NATO excecises, there have been geese coming over in huge numbers. They look and sound very impressive with skeins of 100 geese or more passing over honking as they go only to be followed by more a few minutes later.
I don't suppose the local farmers are to happy about the geese though. Apparently four geese eat the same as one sheep and in winter there are about 85,000 geese here.

Now to the reason for toda's title.
I found where the duck had been laying her eggs and there was a nest with about 20 eggs in it. As I didn't know how old they were, I just slung them away into the field (except 2 marked ones) .Very quickly hooded crows and ravens found them.
 I have always known that the collective noun for ravens is "an unkindness" but It is not something that I have ever been able to use in a meaningful sentence before and it is one of those simple things that please me to be able to use it.
As we had four ravens and a load of hooded crows coming down to get the eggs (The collective noun for crows is "a murder") I can now take great delight in saying that we had an unkindness of ravens and a murder of crows in the bottom field at the same time.


 Oh I do feel good now.

A kestrel also came over the field while the ravens were there and one of them chased it off so perhaps unkindness is a warranted name. I do not think that the kestrel was interested in the eggs but was just an innocent passer-by. The raven did not have much chance of catching the kestrel anyway but it was just making it's feelings understood.

Duncan was up at Steve's across the road the other day and fetched Jock with him. As Steve's dog, Swona was playing with Jock and as Molly had been good earlier in the day and had walked nicely off the lead. I decided to let her go for a play and surprise, surprise she came back when she was called. Maybe we are getting somewhere with the traing after all.
I have however decided to stop going to the dog training classes until I have got Molly coming back every time when she is outside. There seems to be little point in her learning all sorts of fancy tricks if I can not let her off the lead safely.

The links at the back of Burray village seem to be becoming an industrial site for the building of salmon cages for the fish industry in Scapa Flow. There have been quite a few built there recently and there were another couple of almost completed ones and one under construction the other day when I was walking Molly past the beach.
Presumably we will see them being towed out into the flow in a few days.
Plans for a new salmon farm just off the island of Cava have just been passed and so I assume that these cages will be destined for there.


 Saturday and Sunday Pam was away in Kirkwall on a course on Japanese quilting which may or may not be different from English quilting but who am I to comment. I was therefore left to my own devices. The weather on Saturday was a bit indecentso I got nothing done but on SundayI finally got round to fibre glassing the holes in the shed roof. This needed to be done before I can put the roof on the lean-to.

 This morning I had some parcels to post so I went to the post office in "The Hope". A note on the post office said"closed for holiday". This seemed slightly odd as it was not a bank holiday but I thought that it must just be that the post mistress was having a day off so I went to the post office in St Mary's.
The St Mary's post office had a notice on the door saying "closed for Post Office holiday". I have never heard of post offices having special separate holidays before and I think that it may be something that the Orkney post offices have made up themselves. Another of Orkney's special rules for themsels.

A staying inside sort of week

Sunday 9th October 2011

 Well, what happened this week?
   Mainly nothing due to most of the week being rain and high winds. Somebody from down home was complaining on Facebook that it was terribly windy at about 30mph. Oh for that sort of gentle wafting breeze.
It's surprising how you get used to the wind here. There are not many flat calm days and I suppose that force 4 (about 20mph) is more or less normal. You therefore do not really notice anything less than that and it is only when it gets up to 30-40 mph that you begin to think that it is getting a bit breezy.
This last week however has managed to stay above "a bit breezy" for most of the time and when this is accompanied by rain it becomes a bit unpleasant and not just "bracing".

 One of the nice things about being retired is that if I do not like the weather then I do not have to go out into it (except for a quick dash round to feed the poultry) so it has been largely a week of watching the weather from indoors.

I have decided to let the medics have another go at fixing the bent little finger on my left hand. After all, now that I have started having keyboard lessons I will need all the fingers that I can get and judging from the first couple of lessons, a few additional fingers would be welcome.

Anyway I went to the see the GP to find out what could be done.
  As always I was surprised at how different the health service up here is compared to down south. Our old GP surgery had a 5 minute slot for each patient and signs in the waiting room saying "Only one issue per consultation". The GP here has 15 minute slots and if you want longer you just ask.

At first the doctor thought that I had come to get feedback from the stay in hospital that I had for the bit of kidney infection the other month and so he went through all the results. I eventually managed to tell him that I was there about my finger and he is going to get that sorted at "The Balfour". In conversation I mentioned that I sometimes woke up in the night with a tingling in my legs so he checked the blood flow in my legs and then checked my back and decided that it was a trapped nerve for which he offered a physio appointment.
As I am nearly 65 he decided that I may as well have a flue jab and so gave me one and then took a blood sample to check for prostate cancer.
A full MOT without being asked. Much more of a health service than down south which just seems to be an accident repair shop.

On a slightly less efficient side, Pam was flown down to Aberdeen for a check up that could have been done here at "The Balfour" but then I suppose it was just so that the surgeon who did her operation could check things personally.

We have had happy events and sad events with the chickens.
  I let one of Pam's cochin chicks out the other day after it had spent several days in a little run inside the pen for the youngsters and this morning I found 4 hooded crows (our equivalent of carrion crows) perched on posts around the pen and a half eaten young cochin on the floor. I assume that the hoodies had killed it although it is possible that it had just died and they were tidying up. We do not have any land predators here but the airborne ones make up for it  and we have a wide variety of them.

On a brighter note I have had 2 Andalusian chicks hatch and maybe another one to hatch yet and the two that have hatched look as though they are going to be blue which is what I want as I have some white splash ones.

Now that the ducks are penned up we are getting an egg every day from the adult so she must have been laying somewhere all the time but we just never found the eggs. The trouble is that ducks are very messy birds and the pen that they are in is getting rapidly turned to mud so I will have to let them out later today and just hope that she decides to come back to the duck house to lay her eggs.

We do not keep the poultry to get a supply of cheap eggs and if we worked out the cost of poultry feed then the eggs would probably work out to be about 5 times the price of supermarket eggs but I had not thought that showing the chickens should be expensive.
When the cockerel won the prizes at The Hope show I did not expect any prize money and was surprised when I was told that I had to go down and collect the princely sum of about £4.40. You would at first think that this is at least a small profit. I later found however that we have to go to the "Harvest Home" supper at a cost of £14 per ticket so that we can be presented with the medal, cup and shield that we won. Still we only entered the show for fun and it should be a good night out.
On the plus side we got a cheque for £16 from the county show for our chicken winnings and we do not have to go to an expensive "do" to collect that as we only got the reserve champion.

September

September 2011
 As I have got somewhat behind with the blog, I will now do a quick catch up.
Not much happened in September.
I got another second hand shed for free except for the transport costs.
The science festival was on and we went to a few of the talks ranging from stem cell research, archeology and renewables. I also went on a trip round the Orkney brewery, all in the interest of science of course.

As a treat to myself after being a bit ill recently I have booked myself in for keyboard lessons at The Reel.

Molly re-started her dog training classes and had an outdoor dog fun day and did very well on all the agility equipment.
Pam has started going swimming with a crowd of ladies from the village.

We couldn't find where the ducks were laying so I built a duck house and pen and we trapped them in so now we can find the eggs and when we let them out hopefully they will continue to lay in the same place.

Another sad day

Tuesday 30th August 2011
 It was Gareth and Maddy's last day here today. Unfortunately I had to ferry a load of the U3A people about to various historic monuments.
I managed to get them all dropped off in time to go for dinner with Gareth and Mads before they went and to see them off from the airport.
This is the last time that I shall see any of my children or grandchildren before christmas and so was very emotional.
This is the best place in the world to live but at times like this it sometimes seems that there may be something to be said foor living in a little semi some suberb in the midlands where I could at least see the kids more often.
I shall no doubt live however and Christmas is not to far away but a sad day even so.