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.
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