Another Tuesday

Tuesday 25th January 2011
Pam is all excited because the extension is more or less finished. We moved some furniture in and put up some pictures today just to make it look less spartan.


I still think that the new living room needs some big rugs down on it. I am not a fan of great areas of wooden flooring but I am told that this is just because I am an old fashioned peasant.



I will not be allowed to get a fitted carpet in there but I shall attempt to hold out for a large rug, the larger the better.
Pam has suggested 2 sheepskins but I think that I can get away with something up to about 10 foot square. WATCH THIS SPACE.

On the chicken front, I phoned the Wernlas Collection and, joy of joys, they have some silver/grey Dorkings. They will phone me back in a few days once they know how the fertility of their eggs is. If they have some fertile eggs then I can pick up some birds when we go back down south at Easter.
We had some Dorking and some Jersey Giant hatching eggs arrive today. After letting them settle for a bit I put them in the new incubator but I am not 100% sure that the temperature is correct and I don't think that my thermometers are accurate.

In the evening I took Molly to her obedience class. I got the day right this time. I think that Molly is still Mrs Thain's favourite, even after last weeks exhibition of gross disobedience. this week however, she had settled down and was very good.
I felt a bit sorry for the other border collie in the group. She does everything perfectly but always seems very humble and subservient. Mrs Thain told her owner that she was always going to be just a very obedient dog. Rather damning with feint praise.
Molly on the other hand is over excited and either does everything at super speed or does not do it at all.

It's a Raid !!

Sunday 23rd January 2011
Rumours are rife. The police, along with 3 plain clothes detectives and sniffer dogs have been checking all the people and every car coming off the ferry at Stromness and they have been into the Stromness pubs with their dogs.
A tip off about drugs seems to be the most popular idea but explosives are also getting quite a lot of backing. A bomb on the ferry has been suggested but that does not seem to be getting much support.
I can not really see most terrorists even knowing where Orkney is, let alone bothering to come all the way up here.
Your average traditional islamic terrorist would stand out a bit up here anyway, especially out of the tourist season (unless of course he said that he came from North Ronaldsay as everyone elso thinks that all the folk on North Ron are weird).

On Monday the police and dogs were in one of the Kirkwall pubs and we moved some furniture into the extension. These two things are unrelated, being only connected by the fact that they happened on the same day.
Duncan was up again, supposedly to collect some more stuff but I think that he is just missing his tea and scones.

Apparently the police have not caught anybody with all their activity so maybe there was nothing anyway. Still it will have given any local rogues a fright and been a bit of excitement for the police. It has got to be better than catching a drunk urinating in the street or dealing with a domestic.

Seals, Cormorants and a Woodcock

Saturday 22nd January 2011
I had to go down to Stromness to pick up the book that I have ordered from Tim Wooton. Tim wasn't due to be at his shop until 2PM so we decided that we would drop into Finstown first.
There was a house furniture sale at the Manse in Finstown and we thought there may be some decent cupboards or bookshelves. Unfortunately there were no good cupboards and the vicar was taking the book cases with him.

We then proceeded in a northerly direction (For Andy) until we came to Stromness. It was still to early to go to Tim's so we parked up at The Ness car park.

There were several seals bobbing about just off the car park and it was really pleasant.







I left Pam in the car to read her E-book and went for a stroll for a couple of miles towards The Black Craig.

There were loads of seals and cormorants, a few redshanks, a really cheeky hooded crow that sat on a wall until I was very close and a female Eider duck who looked as if she was injured and certainly let me get closer than is normal.
I probably went further than I should have and half way back I got a phone call from Pam asking where I was so I had to get a hurry on.
I then got a phone call from Babs. She was shopping at Tesco's in Longton and sounded stressed. I tried to make things better by pointing out that I was walking by the seashore and there were about a dozen seals sunning themselves on a rock just in front of me and The Hamnavoe coming in round the north end of Hoy behind me.
For some reason, this did not seem to make her feel any better but at least I tried.

When I got back to the car we drove up to Tim,s shop and were still a bit early but Tim had also arrived early so it was OK.
Tim asked if I wanted the book signing or anything on the flyleaf so I rather cheekily suggested a drawing of a woodcock, thinking that he would do a quick outline of a woodcock's head with a few strokes of a pencil. Tim went the whole hog though and I have a lovely pencil drawing of the whole bird.
Pam suggested facetiously (I hope) that we cut out the drawing and sell it as we would get more for the sketch than we paid for the book. Needless to say, this will not happen.

Pam is getting crafty

Thursday 20th January 2011
There was a U3A meeting in Kirkwall today organised by the craft group so we toddled in to have a look and it was better than I expected.
Some of the people are really good. I was particularly impressed with some of the straw work and some of the work, especially from one particular lady.Her feltwork looked like embroidery until I looked closer. Pam was so impressed that she has decided to join the craft group. We will wait with bated breath to see what she produces.

In the vening I took Molly to her obedience class. She has not been this term. (Is term the right word for dog classes?) She has been on heat since we got back after christmas down south.
I made a mistake with the days and we ended up in the beginners class instead of the bronze group that we are supposed to be in. As we were there I decided that we may as well stop. This was probably a good thing as Molly was totally disobedient. It may be that she was not fully off heat but all she wanted to do was play with the other dogs. I think that we have a lot of work to do before we go to her proper bronze group class on Tuesday.

On Friday I took Molly out for a walk for the first time since just after she came on heat. As usual she ignored me for the first bit but then she calmed down and was quite good, walking the last mile to heel almost properly.
Later on Steve from across the road came over to have a look at the extension and the kitchen as he is having some work done and wanted to see the standard of Duncans work. I think that Duncan has definitely got the job as he apparently put in the lowest estimate by a long way and Steve was very impressed with the work he has done for us.

The Fulmars say it's OK

Wednesday 19th January 2011
I went on a U3A bird watching walk this morning. As I have said before, these are really gentle, keep fit and gossip ambles for old folk with the occassional bird thrown in. (not literally thrown in you understand although I do now have a picture in my mind of a load of children running along a cliff top, killing themselves laughing and lobbing dead seagulls at the old farts below.)
Peter and Barbara were going to pick me up at the shop in the village so I left in plenty of time to drive down but a bloody big crane was blocking the road just outside the village. It was lifting a large yatch out of somebody's garden onto a low loader. I had to park up and walk to the shop so I just got there as Peter and Barbara rolled up.

The walk was to start at Lighthouse Corner in Deerness so we drove to Dingieshowe where everybody met to get the bus to lighthouse Corner.





I have had a lack of photos recently so here is a photo of Dingieshowe.


I think that Dingieshowe was selected because there are public toilets there. I have noticed that almost all the walks are based around public conveniences. I have not yet worked out whether this is due to some sort of fetish of the walk leader or if it is just a sensible precaution for a load of old folk. It really is not necessary because there are always plenty of large rocks for the ladies to hide behind and as for the men, who cares?


There was nobody else on the bus when it arrived so the 14 of us were the only customers and we all had bus passes (A benefit of being old) so it was probably not a very profitable trip for the bus.

The bus dropped us off at Lighthouse Corner which is not a corner but is a crossroads and it is nowhere near any lighthouse. Orkney sense of humour I think.
It is not far from Copinsay and there is a lighthouse there but it still seems a bit of a misnomer. Another gratuitous photo, this time of Copinsay lighthouse.

The weather was pleasant as we walked to the point of Ayre, then it pissed down but it didn't last long and everyone had good waterproofs. (The best investment I ever made has been good boots, a good warm dry jacket and weatherproof trousers. I may look like the Michelin man but at least I stay warm and dry.)
We walked round the coast back to Dingieshowe and we actually saw some birds including Purple Sandpipers and loads of Sanderlings dashing around the beach like little clockwork toys.
There were Fulmars back on the cliffs which somebody told me means that the worst of the winter weather is over.
I was thinking that the fulmars may have been a bit premature as I can not see us getting away with no more storms for another couple of months but we will wait and see.
There was some fresh otter spraint where one of the small streams enters the sea but of course no otter.

I got back home about 2 O-clock and there was an e-mail from Tim Wooton saying that his book has finally been published, so I ordered a copy which I will pick up on Saturday.
Tim is a brilliant artist who specialises in painting and drawing birds. He has won loads of awards including BBC wildlife artist of the year. His latest book is about how to draw and paint birds.
After a life in science I now like trying to sketch things (normally very badly with more rubbing out than actual drawing.)

The new cheap and cheerful incubator arrived today and it looks hunky-dory, so I will get it set up and check the temperatures before I buy any more eggs.

Did I say that Duncan had gone?

Monday 17th January 2011
Gavin is here again finishing off. he is a real perfectionist but it is costing us a fortune. Everything has to be rubbed down several times and then he notices another bit that he is sure we would not be able to live with, so he does that aswell. He is however, a very nice bloke,fetches us eggs and offers to get us some cheap crabs and lobsters.
Apparently we are honoured because he does not get on well with everyone. For his next job he is working down the village for Alan Bessant the builder. Alan will want Gavin to rush the job to save money but Gavin will not be rushed and is quite likely to just walk off the job if he doesn't like working there, so it might be interesting.

Duncan was also up here today picking up some more of his tools and stuff and having tea and scones. I think he is at a loose end between jobs but it is nice to see him. I have agreed to take a load of cedar lap boards that he has over from building his house and has to remove from Hamish's shed. I was going to use them for building chicken houses but that seems a waste so I have decided to use them for building a couple of sheds. Pam has spent all the money on the extension so I can no longer afford to have a shed built but Hey-Ho.

More incoherent burblings

Friday 14th January 2011

Once again I have been chastised by my daughter for not doing the blog, or as she refers to it "the ramblings of an old fool". Once again nothing of note has happened but just to keep my darling daughter happy, I will ramble on.

Well, I thought that Duncan had finished and left but he was back today clearing out and finishing off some odds and sods. Gavin was also here painting, so nothing seems to have changed. It will seem odd when eventually everyone has finished and we have the house to ourselves.

This morning was wet and not pleasant but at least it wasn't windy. It is surprising that generally the weather here is not bad, possibly better than Staffordshire. Since we have been here we have had a few gales but somehow they don't seem to bad as it is always a bit breezy but I am sure that we have had less rain than we used to get when we lived down south. It is definately not as cold, the lowest it got here was -4 degrees, although it was colder in other parts of Orkney.
Anyway, so far, so good, although I should probably not say that, maybe it will all go pearshaped tomorrow. This afternoon was nice and sunny though, so maybe we are OK.

The capacitors for the Kenwood Chef arrived today. I got them from ebay for £6.50 after OTE had charged me £39 just to tell me that it was a discontinued model and Kenwood didn't stock the parts.
Dave from St Mary's has said that he will solder the new capacitors in, so hopefully it will be OK.

Al Murray, the pub landlord is up here in June so we got some tickets today. Duncan also wanted some tickets so we got two for him aswell. I think that Pam only volounteered to get his tickets so that she will get to see his new girlfriend but then I may be attributing ulterior motives to her kindness (or maybe not). They do surprisingly well for visiting entertainment up here. Bill Bailey was up a bit ago but then I suspect that he came for the bird watching and did a couple of gigs while he was here rather than the other way round.

We got the economy 10 electric meter fitted today, so not only is the heat pump working but it is working on cheap electricity for 10 hours a day. it was only on tuesday that I took the forms in to the Hydro requesting the meter be changed. I think that if we were down south, the forms would still be on somebody's desk for another couple of weeks. It is a bit of a contradiction, on the one hand the people are so laid back and yet they do not seem to allow paperwork to make a small job into a marathon.

On Saturday we went into Kirkwall to a craft exhibition which I thought may be interesting. It wasn't so the least said the better.
Later we went down to South Ronaldsay to pick up some light sussex hatching eggs for Pam. The farm that we picked them up from must be the southernmost place in Orkney, just a cock's stride from Scotland, albeit a rather damp stride over the Pentland Firth. We phoned them when we were on the way down but we got no answer as they were out beachcombing which they do after every storm to see what treasures have been donated to them. We haven't had a storm but there were big rollers coming in but they could have come from hundreds of miles away.
We got half a dozen eggs and I had already got an incubator set up so we will see if we get any chicks in three weeks.

Nearly there

Wednesday 12th January 2011
The brickies turned up today with a JCB and removed all the rubble. I am not sure where they removed it to. The digger just kept bombing off down the hill with buckets full of rubble. I just thought that it may not be a good idea to ask where they were dumping it. I will assume that somebody is having pot holes filled in a track and if there are any great mounds of rubble by the roadside somewhere then I shall deny all knowledge.
They also laid the gravel path round the extension and connected the drains from the new en suite so Pam can at last use her shiny new shower.

I was going to take a photo of Pam actually using her shower as i thought it would be more topical but Pam thought differently.






Everyone else that has worked on the extension has been really good and worked well but the brickies have caused a load of delays by not turning up when they should have even after promising faithfully that they would be here. The lads actually doing the work have been good but their boss seems to be juggling to many jobs with not enough men. When he took the job on he really needed the work but since then he has got other jobs. It is just live and learn though. We will not be using him again and I don't think that Duncan will be either.
Now that the brickies have finished, I wonder if they will be so tardy about sending the bill for the remaining money that we owe them. He certainly will not be getting the rest paid cash into his hot sweaty little hand.

Thursday
Today was a good day. Duncan finished today, except for a bit of guttering which he needs to get a bracket for. While we have enjoyed having Duncan and Hamish (not to mention Jock) up here, it is good that we are almost getting the house back to ourselves.
I was overcome by a sudden and uncharacteristic surge of generosity and gave Duncan a good bottle of Highland Park malt whisky (not my best Highland Park, I was not that much overcome). He has done a tremendous job and has been a pleasure to have around.
He is going to work across the road next so will still be fetching Jock up to play with Molly when she is off heat.

The only things left to do in the house now are a bit more painting and varnishing by Gavin and a couple of bits for the electricians to finish. There is still the other shower to fit in the old bathroom but that is a separate job which they will do in a few weeks.

The stone wall in the new lounge is looking surprisingly good since Hamish picked and pointed it.

It used to be the outside wall and when they first took the render off, I thought that it was a miricle that it had managed to stand up for 100 years. There were loose stones all over it and the stones had been laid in clay and not mortar. The clay had dried and most of it had fallen out so I think that it was just the render that had been holding the wall together. All OK now though.
It was pointed out to us by the building inspector that it would have been cheaper and easire to just knock down the wall and build a new one. This would have also given us an extra two feet in the small bedroom as the wall is three foot thick. It was however to late to change by the time he suggested it. It probably looks better to have the old stone wall as a feature anyway.

Buildbase delivered some timber today for me to make some chicken houses. I am to mean to buy them at the ridiculous prices that they cost if you buy them. I am sure that to pay for one of the pricey chicken houses, the chickens would havce to lay eggs every day for several decades. Chickens should really be kept in old wardrobes with wire mesh doors but Pam wants pretty hen houses. I can't promise very pretty but they may be better than old wardrobes.

Recently I have been thinking about getting a few geese. I had been wondering where I may be able to get hold of some and had checked the internet. Then this morning I was looking out of the kitchen window at the field full of geese a few hundred yards away and it suddenly dawned on me that there was a field full of geese a few hundred yards away. ( I have often noticed them but things do not always register with me in my old age.) Anyway, I thought that I would nip over and see if I could buy some. I got the wrong house first and the girl who lives there (another tenant of Evelyn from The Sands who seems to own half of Burray) said "Oh Dennis will not let you have any geese, he loves them all" but she directed me to the right house and I went to see what Dennis would say. There were no problems and Dennis agreed to sell me 4 goslings in spring. This is assuming that he manages to raise any.
Last year he only had 5 goslings and they all got taken one day by either Black backed gulls,Ravens or possibly Bonxies (Great Skuas).

I had not previously thought of airborne predators. I just thought, "no foxes, no badhers, no stoats, mink or weasels, a paradise for poultry". I shall have to remember to keep young birds under cover until they are big enough to look after themselves. The odd chick lost to a Hen Harrier I can put up with but I draw the line at feeding Black Backs or Bonxies.

In the evening another nice man came and fixed the heat pump. It had not been working since we got back after Christmas. it is all computer controlled and high tech so the instrument panel was saying that there was a refrigerant leak. Nobody believed this as it had been well leak tested when it was installed so we all had it down as a faulty sensor.
It turned out to be a refrigerant leak so one up for technology.

Just Waffle

Tuesday 11th January 2011
Well dear reader, I have been chastised for not having written in the blog for a while.
This is largely because nothing has happened.

When I say that nothing has happened, what I really mean is that nothing interesting, unusual or noteworthy has happened to me. I have continued to eat my meals, go to bed and get up again etc but not much else. No doubt things have happened to others, floods in Australia, murders in America and much much more. Although these things are undoubtedly important, they have had no effect on the small and rather insular world in which I live.

For the sake of at least having something to write, I will relate a couple of things that I have done but you have been warned, it is not riveting or fascinating.

Last week I heard that there was a suspicion of there being two Lesser Scaup on Orkney. I referred to the original Lesser Scaup some weeks ago but for those of you who were not paying attention, a Lesser scaup is a bird. It is a duck and rather unsurprisingly, it is similar to a standard or normal Scaup. Any further information is :-
a) Beyond me.
b) Boring

Anyway, back to the plot (Flimsy though it is). Several people thought that they had spotted another on Echna Loch in Burray. As this is almost on my doorstep, I thought that I may as well wander down. (As I said it has been an unevetful week and anything was better than nothing to do). I duly wandered down to Echna Loch and whenI arrived I found Barry, the Burray birdman, and 2 others with high powered expensive looking spotting scopes set up and scouring all the birds on the loch.
All the birds were over the far side of the loch and Barry's attempt to get them to move closer by sending someone round to the road on the far side of the loch just resulted in the birds moving about 2 yards nearer. I could see nothing with my binoculars so after a bit I left them to their quest. I later found that they had got all excited because they thought that they had found the elusive bird but on examination of the photos by the experts, it turned out to be some sort of hybrid Tufted Duck or something.

Pam and I have been thinking of getting some chickens. It is nice to have some livestock but large animals are hard work and they all seem to involve loads of government paperwork.
We used to enjoy showing sheep and cattle and so we thought that if we were getting some chickens for meat and eggs, then it would be nice to have some that we could take to local shows aswell for a bit of fun.

It does not cost very much more to get good, show quality stock than ordinary point of lay hens.
Pam decided that she would like Light Sussex as they are a good looking dual purpose breed and she would also like Black Orpingtons because she likes the look of them and they are a good big meaty bird.
I decided that I would get some Silver Grey Dorkings. Needless to say Pam dropped dead lucky and I can not find good Dorkings anywhere within several hundred miles.

I phoned up a man from Tankerness who regularly wins at local shows with all sorts of poultry. He told me of a lady from Finstown who has Light Sussex and regularly wins at national shows. Unfortunately he did not have her phone No or address but with a little searching on the internet I managed to find an address.
There is a problem with addresses in Orkney. Many houses just have a name and if you are lucky maybe a the road has a name. (We have no room to complain as our address is just the name of the house and the name of the island) . Anyway we toddled off to Finstown and with the help of a passing local we managed to find the house with not much trouble.



The lady, Olive Robertson", was in her polytunnel with her chickens when I got there. The birds were certainly lovely ones but she said that she does not normally sell stock to people from Orkney. Maybe this is to reduce competition and make it easier to win at local shows. We were lucky however and she decided that she would sell us some and at a very reasonable price aswell. It was probably due to my charm and devastating good looks that she decided to sell some to us but then it may be that she has decided that it would be nice to have a bit of competition at local shows.

So Pam is happy, she can pick up some sussex from Olive in May. She still has to get some Black Orpingtons but there are some good breeders around Staffordshire so we will pick some up when we are down at easter. She has also arranged to pick up another unrelated Light Sussex cockerel when we are down south.
There seems to be a world shortage of Silver Grey Dorkings so I will have to keep on looking but I think they are a great looking chicken so it is worth persevering.



I have put up a photo of a silver grey dorking just to prove that they do (or at least did) exist and so that you dear reader will appreciate why I think that it may be worth a bit of effort to try and get some.

Now for a quiet time.

Sunday 2nd January 2011
Nearly a tragedy today. I ran out of cigarettes. No problem I thought. It is not a public holiday today so it will be like a normal sunday. WRONG.

I nipped down to the village shop but it was closed so I went to The Hope but all the shops were shut. Unfortunately this only left the dreaded Tesco's so I had to drive to Kirkwall. Still it was a nice day for a drive.

Monday was a do nothing day. I had a lie in but I should have known better. Every time I have a lie in I wake up feeling as if I have a hangover and this was no exception. I felt rough all day.

Molly excelled herself. Not only did she think about jumping out of the field when I was playing with her (She is confined to the field until she is no longer on heat) but she ate Pam's mobile phone.
Fortunately the phone was out of contract so I have ordered a new phone which will be free but I have had to agree to a new contract. The same price as we are paying now but the contract is for a further 18 months.

New years day. THE BA

1st January 2011
We missed the Christmas Ba but today is new years day and so it is the new year Ba's today.
The boys Ba starts at 10AM and the mens at 1PM.
We got down to Kirkwall at about 12:15. I suggested that we park the car on the edge of town and walk in but Pam that I was being silly and insisted that we park right in the centre of town. The fact that the car park was totally empty and all the buildings around were barricaded up did not ring any alarm bells with Pam.
After some rather warm discussion we agreed to leave the car where it was in the car park and that Pam would have a quick look at the Ba and then take the car out of the centre of town.


We had just got out of the car when the boys Ba came hurtling into the car park as the ba itself briefly broke out of the pack. (I think it is fairly rare to actually see the ba once it has been thrown in and pounced on by the pack)
Fortunately the ba and the pack went over the wall and off the other way without climbing all over our car but I think that Pam may let me leave the car out of the town centre next year as everyone else seems to do.

We watched the boys Ba until about 12:45 then went up to the cathedral to watch the start of the mens Ba.
I lost Pam at this point. I think that she returned to the car. Probably a good thing after seeing the Uppies waiting by the cathedral. if they ran over the car it would be a write off.
With an obvious taste for melodrama and sports psychology, th Doonies marched in at about 12:50, filling the road, trying to look as impossing as possible and doing a good job of it.

I managed to spot Duncan our builder in the Doonies pack before the start but that was almost the last I saw of him as he probably disappeared into the pack.

The Ba was thrown in from the Merkat cross when the cathedral clock struck 1PM.
Even though the game is, to say the least, not the fastest moving game in the world, I found it really entertaining to watch and for some unknown reason it was exciting.


I only stayed for about an hour and a half by which time they had moved across the road and about 20 yards from the start at the cross.

Admittedly there had been some movement from about 15 yards one side to 20 yards the other side of the cross and from one side of the road to the other but I would not describe it as a game based on speed.


Vast amounts of energy were obviously being expended and from about 10 minutes after the start, a constant cloud of steam was rising from the pack.


As I said, after about 1 1/2 hours I decided that I had better go and see where and how Pam was. She was sat freezing in the car in Tesco's car park (She feels at home there). Being a gentleman I suggested that she could go home and come back to pick me up later. So we both went home.

It seems that I missed all the excitement as the game ended with a rare doonie victory after only 4 hours and the last bit was a real rush down to the sea where the doonies scored.
I am not sure why I find such a generally slow game so fascinating. Possibly because the game is very real. Everbody has a side and it is very important to them and very tribal without all the bad feeling that football seems to generate. Everyone takes care to minimise injuries to either side but it is definitely not a game for the faint hearted or delicate. It is easy to imagine packs of vikings playing the same game in the same place in front of the same cathedral hundreds of years ago.
I shall definitely go next year and watch the whole game.
I have seen videos of the Ba before but it is nothing like the atmosphere of the real thing.

War zone Kirkwall

Friday 31st December 2010
We went to Kirkwall this morning to get some tickets for a Wrigley sisters concert in the cathedral tonight.
The centre of town was like Beirut on a bad day. All the shops and houses had 2 inch thick wooden barricades bolted across all the windows and doors.








Even the fire station was barricaded.


I am assuming that the fire engines had been removed from the fire station for safe keeping elsewhere. If not then their response time in the event of an emergency would be severely lenghthened by the necessity of unbolting and removing the barriers.

By tomorrow morning there will be even more barriers. The shop doors are not barricaded yet but they will be later tonight.

All this for The Ba.

There can not be many places that would not only permit this degree of disruption but would actually revel in it, all for a game, with the possible exception of Millwall football games.

We shall see tomorrow if all these precautions were necessary.

In the evening we went to the Wrigley Sisters Hogmanay concert in St Magnus Cathedral. The sisters are very good musicians but I must admit that, while I like some instrumental music, I prefer it to be interspersed with some songs, especially in a Hoot-N-Roar for hogmanay.
The catherdal is certainly a beautiful venue for a concert. It is a bit unusual in that it does not belong to the established church but to the people of Kirkwall and so it is probably put to a greater range of uses than most cathedrals.

We were supposed to be going on to The Sands to see the new year in after the concert but Pam decided that she did not want to go to The Sands and stop until midnight and I thought that it would look very bad if the newcomers left the party before the new year so we came home and watched telly. Whoopee.

The Wanderer Returns

Tuesday 28th December 2010
Well we cunningly timed our return just to miss the snow. Apparently there were drifts 4 foot deep outside the house.
A lovely couple of weeks down with the kids and grandchildren. Grandchildren make you remember what Christmas should be like and they certainly reminded me that it is more blessed to give than to recieve, more fun aswell.
The sadness at leaving the children and grand kids again to return is though, overpowering. If I could split myself in two then I would gladly do it. It really should be the children that leave home to have a new life and the parents that remain to be a base in time of troubles and not the other way round. As Gareth says, "it is just to far" and we can not just visit or be visited for a weekend.
I suppose that the sadness at parting is the penalty that must be paid for having a close and loving family but I would not have it any other way.

Aint love a bummer?

It was however, nice to get home and this is still a beautiful place even if somewhat grey and overcast at the moment.
After landing at Kirkwall airport Pam decided that we had better go to Tesco's before we went home. This was just pure malicious spite. All we needed was milk which we could have got from the village stores in Burray. We did however manage to fill a trolley with a host of other things which I was obviously to niave to have realised that we really needed.

When we got back to the house Pam was a bit disappointed that the extension was not totally finished and complete with christmas tree with presents under and a choir outside. I had a sneaking suspicion that the weeks over Christmas and new year may be a "Tak hid slow" time up here and apart from the ever reliable Duncan and Gavin the decorator, this seems to have been the case. Orcadians have made an art form out of relaxing and getting the most out of life and that is one of the great things about being here. We can hardly then, try and get everyone to rush around just because we want something done.

Wednesday 29th December 2010
I went to collect Molly from the kennels first thing. It was to late to pick her up last night but I had felt guilty about leaving her in kennels over Christmas and wanted to pick her up as soon as possible. I don't think that it makes much difference to Molly whether she is left in kennels at Christmas or at any other time as she is not a particularly religious dog. The next time that she is going into kennels is at Easter, so you never know, she may start to make the relgious connection.
When I picked Molly up, she was very grovelling and she is just coming into heat. No visits from randy Jock for a couple of weeks then.

WE nipped into Kirkwall later as Pam wanted to pay for some flooring that has been fitted in the shower but they were shut. I wanted some duck food from Shearers but they didn't have any. We went to Tesco's to buy a big telly they had cheap in their sale but they didn't have any which they can sell. ( They are getting more in tomorrow but the price reduction ends today so the price will double tomorrow)

I thought that this was a particularly good marketing strategy by Tesco'. Vastly reduce the price of things that you have not got and then tell people that you will be getting more in just as soon as the sale ends. They did of course still have the demo model but you can not buy that as nobody in Tesco's is qualified to unplug it.

Anyway we bought a telly from OTE, so bollocks to Tesco's.
The salesman at OTE was trying to sell me a 3D telly. It was definitely different but just looked wierd instead of realistic. I think that I will wait until they have got good hologram televisions, then I can project wildlife documentaries about rabbits or cats onto the carpet and confuse the dog.

Thursday 30th December 2010
Dave and Claire are round tonight for a meal, so Pam is spending all day cooking.
It turned out to be a lovely meal even though Pam forgot to serve the roast potatoes. There was plenty for everyone anyway and enough bread and butter pudding left over for me tomorrow.

Molly is being a pain at the moment because she is on heat. I took her for a walk this morning and she was stopping every 20 yards to have a pee, even if she could only squeeze a drop out. Then she had a good roll in it and lay on her back with her feet in the air refusing to go anywhere.
I assume that she was trying to lay a trail for Jock, or any other dog come to that as she is a tart.