Saturday 28th April 2012

Lost and Found
 Pam's ducks have been getting more adventurous recently and one day she saw them waddling over Mr Scott's field opposite us. Bev from across the road later saw them half way up the hill, and that was the last we saw of them for 5 or 6 days.
 Pam was more upset about the loss of the ducks than if I had gone missing and I had to drive round Burray looking fornthem all to no avail. We even put a notice up in the shop although the lady in the shop did seem to think that it was a bit funny when Pam gave her a notice about 5 runner ducks that had run off.
 The ducks finally returned of their own volition, all seeming very hungry and one of them quite lame. All's well that ends well I suppose.
 It may not have ended yet though, as last night I noticed the ducks were over the road again and this morning I can not see them. We may have a repeat performance.

 I think it may be because they do not like us taking their eggs (if we can find them). Somebody should tell them though that this is part of the bargain. I feed them, they lay eggs and then I eat the eggs. Seems fair to me.

 On a more positive poultry note, one of the geese has hatched 2 eggs and so we now have 5 geese. We will see if they survive as I have been told lots of horror stories about hoodies or Black backs taking goslings, or the goslings just dying at 4 weeks old.
 If I were a hoody or black back then I would definitely not go near the goslings. The 3 adult geese keep the youngsters shepherded so that they are all in a small group with the youngsters in the middle and thye are VERY aggresive.

 On the chicken front, I have just put 7 Andalusian chicks out into the field for the first time since they hatched. It was a nice sunny day so I thought that they would be able to go out without to much of a shock. Then after I had put them out, it started to snow heavily. Oh the beauty of Orkney weather. Just in case we do not have enough chickens, Pam has ordered a dozen Blue Cochin hatching eggs from down south, so when they arrive I may as well fill the incubator with some more Andalusians and some Orpingtons.
 Nobody comes here now and gets away without taking some eggs. I think that Pam managed to give away about 2 dozen today and I got rid of another dozen last night. Surprisingly, we had omlette for tea.

Here endeth the poultry section.

I am still keeping up with the art classes, though I am not a natural artist but I am enjoying it and I think that I am getting a bit better but we will wait and see about that. I have at least managed to progress from copying other people's drawings to being able to do some of my own and have even managed to put colour onto some drawings without totally ruining them, a vast improvement.

 We went for a walk round Orphir, near the Round Kirk, last week and even Pam managed to make it round the 3 miles without any trouble. Part way round, and totally enexpectedly, we came across Orkney's equivalent of a huge forest.
 
Although it was right by the coast, there were several dozen trees and some of them quite tall. Admittedly most of the trees were rather gnarled but you don't get that number of trees in many places in Orkney.
 That part of Orphir must have some sort of benign micro-climate although there does not appear to be much shelter there.
It was all very picture skew and even had a pretty stream running through a shallow valley. In a rather ambitious moment, I thought thatit was so nice that I would try to draw it. If this ever results in a half decent picture then I will be astonished and will put a photo up on the blog.

 I have decided that I am going to see about getting laser surgery on my eyes to save having to wear glasses. This means that I have to go to Aberdeen for assessments/ estimates. I thought that I would go to two different eye surgery places in Aberdeen on the same day for the checks to save on travelling but unfortunately because of the eye drops that they use, it is only possible to have one appointment in any 48 hours so I will have to go down twice.
 I can at least get down and back in a day if I catch the wednesday night ferry down at midnight and then catch the thursday evening ferry back up which will get me into Kirkwall at midnight on thursday. With my islander travel vouchers I can travel down for free and have a cabin so I can get some sleep and on the return journey I get islander discount so it will only cost me £12.55 for each return trip.
 Not bad really for 14 hours cruising. Its a pity that cruises round the greek islands dont come that cheap.
 All the adverts for the laser surgery seem to say "from £350 per eye" or about that but I am willing to bet that when I get the actual estimate, it will be 6 or 7 times that price. I have never heard of anybody getting it for anywhere near £350.
 Maybe I should just have one eye done and then when I wanted to see something properly I could just shut the bad eye. Just like looking through a telescope.

 That's the end for now. You will have to wait and see if the ducks have legged it again or if they return today. I am not putting more notices in the shop though, nor am I driving round the island looking for them.