first snow

Took this picture last week sometime, when the snow was all fresh and lovely, but there hasn't been any fresh snow to speak of for a few days and it is all looking rather grubby and tired.

Ha! sounds like me after this morning spent attempting to get water to the little bull and his six companions in the byre at the Knowes; doors frozen, bit of hose I found to siphon in through the crack between the doors also frozen, bin to siphon into, three miles away at the Hillhead. harrumph.

Anyway, the snow in the garden looks quite disgusting now as it is covered in bird poo; I'm still feeding the ducks n hens and turkeys in there (not to mention dozens of starlings.) Actually I think they could go back to the hen run now as the polecat problem must be by-with until spring. Did I tell you Lizzie caught nine of the blighters in the end?

So I have decided to come home for lunch and shall have another go at the water this afternoon when I go over to check the smoker; we are trying salmon for the first time, Tom brought over three sides the other night. Drew found a recipe for the brine on the net (where else?) But I'm not sure how long to leave it for, I'm trying six hours with oak chips. Be good if it works.

I just can't get away from them! First morning at Les Imberts and the neighbouring cows come looking for me! We used to have a Charolais bull lovely creatures, calm and easily pleased.

The weather was really pleasant in France; started cool but improved day by day and I spent the last afternoon soaking up the warmth from the stone walls of the house, dozing in the sun.

The clocks changed while we were away and as my plane bucked and bounced out of Inverness airport on a dark, dank monday afternoon, the last drops of lovingly gathered serotonin dissolved in to my gin and tonic. 'Oh God', i cried, 'I just can't bear another Shetland winter'

More ducks!

After watching us for, oh a year perhaps, from various vantage points the other side of the valley, they appeared one morning sleeping, one leg up - head tucked under, by the front door. They responded to my welcome and waddled into the garden for 'fowl' breakfast. The others didn't turn a feather so now they are an accepted sub group of the colony that is trashing my garden.

They're Muscovy ducks and are called Gibby and Sunny; we don't often name our creatures, especially if they are, one way or another, 'passing through', but these girls are so entertaining and responsive their name just popped into my head. It wasn't until the other morning, after a gale-full night, when it seemed that G&S had flown away that I realised how disappointed I felt and how fond I'd grown of them, which made me think about possessiveness and other stuff common to human nature. But they can fly like blazes and, like all blessings, free to come and go as they please, I hope they chose to stay awhile.

sick day

Having a cold all week but being too busy to wallow, I decided to take a morning off to finish some rabbits in comfort. However it is the most beautiful morning and I really must go and run about in it. We are off to lunch at Wadbister (of da famous 4 degree voe fame) with massed Shannons and Willses so better get my skates on This cold that I've had was brought all the way from Norway so have endeavoured to keep it from the general population - remembering the tales of whole island populations laid bye with the advent of airmail etc. not to mention long-buried plaits and scarlet fever, that I was regaled with when i first fetched up on these shores. I was listening to the week's History of the World in a Hundred Objects on the iplayer whilst rabbiting this morning, the one about the turquoise feathered serpent, the population being finished off by old world smallpox. I think we have forgotten how easy it is to spread viruses... this blog was actually supposed to finish with thoughts about preparing for Christmas but it seems to be finishing on a note of gloom if not doom! so think I will just stop there, I will now go forth and gather some of those rosebuds while I might, or rosehips anyway. ttfn

Not Cross

I was thinking of calling this week's blog C.r.o.s.s. (constant rain over Shetland syndrome) but look! the sun is shining today, and how peaceful it seems after seven sodding days of rain and gails. Took this little film on friday morning; I'd planned to get to the Knowes, feed the stots and be back in time to take my loaves out of the oven. Of course, the blighters were right at the top of the dog-leg park, as far up and away as they could be. I was wearing the ancient but lovely Barbour we got from Natalie and, as a consequence, the stots just weren't sure it was really me. It took a fair bit of coaxing to get them to the other end of the park where I took this film. I love it when they start to run, it reminds me of a schools radio program of my childhood - 'How things began' -with a roving reporter speaking from prehistorical La Salutre, is that right? anyway, horses being stampeded over a precipice by stone age hunters. very exciting! Oh, and the bread was just perfect.

There's a real feeling of autumn in the air; we had a fabulous week of bright sunny weather and then on Thursday I woke with a real feeling of dread at the darkness of the morning. The wind has been blowing from a different 'eart' and the starlings have been gathering on the telegraph wires (and in the byre come knock-off time.) The annual diaspora of young is well underway, hence last week's otter and the many flattened polecats on the road. Yesterday I noted ten young corbies attending to an dead sheep along by Swinister, good for them, the carrion crow has a busy and useful winter ahead. In the politunnel the leaves yellow on the mangetout making for easy picking of the last delicious pods.

But we have had a fine, blustery day with a bbq lunch followed by a brisk walk down to the ebb with five young Shannons, as merry as grigs in the late sun. a good way to end the season.

Bliss

When the sun shines in Shetland we change; we smile, we laugh, we talk to strangers in the shop. It is bliss. But the garden is full of midges, they are hovering in savage clouds around the domestic fowl.

When I returned from steam-cleaning the byre this afternoon I was looking forward to a lovely garden potter, but noooo!

So I listened to the Archers in the kitchen armchair, glass of pino grigio, my knitting, the sun streaming though the (tightly closed) french windows and it was pretty damn good.

On the way back from the Hillhead, at the junction, we came upon a young otter, wet from - well, were does the burn come through there? hesitating on the road. We let him decide which way to go but rounded the corner heading in the same direction. He bounded off though the long grass often looking back over his shoulder, aware of us watching him. What a privilege it is too live here.

As for the picture, that's the Bod beach at Ollaberry. Lizzie and I put the kayaks in there last night.