Xmas 2007

Happy Xmas everyone! Mum is wearing a scarf from Gudrun which is hiding a brooch from Beth (sorry!) and I am wearing the Unst skull cap. But if you look closely at the books just to the right of the little painting on the top (rhs) shelf you may just make out Mr Pip (NZ author), The Night Gardener (a George Pelecanos thriller) and The Wild Places (Robert MacFarlane travel/places). You might also spot the yellow cover (on its side) of Tree of Smoke which I am really into. It took me half an hour to get this picture ... one of the sitters kept moving. Hope you have had/are having/will have a great day. Love Mum and Dad xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Now off to make fish cakes with anchovies, open a bottle of red wine and fire a party popper over Mum's head!

More pictures

This Yule's New Shetlander came out with both a poem of mine and a review of Victorians 60 Degrees North. I had planned to include these in the blog ... but ... when I scanned and uploaded the text it was unreadable. I also tried adding the poem directly from a file but it wouldn't do it either. So, the poem I will attach to an email (you've probably read it before anyway) and I quote the last paragraph of the (whole page) review below.

"Laughton Johnston has written a book which for me became a real 'page turner'. To tell the truth, I just hadn't expected to find the life stories of these 'Victorians 60 Degrees North' so engrossing. I've enjoyed my time inside their world. In other words, what I am saying is simply: 'Dis is a raelly interestin book, full o fascinatin stories and colourful characters - it's a bit o Shetland's history served up in style and I hoop you laek it too'."

If you would like a copy of the issue let me know and I will send you one.

My printer/copies/scanner is not scanning anymore. Luckily I bought a new scanner for my Xmas (okay, a month ago) so that I could easily copy family photographs onto a CD ... it's a slim line Canoscan LiDE 600F that can sit by the laptop on the desk and is powered through the latter too. So, of course I had to find some photos to scan. By coincidence, while looking for the Xmas decorations and/or wrapping paper (for Mum) in the cupboard at the top of the stairs I found a bag I had forgotten all about which was full of old goodies (photographs, papers, letters etc). So, here are two.

First, Mum at Real Foods! Actually there were quite a few of all the staff that Jill must have taken, but I didn't think you would want photos of Michael, Dave etc. Doesn't Mum look good! The next photo, for Jamie especially in case he thinks he is the only footballer in the family (!), is of the Benalder football team in 1958 in Singapore. The captain of the team (of course) was the 1st Mate (in the centre) and all the others, except for me, were the sailors. Our style was rather like Bolton's ... for those who do not know Bolton's style, it was pretty physical as we had no skill whatsoever but loved dressing up in our strip. To put it more bluntly, we didn't really mind just how we won the game(s). Don't ask me which position I played in. I know I tried to be wherever the ball was unless being threatened with a tackle from the opposition ... particularly after we had set the tone for tackling. You could say I was a pretty cosmopolitan player both on the pitch and on the globe!
Mum and I are now already for Xmas. We don't have a tree or crackers (nobody does a 'pensioner pac' ... 2) but we have mince pies and paper streamer bangers and frozen banoffees and fish for the fishcakes, some wine for me and cranberry juice for Mum ... she doesn't know what's coming!

December Pics

Okay, so trying to put these pictures into some kind of aesthetic order but failing miserably.
The weather has been very kind here recently, lots of quiet days, around 6-10 degrees (but warmer than London!) and some sunshine. This time of year it just creeps over the hill and tends to light the clouds from underneath (!).
Today, Mum at Wastview and I have been pottering slowly ... rescuing a geranium and bring it indoors, spotting one (maybe two) great northern divers (that would be my daemon I have decided) out in the bay from the cliff top, sawing up some old fence posts, checking the seals, looking (unsuccessfully) for otters, coppicing the old rowan tree by the door as it has been struggling of late, filling in rabbit holes in the garden with stones (which gives me a particular kind of pleasure), making coffee, and shortly, going to see if I can fix up the wireless connection to the laptop (to give me one less lead on the desk).


What happens here this time of year? Well, apart from the rather loutish ram (looks a bit like a Raging Bull who should have retired half a dozen fights ago) pursuing the sheep at a lesiurely pace, crocuses having a first nervous taste of the air, the Papa Stour ferry passing unhurriedly twice a day, rabbits digging holes in the garden, only the lobster boat seems to be purposefully busy (I feel I should wave to him like Linda to the Muckle Flugga supply boat in Jonathan's book, Linda to the Lighthouse).
Then there are our regular bird visitors ... the rock doves that come to feed on the bird seed we put out. These are the birds from which a lot of the fancy pigeons have been bred, Shetlanders call them blue doos. We also have an annual visit through the middle of the winter of 4 or 5 turnstones and a flock of curlews who come very close to my window. I tried to take a photo of them through the window and chicken netting fence (to keep rabbits at bay) but ended up with only sharply focused netting and blurry images beyond ... I'll master it yet.The other day (and yesterday evening ... when I say evening I mean about 3 o'clock) we had these wonderful shafts of sunlight piercing through the cloud (I expected a thunderous voice and Charlton Heston to appear with the tablet any moment).

As you can see, Ronas Hill (in close up) looked weird, kinda underlit. We had some northern lights too the other night, but not good enough to photograph (I will get one and post it!). And the new moon has the old moon in her arms. Actually the line from the ballad (Sir Patrick Spens) says ' I saw the new moon late yestreen / with the old moon in her arm'. I think it is better in the plural?

No, I am not going mad ... just pottering.

Daemons

Since rather quiet on the family blogs, apart that is from Maya - delightfully, I have decided to write about one of those strange coincidences that regularly occur. First though I will have another sip of this evening’s choice whisky … single Jura, not unpleasant.

I have been reading, as no doubt you all have, about the film version of His Dark Materials by Pullman ... a wee bit disappointed. The ‘daemon’ in the story fascinated me as I knew nothing about them. Simultaenously, I have been reading the much hyped The Gift by Lewis Hyde (presently Creative Writing professor in Ohio). It requires a lot of attention … not recommended reading in bed just before intended sleep! He looks at age-old myths surrounding ‘gifts’ and sees creativity as a ‘gift’ too. He is in to the idea that ‘gifts’ are for reciprocation and their value lies in their passage, back and forward between individuals and around groups. In today’s world these ‘gifts’ have been commercialised and we have capitalism; where the ‘gift’ has been given a monetary value and where it is kept it become capital. You’ll have to read the book to get nearer his truth!

However, last night, on page 54, I came on the section on the ‘gift’ of creativity … literary, artistic etc. First, it rang a few bells as it seemed to echo something I have always felt … that we must use (not a good word here in this context, sorry can’t think of a better at the moment) our own personal ‘gifts’ to the full … otherwise we are denying our intrinsic selves, never mind anyone else.

Now we come to daemons! Quote from book … ‘The task of setting free one’s gifts was a recognized labor [he’s American remember] in the ancient world. The Romans called a person’s tutelar [guardian if you have to look it up like me] spirit his genius. In Greece it was called a daemon. Ancient authors tell us that Socrates, for example, had a daemon who would speak up when he was about to do something that did not accord with his true nature. …. The daemon comes to us at birth. It carries with it the fullness of our undeveloped powers. These it offers to us as we grow and we choose whether or not to accept to labor in its service … the spirit [daemon] who brings us our gifts finds its eventual freedom only through our sacrifice [to realise the gift], and those who do not reciprocate the gifts of their daemon will leave it in bondage when they die."

It is no longer often, in fact it is pretty rare, that I come across something that makes me sit up (and fail to go to sleep later) and think ‘now there’s a view of life that I feel that’s familiar and friendly, and needs thinking about’.

Now I am wondering about the shape of my daemon. However, I do know who must have a cat as a daemon!

Need to go and fill up my glass …

Storm!

There was a forecast of bad weather for today. At 9am it was not too bad, but bad enough not to try and take the ash out the door! So I decided we would not go to Lerwick for lunch with the Gibsons as usual. A good decision! By lunchtime there was a force 10 plus storm (100 mph recorded in Orkney and a little less here) blowing from the north. My wee gate/fence between the gardens was beginning to blow up in the air so I went out to weigh it down and quickly realised that it was in fact dangerous to be out there. I could hardly stand up and had to wrestle with the gate out of the garden.

I tried to take some photos through the window but the visibility was not too good! I can see where the phrase 'wave after wave' ... of attack, comes from. Looking out now, the half mile or so that I can see, are line after line of breaking waves with their tops sheared by the wind. The skerries are covered in white foam and the wind is whistling around the house, and somewhere the poor sheep are huddling behind a wall.

Surprisingly, the extension feels rock solid. The only problem is that the wind is creating a vacuum in the loft space and sucking up the hatch. Even with it left open several inches every now and again it lifts and begins battering away. I will need to fix a brick to its upper side!

Now, at 2pm, with the Orkney schools all shut and no ferries running, the forecasters say it will decrease to a severe force 9! Luckily, the tide seems to be at the bottom of the ebb at the moment so that the big waves are not at the top of the beach. By early evening when the tide is up, if the waves are still coming in as they are there may be damage to the Little Bousta track across the beach. It was in this sort of weather that I remember taking Sorley and Beth across the beach to get the school taxi, holding their hands to make sure they didn't get blown away!! Ah ... how boring this would have been in Forneth!

Poetry

I don't know if this will work but here are 3 poems just published in the Autumn edition of Northwords.

The St Kilda poem is basically the one I put in the NTS book. Bousta to Papa was the infamous boat trip just before Jamie was born; and Nightshift Offshore I wrote when working on the rigs. Hope you can read them!

Home and Away

Have to start with the get-together ... thanks Helen.

Can't believe it is 4 weeks since you were all here. I've printed this picture so that Mum can take it with her to Wastview. It was wonderful having you all here but the departures were a bit painful! Of course, since you have been we seem to have had a run of quiet, mild weather ... even good enough for walks up the road.

We had a busy week away, seeing Sorley, Wendy and Ben for a couple of nights; Stewart and Maggie, Nigel and Moira (and Louisa and Andy and Amy and Rowena, a very grown up 6 year old John and a bright and cheeky wee Lexie [had to look that up!]). Also went and saw Jim and our old friend Jean in the Borders. Took a few days to get back to normal and not sure that we will go south again soon.

At long last Victorians 60 Degrees North came out. As it was published by the Shetland Times there were embassassingly large fliers in the paper!

This was about half a page!

We also went up to Unst last week to get a photo taken with David Edmondston (last of the ...)

Anyway it is now out (I've sent copies to Craigievar, NZ and the US, and Paris[!]). I think the ST have done a very good job with it ... layout, print, pictures and paper.

And Maggie's cover has been commented on by many.

The signing yesterday went well ... about 60 signed for folk that didn't want to come and meet the author (maybe they had met me before!) and another 20 or so in the shop ... that's a start. Learned also that A Dream of Silver was still selling well (it's all relative, I keep telling myself David). Mum enjoyed herself too beside me.

I'll be doing an interview for Radio Shetland this week and will let you know when it it to be broadcast.

Our only other excitement this week was the absence of our neighbours who should have been back from a trip to the Mainland. Other mutual friends phoned us up to ask where they were and I emailed John to ask if everything was okay. Turned out that they were enjoying themselves so much touring around Scotland in the Indian summer that they decide to stay away for another week!

Final thoughts ... thank goodness England didn't win the World Rugby Cup!

The baby's lullaby

I spoke to May Fraser this morning ... Thomas Fraser's daughter who is heard crying on the Lullaby Yodel track. The crying is so well balanced on the track it sounds as if it was dubbed afterwards. I asked her this and she said no, just 'something I got right'. It was recorded when they were staying with a friend and he had nowhere else to record. She told me that they are still finding new recordings of his and hope another CD will be out next year! May works in the Peerie Shop and is a singer herself. She was delighted to hear that the Johnston / Durham / Armstrong family were keen fans.

Right now, we have a big hole in the track where Archie is putting in a cattle grid. Once that is done (in a couple of days) and I get a fence up there will be no more getting out of the car to open the gate in a cold, wet wind, and no more tiptoing around sheep shit. We'll be very happy and so will Cass the Post! I'm hoping some 'visitors' will soon help put up the fence!

Yesterday I collected a bagful of rowan berries from a neighbour's garden ... the owner's uncle had uprooted the tree when it was a sapling from a holm in a loch, so it is a native. I have given the Amenity Trust most of the berries but kept some for myself to try and germinate for the Bousta Forest.

Dykes and Dreams

We have had enough good days since Sorley left to get on with the terrace and walling. Now finished the corner of the wall and link to house (apart from a gate), built up the face of the terrace and sown grass (for the moment). You won't be able to see them but there is a set of (very uneven and ethnic) steps in the corner by the wall to access the grass bit. Outside the wall I have smoothed off the slope and sown grass there too. As you can see I (with Sorley's help when he was here) have been able to get rid of all the big rocks and debris. Once the grass has grown it will be fine. Going to concentrate now on the other retaining wall of the terrace which Sorley built. The rest of the garden wall is going to have to wait until I have finished the inside. In the meantime I have up a fence to keep out the sheep.

We had Rosa (of Lea Gardens at Tresta) and her partner, James (tree man) here on Sunday morning filling my head with ideas. In this climate I find it hard to visualise the results of their enthusiasm! James was here to give me advice on planting trees in the walled yard (where Sorley's 'chalet' will be) and mentioned that we might be in line for a Forestry Commission grant, so I am looking into that ... it will mean planting in the spring, which is a relief as there is so much to do!

Having crossed one Rubicon two weeks ago in getting a homehelp I am now on the shores of another ... one I have seen on the map but chosen to ignore until now that my feet are getting wet again! Rosa and James have persuaded me that if I am going to have a garden, vegetables etc., we must have a cat to keep out the rabbits! Apparently toms (neutered) are very good ... they have 7 (!), but then they have a couple of acres of garden, and hardly see the toms in the summer. So, next spring (see I am still putting it off) maybe we'll get a couple of (neutered) tom cats! Sorry Helen, maybe I should have warned you not to read that!

One of the great ideas that Rosa and James came up with is to turn one of the two ruined buildings into a plastic tunnel, simply (hardly) roofing it with polycarbonate. Maybe the other I can put a net over and grow soft fruit ... such is this vision of abundance. By then I (and my muscles ... I thought I was looking pretty muscular until I saw some close-ups of the Scottish rugby team) will probably have had enough of wall building, there won't be any stones left anyway at the rate I am going!

I knew there was a connection

Shetland's caribbean coffee!

Just a quickie while waiting for Mum's bus. Thought I would share this little joke. It's from a very special bean that likes cool, damp, windy climates. They have to be picked with pliers because of their tenacious grip otherwise they would all end up in the sea. How the Caribbean aroma is added I don't know, but it works.

On Sunday we have our gardening and woodland (another joke) friends, Rosa and James, coming over to advise on the new garden and yard ... planting of shrubs may take place this autumn but the rest will be next year. Fun to be at this stage, now I have only to finish the wall (!), which topic will be the subject of the next blog.

Yesterday was a historic one for us ... we had the house cleaned while we were out! Seems to work, now we just want someone to wash and iron the linen bed sheets every day.

By the way, the new owners of 24 Grant Street moved in this week, no more visits there. We are reminded here daily of Betty with a couple of pictures on the wall and particularly, the large Victorian settee which is even more comfortable than I remember ... I think I was on the edge of it most visits to Cullen.

Reading Matter

Yesterday I finished Acacia ... wondering what was the future? Would Corin meet some terrible end at the hands of her siblings, would her son/daughter wreak a hideous revenge or might he/she be the best of them all and because of his/her mixed descent be able to pull the world together again? Naw, David's imagination will have a different and more unexpected future awaiting. I saw a lot of references/comparisions to Tolkein and Lewis in the reviews (made some myself), but on finishing Acacia, Part 1, I am left with more of a taste of Dune.

Anyway, yesterday evening, after Mum had gone to bed, I scoured the shelves for something new to read, having now read all the (excess baggage) books I brought back from Colorado last autumn. I took just as many books from Betty's as I could reasonably carry last November, no one else seemed to want very many, so I had a look at them and lighted on On the Edge by Walter de la Mare (short stories published by Faber and Faber in 1930!), partly because it has some nice woodcuts. I almost did not get past the first sentence of Recluse, the first story ... "Which of the world's wiseacres, I wonder, was responsible for the aphorism that 'the best things in life are to be found at its edges'?" (which on reflection covers the antics of several generations and branches of this family). But I persevered and was soon wishing that it was a winter's night, it was dark, the curtains drawn and the stove was blazing. One extract that I would like to share concerns the repast the lost storyteller shares with the recluse in the latter's almost empty house he stumbles upon late in the evening (the housekeeper having gone home and his lifetime secretary having died a week or two previously) in some byway of rural England around 1905.

"Mr Bloom [the recluse] glanced over his shoulder into the corridor behind us. 'He has been a great loss,' he added. 'I miss him. On the other hand,' he added more cheerfully, 'we mustn't allow our personal feelings to interfere with the enjoyment of what I am afraid even at best is a lamentably modest little meal.'
Again Mr Bloom was showing himself incapable of facing facts. It was by no means a modest little meal. Our cold buillon was followed by a pair of spring chickens, the white sauce on their delicate breats adorned in a chaste design with fragments of cucumber, truffle and mushrooms - hapless birds that seemed to have been fattened on cowslips and honeysuckle buds. There was an asparagus salad, so cold to the tongue as to suggest ice; and neighbouring it were old silver dishes of meringues and an amber-coloured wine jelly, thickly clotted with cream. After the sherry champagne was our only wine; and it was solely owing to my abstemiousness that we failed to finish the second bottle."

At this point (around 11pm) I had to rush off to the kitchen and make myself a cheese and pickle roll and pour a glass of milk. I finished that story before sleep and look forward to the next shortly!

He had another lovely line where Mr Bloom points out the portrait of his sister on the wall ... "I glanced up at Miss Bloom; but she was looking in the other direction ..." That's a gem.

Actually, there is a bit of the David in that description and I would not be surprised to see a Mr Bloom, though which province he would hail from I'm not sure, appear in Acacia 2.

Walter de la Mare was a favourite poet of primary teachers in the 40s but I had never seen this Edgar Allan Poe side of him ... great fun ... needs a glass of whisky and some cold leftovers as an accompaniement.

Visit from Cragievar

I am re-reading Acacia, having read part of the ms, and enjoying it even more than the first time. In fact I am having difficulty putting it down ... definitely up there with Lord of the Rings. So, sitting late last night in our new room reading and getting up every now and again to watch the sunset, I was taken by the light on Ronas Hill ... I thought 'the Outer Isles at sunset or Vumu at sunrise'?

Sorley, Wendy and Ben were here for ten days, just leaving a couple of days ago ... oh, and Ella of course, a fine wee dog who, thankfully ignored the sheep and gratefully, caught a wee rabbit in the garden. A second one disappeared and later in the day Ella bcame very excited around the fridge in the porch ... yes, it was in behind and in the works. Managed to get it out. For those of a tender, rabbit-loving nature, I won't say what I did with them ... but they had been eating my precious lupins! Discovered I'm a real Mr MacGregor.

Ben seemed to enjoy himself and did a bit of cycling practise ...

strange, but lovely, to see him cycling where Sorley cycled 30 years ago at the same age!

We also went swimming at the Walls pool where Mum and I go weekly (weakly) in the winter ... Ben under the water, Mum out early.

Sorley also gave me a lot of help with the 'quarry', turning it into a paved yard. Here he's building the retaining wall againt the bank. We managed too to shift some very large stones and bury them in the bank on the north side of the house. And while Wendy was in the house I was able to get on with the wall.

Just before he left, Ben printed out a note which I have sealed in a bottle and buried in the wall.

The (music) cabinet under the TV houses all the hardware for the TV including the projector. Sorley did a fantastic job connecting everything. Now we can watch films on the screen from video, DVD or the TV ... and, more importantly, Match of the Day!!

As you can see, the new room is very comfortable ...

It was great for us to eat (and drink!) with some company and to have someone else cook too. Most nights we ate out in the porch, but on cooler nights we ate in the kitchen.

I think it was this evening that Mum came home from the Walls centre with two pieces of Pavlova she had made. So we had a competition for who would get them. The question was (going back to an interview with David that I had listened to) ... what, who, or where, was Gilgamesh? Ben won (by a good guess). Mum was second by default as while the competition was going on she had been quietly eating the second piece anyway!!

It was a great ten days and we finished off by discussing with Richard where we might erect a cabin/chalet ... exciting times lie ahead.

Visitors and Furnishings continued ...

It didn't take long for Andy to get his kayak in the water and paddle out of Bousta Geo. I was hoping he would tow some logs back for me from my driftwood beach but the weather was not good enough, and surprisingly, there were other things he and Louisa wanted to do.
When they all got back, the day of the carpet (which went down like clockwork in an hour and a half) I cooked tart and tangy beans (actually cooked a week before and unfrozen for the occasion) and the (Vivian) rhubarb and butterscotch (though some bits of the the rhubarb proved a little unyielding) which we had in the porch and then retired to officially open the extension. Louisa actually had some wine (which Andy regarded with raised eyebrows ... takes this baby thing very seriously) and Peter joined me in a dram. Just after they left we got the furniture from Betty's (less the desk which is still under repair and restoration after being damaged).
Yesterday (after moving books and videos) I set up the hi-fi equipment on the new bookshelves and here is Mum enjoying a Jamie compilation as I exit left for a bath! Somehow we are going to have to 'wash' the settee too to remove the smell of cigarette smoke! I have also just sent away for old (new)castors for the back, one of which is missing. We plan to put the TV on top of the music cabinet (which I think was another wedding present to my parents from Betty's father) and the DVD/Video machinery etc inside, along with the 'projector' which Sorley is going to install for us when he comes in a fortnight. We are waiting for a BBC freeview box to come next week and then Mum and I will move our evenings permanently into the extension ... can't wait, the old room feels so small and dark now. The new room is great, feels spacious and warm and has good sound qualities! Mum will now be able to watch me cooking from her rocker (where she at the moment waiting for me to tell her it is time for Lerwick)!

While everyone was here I had the ms of the book to do the index (clearly the Shetland Times have never done a book with an index before), 18 pages and 10 days to do it. This morning I will take it back to them and pray that now everything can go ahead and I don't need to think about it anymore!

The next task is to get a carpet down in the upstairs (double-)bedroom. Andy helped me get it upstairs, now all we have to do is empty the room (into where!?) and get the carpet down ... that's tomorrow's task whether the sun is shing or not.

Mum is clutching her hat (Gudrun, you may have noticed I have taken over the one you made for her ... maybe I'll ask Maya to make me a cardigan to go with it!) and gloves so it is clearly time to go.

Visitors and Furnishings

Mum's brother Peter flew up for a week from Stanstead on the Faroese flight (Atlantic Airways) only 165 pounds sterling and 1 hour and 20 minutes, luckily no fog either coming or going (Peter does not like the boat!). He is still busy promoting an American executive jet, playing tennis and golf. It was good to see him, we hadn't seen him for a year or so. He took Mum out for walks.

In the right hand side on the track you can just see him and Mum ... I was having a walk above Little Bousta from where I took this picture. He also took Mum up to Hillswick and Eshaness for the day when the carpet was being layed in the extension. On one of the days Mum was at Waas (Walls) I got him to help me turn the drying peats over ... not as glamourous as golf or tennis! We got the job done in half an hour.
Peter also took a nice picture of the 'old' sitting room ... you might recognise some of the pictures. This is the last time this room will look like this. Yesterday, when Mum was at Waas, I moved the books of the bottom shelf and put them in the extension, then moved nearly all the videos down ... a trifle dusty! We've been looking for a bed ... tried online but then most 'south' firms do not transport to the 'Scottish Islands', which is a pain, so we are into Lerwick this morning (en route to Richard and Victoria for lunch) to buy a bed. I can't make up my mind whether to buy a single, with a spare mattress underneath, or a double ... I guess we'll buy what is available! When Sorley comes we will move the kist and old settee through to the new living room.

The day after Peter came Louisa and Andy arrived. We went that afternoon to the Skeld Foy ... pretty chilly as you can see, wandered around and had some very tasty hot fish ... herring, organic salmon and cod, I think.

They (A&L) both looked very well and with Peter too we had a great time ... it was fun company. Also good food, Andy caught some brown trout and we had them as starters one night! Their car was jammed pack with equipment ... where they are going to put a baby I don't know ... with two long kayaks on the roof. They went off several times kayaking among the islands and seemed to enjoy themselves.

I have more pictures and will have to start a new blog ... watch this space!

Awaiting Carpet

It's so nice checking the blogs and finding out what - at least some of - you are doing! Beth and Sorley you must get a blog ... and we will get webcam (I promise). It's like getting the family paper ... news ... news ... news, and with pictures. (sometimes moving, and emotional). I am now addicted to David's blog (and all his great reviews which I am enjoying vicariously), watching the kids on Girl Cat; the Shetland Trader and these crazy American comments ... what adulation! I also love when Helen writes their blog and Jamie's literary/philosophical blog. I think I will discontinue the London Review of Books.

Finding the time is the problem, I know. Anyhow, it's 4pm, the extension is painted, shelves up, ready for the carpet on Tuesdsay; Peter's bed is made up; the house has been cleaned top to bottom; the grass is cut and I have made tart and tangy beans for the freezer to have when Louisa and Andy come. Peter comes tomorrow morning and L&A on Saturday (they are camping). So time to relax (well, I have actually had a snooze on the resting chair in the sun in the porch) and do the blog before I go and cut my hair, shave and bath, then I will be all nice for the guests. We just got David's book so it was a temptation to continue lying on the resting chair and start reading it again. I will, but will wait until the guests have gone, and until I have done an index for Victorians 60 Degrees North which the S.T. cannot do (they have just informed me).

Thought I would start with a wee picture of spring squill in flower down the road, the orchids are all out too (you might see one or two in the photo).



We are also waiting for Mary Gibbon's picture (in the post) which she did for us from a photo I sent her. You might think it strange to see Muckle Bousta without the garden walls (she thought it would look better without). Coincidentally, I was looking at old photos on the Lerwick Museum website and there is one of MB, taken in the 1950/60s before the garden walls were built and it is very like Mary's. We like the picture very much and it will be one of the first to be hung in the extension.

We had hoped that the carpet would have been laid earlier this week but were informed with days to go, and at least a month after ordering it, that the line had been discontinued! The shop (in Lerwick) were very upset too and told me to pick another carpet and if it was more expensive than the original one they would pay the difference ... lead me to your most expensive carpets! No, just chose another which is due on Tuesday am. Being optimistic (do I ever learn), I have asked for the furniture from Betty's to arrive in the afternoon (sofa, music cabinet, 2 upright chairs and the desk if it has been repaired). I can see what is going to happen ... there will be problems laying the carpet, it will be pouring with rain, the removal people are going to dump the furniture in the back garden!

We moved the shelves and books through from the small room and I have some book re-arranging to do (which will be fun). I was also able to take the books from Betty's, which I had hastily grabbed and stuffed in boxes, and put them on the shelves. I sat there the other evening, sipping a Mortlach, and looked through them. Prizes for Sunday school attendance to my Dad (1910); Waverly Novels that had belonged to Betty's great uncle in Glasgow (1890); Betty's father's bible, book of quotation and huge encyclopaedia; and some great poetry books Betty had bought in the 1940s ... lots to read! My father's desk will go in the corner where Mum is sitting so that I can look over it at the view.

As you can see we are already making use of the room. The sun (when it shines) pours into it in the afternoon and right through the evening until it sets (at 10pm at the moment). It's as warm as fresh toast!

Right outside the gate of the garden there is an oystercatcher nesting on the top of the wall (thinks it's a raised beach). It has got used to us now and doesn't move when we leave the house, but the chicks are going to have a big jump when they hatch!

Right, time for a bath.

Peat and Extension

I have discovered that if one tries to add further pictures (while writing the blog) to correct earlier errors, they appear at the beginning and not at the end as intended ... so this blog is kinda topsy-turvy, you will find.

In this first picture looking out of the new extension you will see the slot in the ceiling, above the door into the kitchen, where the film screen is going to go. You may also notice just how muck bruck I will have to clear up outside.

Well, you will see that I have not quite got the hang of removing one of two copies of the same picture! Nor have I found how to move pictures around once they are posted. Any advice welcomed.

At last the extension is getting near completion. All Archie, Andrew and David have to do now is to finish the woodwork (around windows/doors etc). Hopefully that will get done this coming week so that I can get in to seal the concrete, then paint, then get the book shelves up before the carpet arrives on the 12th June.

The yard is looking really good ... note the wall rising in the background, very slowly. I will have to face up the bootom of the slope where it meets the concrete flags with a low stone wall, then I will fill it in behind and grass it over ... that's the plan!

It was a lovely atmospheric day with bright sunshine and dark clouds ... thought you would like it. Plenty of sightings of the otters, though they are not popular with the Symmonds up the road as they have been seen walking off with their ducks. Alas though, no terns even attempting to nest on the skerry this year, we miss their crying. We do have a rather silly oystercatcher who has nested on top of one of the walls ... I hope the youngsters will be able to jump down safely when the time comes.
Managed to get our peats cut before the end of April and last week got them raised to dry. There is only one other (insane) peat cutter in Sandness now ... the rest of the population is much more sensible. Still, I get a lot of satisfaction and a bit of exercise.

This is a stereo (!) picture of the extension from the doorway into the kitchen, there is slate under and behind the stove. David finished cementing the doorway at the end of the week and I spent a couple of hours on Saturday morning cleaning every surface, including all the cups and dishes and pots and pans to get rid of the cement dust.

Dammit, I seem to have done it again! Help!

At the end of the month (31st), I have been invited to the opening of the New Shetland Museum. I believe Charles and Camilla are going to be there too. I will need to put on my suit again ... last time was for Jamie and Helen, but that depends on the weather ... I may have to wear keeperwear and boots ... which may just give me an introduction to C&M ... thinks, better take along a riding crop too.

Edmondstons' Victorians 60 Degrees North ms now back with the Shetland Times and planned to be out by the end of June ... when an editor tells you the 'end' of June, that means the beginning of July earliest. Still waiting to hear if Chapman and/or Dark Horse are going to take any poetry. Oh, and still waiting for other blogs to be updated.

April 2007

When we left for NZ I put some tulip bulbs in pots and left them in te most sheltered part of the garden. When we came back they were up and almost out. Somehow they had survived a 100 mph gale a couple of weeks before we got home, one of the worst apparently for several years. Glad I didn't know before! No damage done done to M Bousta but the Pedleys' road badly torn up. I tied up the tulips just in case after we got back and here's Mum enjoying them yesterday in the sun! Beth, I just pack them in at several levels into a pot to get a mixture, seems to work!

The weather has been sunny and dry for the last few days and promises to continue that way, though it is kinda cool. Anyway, made a start on the new wall ... can you see it among the debris in the middle? It will be 80cm wide and, it is my intention, 2m tall. There are some really big stones so it will be a slow job, but very satisfying!

We were sitting out in the garden again this early evening with a glass of wine. It was really warm sheltered in the garden and we were watching the twite (wee finches a bit like sparrows but not so domesticated) feeding on the seed we had scattered on the grass ... bit like watching budgies ... and listening to the curlews and oystercatchers, when a car pulled in. I thought it was going to be another prospective councillor on the hustings (election for MSP and local councillors on Thursday), we've altready had two, but when the gate opened it was the familiar, but slightly older figure, of Callan Duck! Sorry my shadow got into the picture!

He works on Seals from St Andrews and was up doing a quick survey ... harbour seals (as we have at Bousta) have fallen by over 50% in Orkney and up to 40% in parts of Shetland ... though they have not fallen around us. They don't know why but are looking for places and people to carry out weekly counts through the summer ... so I have volunteered. We had a great chat, you can imagine, about Rum and he was fascinated (and jealous) to hear where you all were ... sent his kindest regards ... told me he still wears the kilt he had when he was 14 but was down to the last button round the waist!

Still waiting for the proofs of Victorians Sixty Degrees North and heard that I got a good review for A Dream of Silver in the Scots Magazine ... that'll boost sales ... hmm, appropriately, listening to Thomas Fraser singing Somewhere over the Rainbow!

Mum enjoying her second day at the Centre, is always asking me when will be the next day she'll be going. Actually, it is tomorrow and if the weather is as good as today I will go up to the peat bank and start cutting, aching muscles relieved by the song of the skylark!