Summer

I don't remember a better June in Shetland. We have had a month of sunshine and warmth after a pretty good May too. Today, it's 22 apparently, too hot to be working outside in the afternoon. Judd told me that a neighbour of his could not face clipping his sheep in the heat of the day, so started at 10pm and finished at 5am!
All the little boats are tied up at the jetty and people are buzzing in and out in the evenings and at the weekends. The evenings have been brilliant with the sun setting at around 10.30pm, wonderful sunsets, mauve horizons and limpid sea.

The good weather seems to have suited the birds. There's a baby (rather gangly) oystercatcher at the front ... whose parents always remind me if I decide to have a stroll that way. The arctic terns have chicks too and the swans have cygnets on the lochs. Even Polly is finding it a bit hot!

The flags are flying at Bousta for Maya's birthday on Thursday!

I am on the last piece of the garden wall. Begun building up the end (with the good stones) where I will put a gate. When I am finished I won't be able to see the new house from the sitting room ... that's the plan.

Late the other night (around 11pm), a lone yachtsman passed through the Sound of Papa Stour.

The weather is set to stay for the week and I hope it lasts until Sorley and Ben come on Sunday.

Took an ice cream into Mum's this afternoon and we sat outside (in the central bit) while she took great bites of a Magnum and I tried to intercept the drips and flakes of chocolate. I think nshe enjoyed it.

It's the wall again

The weather continues fine, sun setting at 10.30 pm. Much delight yesterday, leaving Bousta a little overcast, going through low cloud and rain to Lerwick and back again, to enter Sandness and the sun is shining!

Now finished the north wall of the new garden, put down a lot more topsoil (from a great heap I had collected during the excavations for the extension) and sown grass. I have now laid the N-S base and started building ... two thirds to go. Halfway along I am dropping down a level and making a wee sheltered bit facing south (see picture) where one day I will sit ... might have to lie down ... under the shade of an aspen tree (from the local native supply, now growing in a pot and which I will plant next spring).

When this bit of wall is done I'll go back to finish the north wall in front of Sorley's patch.


The view from the terrace is getting positively suburban. I plan to grow lots of foxgloves and lupins against the wall facing south (like Mum had at Forneth) ... again, next year.

It seems the good weather is being reflected in the sea. Lots of terns nesting for the first time in years. Several on the beach and Skerry and one has chosen the track by the gate into Little Bousta. It is luckily not on the wheel track but right in the middle, which means that, to its great annoyance, it has to get up each time a car (and Cass) passes over. So it takes it out on the car and the driver when the latter has to get out to open and close the gate. I didn't know this at first and when working on the wall one day saw Cass waving some envelopes at me from the Little Bousta gate. I waved back but she ignored me. She was trying to fend off the tern!

Walls and walking

This was where I was at 29th May. The point where I start the dividing line between Muckle Bousta and Sorley's (eventual) house. A lot of debris and topsoil to shift, but not the monster stones which were laid on the old east-west boundary. By the time Sorley arrived I had just started the north-south boundary.

Sorley dug out the rest of the boundary foundation for me - which I will turn to after finishing the north-south wall between us, maybe later this summer. He also rolled some of the very large stones out of the heap for me (for the base). The ground is higher on the Muckle Bousta side.

I forgot - when Sorley asked me if I wanted to go walking anywhere - that I wanted to have a look at one of the Viking Energy (wind farm of circa 150 giant turbines) sites, which has just gone to the Scottish Office. The decision on Planning should come later this year. So I went to the easiest site at the top of Weisdale (the dale where Bonhoga is).

A lovely day again, met a birdwatcher and we listened to the whimbrel and skylarks. The hill is peat-covered, but on the summit there is much (deep - six feet plus) erosion ... from the weather and grazing.

Tomorrow is the last sunny day for the present. We've had a great spell ... I have been neglecting the book! So out on the wall again.