Well the snow came and went after a long lie on the ground. When I was driving to Brae only last Sunday there were still patches on the top of the hills. Unfortunately wishful thinking about that being the last of it were short lived as beginning last night heavy snow showers started landing on the bottom of South Mainland and in the morning the view from the window was completely white. Wife managed to struggle into work and rang me to report safe arrival but she said it had been an horrendous journey with cars skidding off the roads and there was a huge pile up somewhere on the main road. People just drive too fast, I am convinced of it. I am sitting here thinking I will just pop outside and do something and every time I look out the window it is completely white!!
More of the white stuff forecast for the weekend. Just hope our oil lasts a few more weeks. It seems to have gone down pretty quickly but then it was pretty cold. The snow mind you is not really the problem as the ploughs are out and there will be gritting later on. It is the wind which at time of writing is about F8 which is quite strong so the wind chill is unbearable. I didn’t even bother letting the chickens out until half nine this morning and even then it was bitter. Poor old things they have had a miserable time of it over the last four weeks, I think the hens are beginning to get cabin fever as the two of them were chasing each other around the run squawking at each other and when I did open the house to let them out they perched on the edge of the house and watched me clean the old bedding out and then promptly jumped back in! Still in one of the more clement patches of weather my friend John managed to fix the new house roof and I got hinges and screws so will be able to put the curved roof on and fix the netting in preparation for the new chickens!
One sad piece of news was that Nibbles (the hamster for those who follow this diary closely) didn’t wake up one morning. Well the vet said that he could be hibernating as if the temperature falls below 15c apparently they start to do this natural thing. Consequently I left him curled up in his bed for a day or two, the house was a constant 18c though so I was somewhat puzzled. Anyway we soon realised that Nibbles was in fact no more so was disposed of. Then Twitch came to join us, she was a bit older than him, and was lovely. Even my wife who has a pathological ‘thing’ about rodents actually YES! Actually held her and let her run around on her hands and liked her. But last week I came home from doing the mail run for the Town Hall and was informed by the 3Cs that Twitch was yes you’ve got it….hibernating! Oh bloody hell! It was quite obvious upon close inspection that she too had gone to join that big hamster wheel up in the sky…very sad. Middle C of course was absolutely devastated and in fact was so upset that he didn’t even want to go to see the Up Helly Aa procession and the galley burning which he always wants to go to see. So future hamster farm plans are out of the window for the moment.
Yes of course last Tuesday in January in Shetland is Tranny Tuesday sorry Up Helly Aa, that tradition that has been going since the mid 1800s where squads of men in Lerwick get dressed up in women’s clothing apart from the Jarl’s Squad who dress up as Vikings and look rather splendid. They march around with lit torches and tow a huge Viking replica longship which then gets incinerated and they all sing some jolly songs and then party all night long. I didn’t do the overnight party at the Town Hall but drove in early for the clean up and there were loads of very happy people staggering home, girls with their dancing pumps draped over their shoulder walking the proverbial white line! Lots of Vikings prowling the streets and there was a lockup garage opposite the Town Hall where a squad was partying on until at least about mid day. There must have been a lot of sore heads the next day! My wife and High C got tickets to go to the hall at Bell’s Brae and they went to watch some of the burning. They got home about half four in the morning as apparently a lot of my wife’s friends were there so she had a good time. High C was the party pooped one as she couldn’t keep up! They are good social events by all accounts and everyone looks forward to them.
Then in March this is all going to happen in Bigton when we have the very first South Mainland Up Helly Aa and the longship is going to be burnt in St Ninian’s bay, hopefully a) it won’t snow! And b) it won’t bloody blow a hurly or that will make it an distinctly unpleasant experience!! So we will be having a dance at our local hall and as I am on the Hall committee I shall be helping out in the kitchen or bar.
I have also been trying to organise editing of the Concert tapes but have met a bit of an obstacle in that the daily costs of doing such a thing would swallow up the charity money we have collected so far and also the tapes would need quite a lot of editing…still we shall get something done eventually. Talking of technology I bought myself a brand new state of the art phone which is brilliant. I got a blue tooth earpiece which is fantastic for when you are driving especially when I am on the mail run as literally it is all hands free! My neighbour though has got one of these Apple Touch Ipod which you can use for all sorts of applications and it links automatically with your wireless internet so you can transfer photos and go onto Facebook. Amazing what you can do now with technology.
My wife started her new job in town a couple of weeks ago and seems to be enjoying herself. She is working for a major garage chain in the office and doing normal hours! So the children have her home in the weekends which is good for them. They get to go swimming with her after school at the Clickermin Leisure Centre.
I hope to be able to get a lot of my seeds in the propagator and started ready for the garden when I get back. I really have loads of work to do in the garden this year. New raised beds and also I am going to have a major fight back against chickweed this year so have purchased some heavy weed deterrent fabric to lay on the ground and then will just make holes to put the plants in. Of course naturally I am going to have to secure that with battens so it doesn’t end up blowing in the general direction of my friend in California!!! I plan on having another big cold frame in the garden and have some proper windbreak material to put up. Might actually even get to plant some flowers this year? Bloody mice dug up all my crocuses and ate the bulbs just leaving the stalks lying on top of the soil so that was a bit annoying!! Anyway more of this next month. Toodle pip and enjoy your weather wherever you may be?!!
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