We live here!

The snow and the weather has been dramatic and wonderful.  While we've got visitors there's not much time to relate stories - but here are some piccies.

Morning

Everyone arrived safely, the school is closed so we can all be together - happy days.

Waiting for Tadg

Red sky in the morning

One day, when I grow up, I'll work out how to get this camera to take really good piccies that really show you the drama of the skies.

This morning the whole of the sky was pink, red or orange, solidly in the east and streakily in the west.  The snow covered hills in the west stood proud like, erm, big globs of pink blancmange (*and **).

Shepherds warning - and sure enough it has now started to snow.  Our visitors fae Dunbar overnighted in Inverness and hopefully will be here around lunchtime - Snow Ploughs willing.

* Note to self - dump the poetic aspirations

**  In Old French, blancmanger was a noun that simply meant 'food'.  I can't imagine a less appropriate meaning for todays blancmange.

Rebecca The Heroic

We have been delighted to welcome Rebecca to our humble abode this weekend.  She made it, all the way from Auchtermuchty.  The usual route was closed at Crask, so she had to get here via Thurso.  The question now is - will she ever leave?  Although most of the snow has cleared it is very icy (there's solid blocks of ice on the inside of the double glazing this morning).  Once she's on the main roads it'll be OK - but it's the mile or so to the road that's the problem.  In particular there is a 10m stretch of 2 inch thick ice at the top of Paddy's Brae.

Last night Jussi and Rebecca set to mending the goat coats.  You'll notice (from the scant dress) how warm it was in front of the roaring fire.  In fact we recorded a staggering 17.8C at the time this picture was taken.

Our visitors from Dunbar have confirmed their intention to get here.  They've phoned to say they left at 6am this morning and, four hours later, have almost made it to the outskirts of Dunbar.  I hope they were joking.

Moseying the blogosphere

Since God continues to sneeze into his cocaine, there's little to do* except wander the digital back roads.

Here are a couple of things that've entertained me of late.  This three minute video is astonishing.

I found it through this joyous celebration of the spineless - there are lots of other links worth exploring in it too.  Thanks to Lulu for sending me the link.

In a completely different vein I found this to be a fascinating set of writings.

Meanwhile, as I was lying in bed this morning, I felt waves of smugness washing over me.  Not my smugness you understand, but the smugness of Chelsea Tractor owners who, with all this weather, must be feeling all self-justified about their anti-social ways.  

This invasion of smugness was so pervasive that I had to get up (bedroom temperature 6.1C this morning (42F)) and have a shower.  After the shower I opened the bathroom window while I got dried.  The not so gentle waft of breeze carrying little hail stones was erm invigorating.  I feel cleansed.

*OK - there's lots to do but it's very hard to find the motivation to do it.

Skools out

The school is closed again today.  But the snow is yukky and the ground wet.  Not too pleasant really.

Meanwhile we're on tenterhooks.  Will our visitor arrive from Auchtermuchty tomorrow?  Will our visitors arrive from Dunbar next week?  Will we be able to get to the shops so we can feed our visitors next week?  Mmmmm.

We have to concede that it is highly unlikely that our concrete will be curing properly - even if the hay was insulating before - now there's a sort of freezing thaw I doubt it's doing it's job.  What do you do with crumbling concrete?  Will we be able to sell the crumbling stuff as poor mans pumice?

Will my toes ever be warm again?

It's snow time!

Well it's hit us at last.  It doesn't look that impressive but it was enough for the school to close.  This meant I had to go sledging with Ailsa.  Well worth giving up work for.

And while we're at it

Here is a piccy of a stolen tree and a piccy of our kitchen.  

We're hording straw - sometime in the next few weeks we have to completely muck out and clean down the stables in preparation for kidding - and then lay a good depth of clean straw.

We pay a premium for small bales - but it's a lot easier to handle.  We buy large round bales when we can use them straight away or when we have the space to unbale and store them - but we can't store round bales. 

Romantic visions

After Lulu's comment about wanting more piccies - we've had an email from a certain gentleman requesting pictures of the lean-to construction.  So here are some piccies - Lulu of course meant more piccies of goats and we're a bit nervous of responding to the certain gentleman because we fear he'll point out all the errors were making.  But hey.

Positioning piccies amongst text is far from easy in the blog programme (and for some reason I've lost the ability to change font - so that's the corporate house style blown!).  But here is:

A positioning shot - 

looking up our new fence towards our new gates.  The lean-to will be on the right.

An ariel shot of the work so far and a somewhat seasickness inducing closer view.  

All we've done is make 

three holes for the front of the lean-to and half filled them with cement.  These will be were we'll eventually place the timber posts that will support most of the structure.  

We didn't build forms - other than packing with good sized stones.  Once these have set we'll build proper forms along the foundation trench.  Most of this trench runs directly onto bedrock, where it's not bedrock it's on what in my archaeological days I called 'natural' - and it's compacted glacial sands with large erratic inclusions.*

Block work.  

When the foundation trench is cured, we intend to build it up with block work - to - oooh I dunno - yay high - and then the wooden structure will be built onto that (and securely fastened to it).  There are lots of blocks kicking about, but one source will be the gable end of the nissen hut that collapsed in the autumn.  

On dry days I entertain myself with lump hammer, bolster and wrecking bar breaking up the sections of wall and trying to clean off complete blocks to be re-used.  Part blocks might be beaten to a pulp to provide a foundation for the flooring of the lean-to - or they might border some of the smaller raised beds or I might make a 1:50 model of the Taj Mahal.  You never know.

*Does that sound impressive?  I don't know what I'm talking about really.

Big Gob

It's...erm... just started to snow.

No snow

We don't want snow - I mean we need the weather to stay reasonably warm for the concrete.  But apart from that a bit of snow might be quite nice.  I mean what's the point of coming all the way up here and not getting snow?

No doubt our time will come.

Meanwhile there's lots of pretty piccies of snow on the blogs I look in on - and the news coverage of the weather has me in stitches every night - the most entertaining thing that's been on telly for many a year.

I mean live coverage from Council gritty lorry depots and empty hospital car parks - it doesn't get any better than that.

Goatlings in Training

Four of my goats in kid are first kidders. They're going to have a bit of a shock when it comes to milking. I've asked around and apparently you can help them along quite a bit if you practice before the event. So I've started their training.
The first thing is to get them used to the milking stand. With Simon's help I managed to separate one at a time from the rest of the herd and coaxed her onto the stand with wee tastes of treats with a bucket of treats waiting to be eaten on the stand. The main problem was keeping the rest of them happy when they could clearly hear some eating being done. Simon sang to them which seemed to keep them occupied. And they all did beautifully. I'm so proud of them!
Hopefully, after a few more sessions like this, they'll be happy with the stand and I can start locking them into it. Once they've learnt not to mind being locked in, I'll start stroking their back legs so they get used to me rummaging around there. The plan is that they will learn not to kick when I milk them. Here's hoping!

Cuddling aggregate

Never ever ever lay concrete when it's cold.  By cold we mean temperature averaging below 5C over a three day period, and with no half day period being over 10C over a 7 day period.

But if you must then do things like cuddle your aggregate, use hot water and wrap it in a nice warm electric blanket.

But never lay concrete when it's freezing.

Anyway - whatever - we've laid the first part of the concrete foundations for a lean-to.  The forecast is it'll not freeze - and we've got it all wrapped up in slightly rotting hay so hopefully we'll be OK.  It's not as if the foundations need to carry lots of weight anyway.  And we're in a hurry.

If we've got it all wrong, instead of something hard we'll have something crumbly and we'll have to start again.  We'll know in a week or so.  

Civil unrest

While the rest of the world riots over the economic crisis and the use of foreign labour, here in the highlands we can see the first signs of our special home grown riots.  Spring is getting closer.

Five pines and a ton of cement

On Saturday we went to get some hay from a man in New Zealand.  On the way we passed a plantation of Scots Pine and we stopped off to stretch our legs.  I guess the pines were twenty years or so old and we busied ourselves picking up fresh wind-fallen twigs and branches for the goats.  But then I noticed that some there were a few rooted seedlings.  Now this might be theft - but I reckoned these little trees had no value and really, were just getting in the way - so they are now transplanted onto our croft where hopefully, in years to come, they'll provide shelter from the wind and treats for the goats (they love 'em).

After getting a round bale into the van we headed off and got a ton of mixed gravel and sand, and five bags of cement, several old pallets and other 'useful' bits of wood.  All this makes for a heavy van - but it managed up and down the steep hills with absolutely no problem.

This week we'll get the footings set for the lean-to we're building for the goats.

Death of a friend

We've learnt, rather belatedly, of the death of one of the regulars featured in this blog.  He died on January 7th (Old New Years Day) after a short viral illness, according to his obituary in the local newspaper.

We liked him, he was encouraging towards us and what we are trying to achieve, and we will miss him greatly.

He features in this blog, sometimes obliquely, in Friday Night 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 13, 14.  (If you want to read them the quickest way is to search for Friday Night).

He was a good man.

Friday Night 17

Local conversations were dominated by news of yet another crofter being banned from driving due to being caught drunk behind the wheel.  This will make crofting virtually impossible for him, and life in general, for him and his family, extremely difficult - there's not much you can do up here without the ability to jump into a car.  There was little sympathy for him and it didn't stop customers having a few and then driving home.

Meanwhile we met some new characters - including a man hailing from 'Ull and a man who is not a freemason.  Not a Freemason was under the impression all managers are freemasons - and wasn't at all happy about it.  

It was clear that Not a Freemason is held in high esteem by all the assembled - we caught him at the end of a fairly long binge session - and he was clearly not at his best.  His drunkeness made him over-familiar and unaware of personal space, which is fine - you'd never enter a pub around here if you were sensitive to this - but it was a bit over-bearing (I mean hand on thigh, forehead presssed into cheek).  Especially when he moved onto the whisky - whilst merrily telling us that he never drinks whisky cos it makes him violent.  But he remained good humoured enough - and determined to show us his ballet moves - until his friends dragged him off home while the pub furniture was still intact. 

Polemic

Some English Govt health watchdog advisory thing  has come out with a direction that children up to the age of 15 should not have any exposure to alcohol.  This will apparently stops kids knocking back cider behind bus shelters and generally being a pest to a society that increasingly shows no tolerance to anything that steps out of line.

There was a Govt spokesgit on the box last night telling how alcohol at such a tender age induces brain damage, liver damage, disruption of growth and sex hormones.  This may be true - but it's all about risk management innit?  But I guess the bottom line is that I don't see how such directions will do anything other than encourage kids to drink cider behind bus shelters, confuse parents and generally garner parental anguish.  Surely a bit of alcohol under the guidance of parents is more likely to engender responsible drinking, and more likely to lessen the cool of the bus shelter bar?

But the impact of these directives and scare mongering is far greater and insidious.  Nearly all of us got pished in our teens - and we're fine thanks.  So the Govt undermines it's authority when it spouts this shite.  Why should we believe the safe sex message, the five a day message, the cut your speed message, the global warming message when such statements about the health impacts of underage drinking are so very distant from our daily experience?

And another thing - such pronouncements give moral authority to the snooty, to those who want to condemn errant behaviour too quickly and it just adds drive to the journey towards intolerance misery.

And anyway - how are you supposed to get a kid to sleep if you can't give 'em a dose of gin?

Business Opportunity

The soonest we can get appointments for an optician is May. 

Construction

We need to build a lean-to on the stables to give us a little extra room when it comes to kidding.  It's taken a long time to decide how to create the extra space but we've finally settled on this solution and work has started clearing the soil for the floor and walls.

The lean-to will be built on a slope and most of it will be directly onto bedrock - these pose their own problems not generally covered in the reference books, how to guides and web discussion fora we are turning to for advice.  We are also getting much needed help and moral support from Christian.

Of course it is the woman of the house who is in charge of all this - given that I'm useless when it comes to building things (I'm very good at destroying things though).  I know there is lots of hard work to do and I am waiting for instruction and direction but we're at a bit of a frustrating hiatus - not quite sure what needs to be done, and what order to do it in.  I want to get moving.

Meanwhile I'm looking at polytunnels.  There are lots of criteria to determine what polytunnel to get.  My original thinking was to get as big as I could possibly manage - if you're going to all that trouble may as well make it big trouble (and big rewards).  Having looked in detail at the excellent First Polytunnels website my ambition is shrinking - maybe it's better to start with a small one and learn what's involved before going for the drive-in model like.

But we've got ourselves into a situation where there's two construction jobs needing to be done at the same time and with similar urgency - although of course animal welfare has to take precedence.  Bad planning.  And there's a million other things to do as well of course.

Sunrise 08:32 Sunset 16:28

We've had a good spell of reasonable weather - and with the longer days it's almost feeling summery.  Albeit summer in thermals.  But it's good - the days are getting longer and we can really feel it.

Been to get straw today - from a man in New Zealand.  Fortunately his farm is in Caithness - which saved a bit on diesel and meant we could get back home before Ailsa.

Sixty willows

Lulu and Christian brought with them goat food.  Off-cuts of willow and pine.  Well willow is too valuable to feed straight to goats and I've spent the last two days cutting shoots and stuffing them in the ground in the hope that a few of them might take root - then we have everlasting goat food.

It'll be a miracle if they do root.  We planted some rooting willow twigs last autumn - they didn't survive - ravaged by wind and sheep.  The sheep we've now cleared off and the effect of the winds will be lessened by tying them to fence posts.  I have some reservations about the wisdom of encouraging trees to root next to fence posts - but we'll worry about that if any survive.

I've planted sixty 'trees'.  If one survives I'll be delighted.  If more survive I'll make a new log basket.

 

But can you plant pine in the same way?   I've just about exhausted planting spots, but I'll find space for a couple of pines if it looks like they might stand a chance.

Visitors

We had visitors at the weekend.  It was great.  They brought us chocolate, willows, pies, pines, wines and cheesey sticks, and laughs and criticism and helpful advice and promises to return. And they were very kind about my homebrew, my stew and my cabbage patch.  They were less kind about my wood pile and the aesthetic appeal of my raised beds but hey.

Good times.

Friday night 16

A quiet evening with all the usual characters absent.  There was life though so it was OK.  We learnt a new word - Golloch - seemingly a friendly term applied to people hailing from Caithness (which most locals tend to pronounce as Caitness).

I'm sure it's Tolkiens influence - but Golloch doesn't sound very savoury does it?

"And the pantry shelf came rattlin doon and he wis lying care-nae-mair,

Saft soap, paysmeal, coornflour 'n yearnin

Like a golloch amang treacle bit McGinty's wife wis girnin

At the sotter on her pantry flair and widnae let him be"

'Horny Golloch' is a Scot's name for an earwig - so perhaps Golloch isn't all that friendly a nickname.  Last night we spoke to a man who proudly proclaimed that his grandfather was known as Golloch because he came from Caithness.

Whatever - I think it's a great word.

Shock horror

I mean yer goes to the pub and gets home and sits in front of the telly to eat a late tea and SHEEEEET - that's me!  Roughly 2mins 12secs in - there I am  - a dashing digger in blue shirt.  Quite a fright.

Yay!

Another follower of the blog has responded to this.

Nice one Chris.  The thoughtfulness of this gift set amongst all the complaints of flat batteries  and push starting vehicles (I had to jump start the van on Wednesday in fact) is beyond measure.

Wonderful Chris - thank you very very much!!

I'm off to fit it in the van NOW!

Wind? What wind?

The UK wind speed database estimates an average wind speed here of 6.2 m per second.  That is plenty windy enough to make a wind turbine a useful proposition and it's long been an ambition of ours to get a decent sized turbine on the croft - to power the house and dairy with a bit over to export to the grid.

The usefulness of the proposition doesn't really extend to financial viability.  We've always reckoned that if the turbine has paid for itself by the end of it's useful life we'd still go for it - cos it's what we want to do.  There are grants that we should be able to access which might even swing the balance to make the turbine A Good Idea.

So we had (an expensive) visit from a geezer to assess the site viability and to discuss siting options yesterday.  We await his report but our discussions have thrown up a fair amount of doubt about the wisdom of the enterprise.  It's mainly about topography and turbulence.

And said geezer wants to sell us a turbine - so he can glibly state that, although there's not a perfect place for the installation - it'll still be worthwhile.  But it's not his £20,000 or so is it?

We really want a wind turbine.  I'm worried about letting the heart rule the head.  And I'm wondering how we're going to be able to assess the site report when we get it.

So I'm wondering if we need to lower our sights - currently we're thinking of a 5 or 6kW installation - but maybe we'd be wiser to go down to 2 or 3kW? Mmmmmmmm. 

Mmmmmmmmm.

Empire building

If I'm a tax payer, and the tax payer owns 70% of Royal Bank of Scotland, and Royal Bank of Scotland own thousands of bad mortgages in sub-prime America - does that mean that I own some bits of America?

How exciting.  We should be told.  Some of the properties might even have soil.

Maybe all the properties with stakes from RBS, Barclays, HBOS and all the rest in the US should be ordered hang a union jack - manufacturing said flags might be a useful economic stimulus for Mr Obama, though I don't suppose anyone can actually work out who owns what in this credit crunch mess.

Still it's quite fun - looks like the Boston Tea Party was a waste of time after all.

Wouldn't you be better painting?

We had a visit from an old timer yesterday.  He cooed over the goats and wandered the property pointing out the good things we've done and looking askance at others.  He was a master of the one liner - but the best - after hearing about goats cheese - is quoted in the title. 

Sunrise 08:48, Sunset 16:07

All those threats of weather - well it never really happened.  I mean it was windy and all, but nothing like as bad as we'd feared.  But Sunday morning saw a new type of weather - something I don't think I've seen before and I think I'll call it driven frost.   A very strong, dry wind, blue skies and streaks of black ice seemingly driven in on the winds.  Strange monkey.

We are finding the winter tough.  The cold, the wet and piercing cold, is draining; but it is the wind that that niggles yer inner sense of calm and really does the damage.  Combine the two and it saps.  It saps our sense of vision and purpose and every now and then we'll look back and realise that days have passed without achieving anything.

But our spirits remain high.  There's progress - plans for the house have been submitted - we seem to be getting closer to getting the grazing rights we are entitled to (I could write a book on these adventures) and things like heating plans, and wind turbine plans are beginning to come together.  The goats are doing surprisingly well and all in all things are good. 

The consultancy work I've been doing is enjoyable and we're extremely grateful for the money - but it has it's negative side too - I find it difficult to do that work and maintain vision of life here.  And it took too many days to pull myself back here after the work I did over Christmas.  Of course Jussi is affected by my slumps as much as I am by hers.  The best way out is for us to attack some job, together, that's been hanging over us - and last week we started on building a lean to for the stables - something to give us a bit more flexibility during and post kidding in March.

Jussi is now bouncing around with renewed vigour and vim - as infectious as the slumps are - and it feels like things are moving again.  

We have two sets of visitors coming up in the next few weeks, and another making good noises - and this definitely helps on the morale front.  Just the mere thought of it provides hope and motivation.  But most of our friends are a very long way away - and getting them up here is a big ask.  Fortunately, many of the visitors we've had are lining themselves up for repeat visits - heartening by their physical presence as well as for the vote of confidence - people who visit like it!

Sometimes our resolve is sapped by the need to make decisions.  To say we sit like rabbits in headlights in the face of these dilemmas instills too much of a sense of dynamism.  It's more like sitting in front of a boulder; staring at it, wishing it would roll away, but doing nothing about it.

There  are two opposing but equally valid approaches to these situations.

First is reminiscent of advice a friend gave me when I was appointed as a Chief Exec.  She said - "You'll be confronted by the need to make hundreds of decisions, and you'll rarely have the information you feel you need to make the right choice.  Just decide anyway - hopefully you'll be right 80% of the time - a far better option than inaction and procrastination."  That is some of the best advice I've ever had and it stood me in good stead in the adrenaline fueled world of work. It's harder to apply when there's less urgency.

Second, and antithetical, is to accept that the inability to act is a product of the lack of necessity to act.  The time for that decision has not yet come - let the boulder sleep!  We spend a lot of time looking too far ahead and trying to make decisions we don't need to make yet.  Let it lie, its time will come.  You have to consciously realise this though, and consciously put it away - otherwise it just sits and eats you from within.  And to reach that level of consciousness I find I have to sit down and think - 'What do I really want to achieve, what do I really want to do?' .  If that doesn't remove the decision, go to the first way and decide anyway.

There's no great insights here - but even the obvious gets obscured by falling spirits.  But just now Jussi the Vim is bouncing around behind me, impatient to get out there and do some foundations so I'll crawl out from under me arse and go do it!

A good use of eleven minutes

Sit back and, erm, enjoy

Thanks to Mike the Bike for the link

Epic is born

So here we have it.  A mammoth raised bed planted with trees (no really - look again).

The planting plan - for my reference as much as your interest is, from right to left, front to back

Apple Stirling Castle, Apple Red windsor

Pear Gorham, Plum Victoria (blue string)

Plum Majories seedling (blue string), Pear William Bon Chretian

Apple Ribston Pippin, Apple Discovery.

Before I get hordes of complaints - the trees are secured with tree ties - but the tree ties are secured by string.  

Yes I know they are planted too close together.  Local wisdom is that you'll never get fruit trees to thrive up here - but if you plant them close together - they might give each other enough shelter to allow some growth, and some fruit.  I guess this is a bit like sheep huddling against the wind.

The pears in particular are 'experimental' - a term insisted upon by the vendor - he doesn't think they stand a chance.

Regular and active readers might spot that the raised bed faces East - with a swathe of trees blocking in the West.  This was a difficult decision.  Fruit ripens in the warm afternoon sun - in the west.  But our vendor was insistent that we had to protect the trees from the winds above all else - and mostly our winds approximate from the west - so the need for shelter has taken precedence over the need for sun.  Mmmm.  Not sure about this myself.

Credits: - 

Changeworks - especially Laura and Daniel.  Thank you guys - the light on the piccy is quite Changeworksy don't ya think?  

Tom - sterling work my man.

Malcolm and Helen, who, possibly unknowingly, gave me the inspiration to get on with it.

Jussi - for having a quick chat with a man with a digger - when I wasn't looking.  It might still  be not finished had it not been for that intervention.

Butterworths Organic Nursery

(Kate Winslet might like to know that I'm available for coaching sessions).

Weather forecast

Town mouse is wont to refer to the refer to the BBC weather centre as the Terror Centre.  Well she's right today - we're forecast to have winds gusting up to 90 mph (145 kmph) tomorrow night.

Terror indeed.

90 minutes

Our second one.

It came in the middle of the Simpsons - much to Ailsa's displeasure - but she soon warmed to the novelty of doing her homework by candle light.

It was caused by a pole burning out in the valley.  The temporary solution was to set up a generator on a neighbouring croft feeding this spur of the line.  That it only took 90 minutes to get a team of workers here and fix up a solution I think is quite amazing. 

BIG LOVE!

Wow - I mean look at this.  All the way from the USofA from someone I've only ever talked to through blogs.  Thank you Petra!

It's a response to these cheeky posts and remembers this.  Petra has finished her 52 week marathon of recording everything she ate in 2008.   She says it's been fun - but not always - and setting off for a special restaurant meal only having to return because she's forgotten her camera must have been a pain!   But I've taken a somewhat masochistic joy in drooling over what has been an astonishingly varied and exciting diet.

Amongst her reasons for doing this was a recognition of a greater need for mindfulness - an awareness of what we eat that has vanished in our consumerist age - so detached from the land and the source of our food.  I think it has been a wholly worthwhile mission.  Here are a couple of examples why.  

But Petra's blog has also provided a distraction for her  from 'an insanely intense job that threatens to swallow me whole'.  And I've always been able to read her blog against that back-drop, and it's helped me to stay with the importance of what I'm doing and how right it feels. 

Meanwhile I'm stunned by the thoughtfulness and generosity of this little gift.  Slightly tinged by guilt - but only slightly!

And so this morning after breakfast we broke into the bacon flavoured chocolate bar. (I thought maybe we should sprinkle it over some fried eggs - but Jussi wasn't having it!)   The taste is very clever - the salt with the sweet works a treat - although embedding bits of chewy bacon in smooooth chocolate is a little too bizarre for me.

The other bar - dark chocolate with green cardamom, walnuts and dried plums - will sit until the temptation of it is too much.  A real treat.

Thank you Petra and Ritesh.

Special days

I'm supposed to go shopping in Thurso today.  Just now I can't be bothered - so I've been piddling about on the web.  Including google analytics.

There was a huge burst of hits to this blog on January 5th.  What's so special about Jan 5?   I asked myself.  Oh yes of course - for most it was the first day back at work after Xmas.

Good to know my readership is so hard working.

In praise of gaman

There's a general disdain towards, and a failure to understand  people who withstand hardship 'unnecessarily'.

I don't seek out hardship, but when it comes I'm not afraid of it and I will quite often enjoy it.  A couple of examples: here and here.  That last one - see the comment from Daniel - "is it worth it?".  I couldn't understand that - there was such pleasure in what I was doing.

But I've discovered a name for my attitude to hardship (erm - often anyway).  Here is an excellent post from an American in Japan.

Sunrise 09:00, sunset 15:49

It's a batten down the hatches day.  Strong winds forecast for the whole weekend (gusting to 70+ mph).  On the plus side it is much warmer than of late.  In fact this is the first time in weeeeeks that I'm not wearing thermals.

I had to go to the shop to get milk before breakfast, setting off around 8:30.  The whole of the eastern/southern sky was flaming.  This is the best piccy I could get - but it doesn't really do justice to the scene.

Friday night 15

Culture:  way of life, customs, traditions, habits

Many years ago I attended a night class at Edinburgh University all about Scottish culture.  The course was run by a poorly disguised rabid scottish nationalist and for him Scottish culture was all about the bizarre funerary rites exhibited by early 20th century Orcadians and the like.  One night the class disintegrated into mayhem as one of my class mates challenged the tutor about what culture is.   My classmate asserted that deep fried mars bars and a curry after a skinful on Saturday night had far more to do with Scottish culture than the bygone rituals the tutor's head was full of.  

I was reminded of this last night.  There were about 10 customers in the bar, all men.  General C*nt held sway.  He was complaining because some 'silly bugger' had offered him a job and he was supposed to be working tomorrow.  But he wasn't going to turn up - Friday night was for drinking "I'd much rather drink myself stupid tonight, shit ma bed, and then get up to work on  Sunday."

The assembled nodded.  The younger members of the group we're clearly impressed - this lifestyle was something to aspire to.

Of course there is more to culture hereabouts than gets reflected in these Friday Night posts, but for a significant minority this is about as cultured as it gets.

We left the pub as a hapless young couple on holiday from Suffolk entered the bar.  I could see a night of entertainment ahead but we had to go, but not before witnessing another aspect of local pub culture I've seen many times before - and that is to always claim to know the hometown of any tourists who wander in.  I've seen this applied to Iceland, northern Holland, industrial Germany, Dunbar, and even rural Suffolk.  It's a welcoming trait.

Font change

I'm on Safari.  Now I don't understand these things but the blogging experience on Safari is much more user friendly than the blogging experience on Firefox.  And the fonts are different.

Hiding under bushes

That last post - from Jussi. She doesn't post too often and I was surprised to see her doing it this morning.  I thought the post would be something like this:

We had a visit from a couple of experienced goat keepers yesterday.  They are lovely people and the first goat people I've ever met to whom the word 'mad' would be inappropriate.  Just lovely people.  Maybe its because they don't look after goats anymore - it must be a madness that wears off.

Anyway after the coffee and chat and the last of the Christmas cookies we all went up to see the goats - and my! were they full of compliments.  Goats in super condition, stables well kept, feet well trimmed - glow glow glow they did.

So although Jussi wrote about the moon this morning - it was really a sign of being over it.  The moon like.

The Moon

The morning moon is back! Over the past few weeks it was either new - i.e. not there at all - or had already set, so my mornings were very dark. I hadn't anticipated how much difference it would make - even a skinny moon with cloud cover will give enough light so that I can go up to the croft without wandering off the road.

And as I was sitting, basking in the moonlight, wondering whether I'd still see the odd shooting star - woosh! I was too delighted to make a wish.

So here's to the return of light mornings!

Fire fighting foxes, ethical purchasing and carbon rich holidays

How much does it cost the BBC to have a live link to a journo standing by a partially frozen lake near Leeds? Deridable is a word I rarely use - maybe because it's not a word. But really.

Meanwhile it is cold - and lighting fires is a key skill. My favoured starting point is the Sunday Herald - not the Gaurdian. And I have a pretty good success rate. The problem I've got just now is keeping the fire going once it's lit - and this I put down to ethical purchasing. As I've mentioned before there is a local community forest. It grows shite wood and sells it as shite logs which make for shite fires. I mean the wood is so light it virtually floats up the chimney on the strength of the draught - and that spaced out cell structure makes it jolly good at absorbing water. So it tends to sit in the grate steaming to itself.

In such conditions a copy of the Northern Times is essential. A good old fashioned starved-of-investment, unencumbered-with-content local rag, read by everyone and still in broadsheet format - so it's big enough to cover the fireplace and create a draught for nurturing reluctant fires.

Meanwhile Firefox is really dogging me. It keeps crashing. I've completely re-installed it and it still crashes so I think I may be off on Safari soon.

Sunrise 09:04; Sunset 15:42

Jussi insists that these minutes are making a difference.

We've just broken out of a spell of sub-zero and returned to a bit windy, bit cold, bit cloudy, bit wet - the normal in other words.

But hey - it's a new year and a good time to reflect on the old ways. Dunbar Edinburgh commute now costs £140:20 per month. That's scorching! A quick check shows all virgin trains running late today as per usual. It's good not to be there. Even though I really really wouldn't mind a Lennie bacon roll just now. Really really really. Really. Shoe String* bacon roll.

But I'm sitting next to a bowl - the penultimate bowl - of Jussi's christmas cookies. Life is good.

Bacon roll.

* Shoe String - the name of the cafe at Dunbar Station. Go visit.

Hello

OK - so the consultancy work is done - not quite dusted - I've sent off draft reports and they may need tweeking. Ailsa is back to school - and now I feel like I need a break! But at least I should be able to find time to blog a bit more.

The lady I previously reported as having a fall is now in Wick hospital with complications. "As well as can be expected" is the latest useless report we've had. She had been in the Raigmore in Inverness and was very unhappy about the transfer to Wick. Why? Its phone number is 60 50 50 - which apparently sums up yer chances of getting out of there alive.

Sunrise 09:06, sunset 15:37

Jussi mentioned yesterday that she's really appreciating the lighter mornings - but given the very slight progress we've had on that front I suspect it's more to do with the clear skies.

And clear skies = frosts.

The water freezes in the stables quite often - inconvenient but not a huge problem - there's a water supply in the house. But when that water freezes, Jussi has to come all the way down to the cottage and then lug the water up the hill - and that is a real drag. (I'd help, but usually I'm asleep, or cooking).

And then this week it thawed a bit and the house filled with water - burst pipes. Fortunately it was only a pipe leading up to the header tank - easily isolated - but it made a bit of a mess.

The blog has been a bit neglected - cos I'm working. Deadline is Monday and I need to get on with it now. Work finishes, school starts. Ach well.