ࡱ>    !"#%Root EntryZ O2 s+' $@CONTENTS BCompObjVSPELLINGin the childrens social circuit for parties etc. Sharon and I have met lots of very nice people and made some good friends so are quite content. It is kind of nice when someone gives you a big bowl of quail s eggs for the bairns. They fit quite well into the peerie lunchboxes actually (the eggs not the bairns). We have been lucky with the weather as I was saying. Yesterday was a fine sunny day and today is as just as good. It is quite nice to be able to see Foula again, a familiar shape lying on the horizon. I wonder if the inhabitants over there feel the same way about seeing us on the mainland? Good to be able to get outdoor chores done like washing bedding and drying it on the line rather than resorting to the electric dryer. I just ordered ten internal doors which are going to fitted at the end of September by a friend of our neighbour Alec, the ex pagan whose blog is linked to on this site. It will be a relief to get the doors done as the old ones still in place all have kicked holes in them and besides it will make the house warmer for winter and cut down on fuel costs. A window pane (double glazed) needs replacing as it cracked all the way down. I intend also to build a raised garden bed for the purpose of planting something like leeks or carrots in as I was very successful growing them this year. Good soil here. I have been skip diving again and came up with some large planks of wood, the kind scaffolders use, plus a lot of bread trays from a bakery. I can wire those together to make wind breaks out of as they will be quite robust once secured. I think I mentioned before the amazing things you can get out of skips up here. I rescued a perfectly good cycle helmet, still in its box!, which fits Celestine beautifully. More tires for growing spuds in and tCHNKWKS BTEXTTEXT0FDPPFDPP4FDPCFDPC6FDPCFDPC8STSHSTSH:STSHSTSH:2SYIDSYIDP:SGP SGP d:INK INK h:BTEPPLC l:BTECPLC : FONTFONT:~STRSPLC ";:PRNTWNPR\;FFRAMFRAM?TITLTITL*@ DOP DOP J@"Shetland Diary Well after the Passchendale mud experience at the Cunningsburgh show the weather has brightened up considerably. Incidentally I have to apologise to Dorothy (the lady from Burra on the West Side near Scalloway who makes a superb soft goat cheese) for not having lingered long enough at the Goat pens to take some pictures of them. Unfortunately my camera decided to have a strop and not turn itself on and then when I took the children out to get some goat pictures she had visitors so that cunning plan was thwarted. Never we will get the goat pictures sometime. I have already mentioned else where on the News and Events page about World Tastes opening next to the Raba and I hope this little specialist shop does a roaring trade. We had our house swarming party on the 19th August. About 50 people descended on us and the party finished about two in the morning. We had a BBQ going in the garage and had far too much food left but it was a good time had by all. Very useful having a garage except when the smoke alarms kept going off! Apparently it is a Shetland thing to have a garage party so there you are! The 19th August incidentally is a year to the date that we exchanged on our Chatham house and Da Neuk and then 22nd August my wife and three small people arrived in the middle of stormy weather to move in. I got up here on 6th September two weeks later so that is my anniversary. It is amazing how fast this year has gone by. I feel I have achieved quite a lot, well we all have. The children have just started back to school including our youngest, Celestine, who looked very adorable in her uniform though she has some trouble climbing up on the bus in the morning because the steps are so high. They have fitted into the community and made new friends and are he planks. I shall nail them together and paint them then dig up the soil that I need to. I have also had a police visit in respects of my firearms certificate application. I intend on filling up the freezer with rabbit plus give some away, subject of course to approval of the licence. The Herrislea House hotel is interested in some rabbit for their Shetland evenings so I shall indulge in a spot of bartering. The rabbits run wild here and there are an enormous amount of them. The meat is very nice, similar to chicken and of course you could say that it is completely free range and organic considering what they eat. Mind you the lamb, mutton and beef up here all tastes superb as the meat is of such a high quality. Shetland lamb is becoming very popular again and there have been some massive European orders made, as reported in the Shetland Times recently. Good news for the farmers here too though hopefully it won t price a local product out of reach for islanders. I am also working on a project to start teaching ballet classes up here. I am seeing what interest there is first by putting out cards with details. It is a while since I last did a dance class but it is a bit like riding a bike once done never forgotten. I danced for a considerable part of my life either on stage or doing classes so I feel that I should be able to compile reasonably interesting and easy classes for children and adults to enjoy. Anyway that is something in the pipeline. The in-laws are visiting us in September (the wife s parents that is) not mine as they are far too old to travel. We are planning on going out to New Zealand next year anyway for about three to four weeks as it is about fifteen years since I was there last and my parents haven t seen Celestine yet and Charlotte and Christopher for a long time. Then back to Shetland for the beginning of spring and hopefully another productive summer like this one has been. Well I am off now to try out my new smoker. My neighbour Paul (the artist, see his website link) bought me over two very nice fillets of Spiggie trout so I have them soaking in a brine solution and then I will smoke them in a bit of oak dust. Paul smokes a lot of fish and I have to say freshed smoked fish is absolutely divine. I am going to try some scallops as well, the ones I buy from Blynedoit Fishshop in Scalloway. They are simply the best things I have ever tasted. That is the nice thing up here. You can get quite productive effects in your garden and probably quite self sufficient for meat, fish and eggs too if you keep chickens. Another Baldrick plan incidentally! A chicken coop! But more on that later& . igh quiality. 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