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Perhaps they had been ingesting extra cod liver oil to ward off any nasty bugs? Vikings must have caught colds like everyone else? The squad s outfits reminded me of Lord of the Rings and then someone said that the costumes were influenced either by that trilogy or someone involved with them had helped design or make them. I will have to verify that in the ST. The reason I missed the day s events and the evening festivities was that I was asked to do the mail run and then help with the clean up at the Town Hall next day. Fine by me. I couldn t drive up again on the same day as I was absolutely cream crackered! The 3Cs were offered the chance by our neighbour of going up for the galley burning, with him and his two daughters though he only had two extra seats so the C s very democratically decided to draw straws, one shortened. Son lost out but then he was allowed to go on the computer for ages and stay up late so he was suitably appeased. Eldest C took my video camera and digital camera (eek!) but she came back with some quite good footage (beginners mistakes of walking around with the camera on!) and some good stills. Not bad for a first time. Nothing broken except they all came back stinking of burnt kerosene!!! Well, as you know by now from reading these missals, the weather is as ever a topical feature of Shetland life. Especially as with digital technology and broadband you can build up your own weather report by looking at various sites and sticking your head out of the door! Well not at the moment thank you very much maam! It is blowing a hooley today, 1st February and the wind is VERY cold -5 or 6 wind chill! Lots of snow expected and I was supposed to be driving up to Lunnasting Primary school to teachCHNKWKS TјџџџџTEXTTEXT†DFDPPFDPPHFDPCFDPCJSTSHSTSHLSTSHSTSHL2SYIDSYIDPLSGP SGP dLINK INK hLBTEPPLC lLBTECPLC „LFONTFONTœL<STRSPLC иL:PRNTWNPRM FRAMFRAM2RˆTITLTITLКRDOP DOP дR"eone involved with them had helped design or makFEBRUARY 2008 DIARY I went out the other morning shortly before taking the two smaller C s to school and checked the chickens, looked for eggs, and shook my head, closed my eyes, opened and looked again and thought  I am sure we had eight chickens but there were only seven in the run, and none in the house. I took the Cs to the bus and asked them how many chickens have we got again?  Eight Daddy! Hmm well there are only seven in there!  Perhaps one flew away? . Er the coop is escape proof! I went back armed with food and this got all the chickens out, Seven.& . Am I losing my marbles? I started at this point walking around the coop looking holes in netting, ground, house sides!! Took the food back to garage and went out again counted them again& .eight!!! I still can t work it out. Then I went out a couple of days ago and there was an egg under the open door! Daft hens, which one is laying outside then?& so I rescued the egg and after washing it under the cold tap realised that it was bright green! So at last one of the Shetland hens has started laying! Youngest C had it yesterday for breakfast and declared it scrumptious. Well Transvestite Tuesday has come and gone. Oops! Sorry I mean Up Helly Aa, that unique fire festival which Shetland is famous for! Or as some say just an excuse for all the men involved in squads in Lerwick to dress up as the opposite sex and go out on a 24hr binge. Well not quite as in the regions women get to form their own squads. The Jarl squad this year was the biggest ever by all accounts. I missed seeing it all except for the squad coming out of the Town Hall after having tea and tinies with the Councillors. Magnificent I have to say, not the councillors! The squad s outfits I mean though someone did say that there was a very st! And then to Scalloway to work with a group of P3 and 4 children. However at 08:00 this morning the Deputy Head rang me to say their school was closed and then Lunnasting rang to say the same then our village contact rang to confirm that all Shetland s schools were closed. It is a bit like jungle drums and very efficient. Each village has a contact to liase between the school and families for emergencies like weather! It is a bit hairy driving in this weather especially when your wipers only go one speed, slow!, and the rear one doesn t work at all!! It is the wind that is the worst part of the wintery experience! It gets in everywhere! Mind you the weather has to be pretty bad for all the schools to close. My poor wife is stuck down at the airport all day (supposed to be her day off!) because of all the flight cancellations and the weather is really really bad in North Scotland! Thank heavens for TV and the joy of email. I watch cookery programmes dreaming about all the ingredients that I simply can t get here and send emails to friends all over the world. As I write this I am  speaking with a delightful lady in Whittier, California, who is enjoying lots of sunshine (sob) and going out to a potluck dinner party tomorrow (Friday 1st February). She very kindly sent me a big bag of Mexican chillies which I use for Chilli con Carne and curries. They really are the bees knees! Not overly hot but a nice heat and add something extra to a hot dish. I LOVE chillies. I even found some Chocolate with chilli (pepperocini) in Italy which was divine!! Anyway I digress, when you have all these things to occupy you who cares about the weather outside!! We are getting a new airline taking over the Scotland to Shetland routes later this year. Fly Be which operates in Scotland will be flying the Logan Air routes in October. This will hopefully boost our tourism industry as there will be more connections for people to make to and from here and hopefully flights will be slightly cheaper! The uniforms are very nice judging from the pictures on the Fly Be website. We ordered our yearly supply of heating oil and I almost had a heart attack when I found out by how much 1000 litres had gone up by. Nearly a hundred pounds. Not to mention the price of gas. We use bottled gas up here and a 19kg canister, which lasts us about four months, used to be Ѓ33.00 is now Ѓ38.00. When you are reliant on oil for heating suddenly you start having to think about impact on the household budget. So what is planned for the next month? My wife is still waiting to get her car fixed after her little collision with a fence post. The teaching is slowly picking up again. I am taking it easy though this year, giving the old body a good rest! Soon be time to get out in the garden and start planning where what is going to be planted and when! Of course spring is a long way for us as we have to get through February, March and about half of April before the weather turns but I will be getting seeds propagated about the middle to end of March in the garage and strengthened off before planting out. I have lots of new seeds this year, ones which come from places like Siberia and other hard climate places. I found this website where they grow plants purely to collect the seeds plus they get seeds from other seed banks in Europe and the top part of Asia. So I am looking forward to the results. I also have loads of chitted potatoes i.e. Shetland Blacks and Forty Fold which I hope will do well. Shetland Black are quite novel in that they are reasonably small and quite tasty. My youngest loves them and she is not a fan of potato! Forty Fold is a rare potato breed which I got some chittings and grew last year and kept the small growths to replant this season. So I am hoping to get some decent tubers this year. I am going to try Swede this year as well. Our brewery, Valhalla, received a glowing report in CAMRA s monthly magazine this month. The article was about the use of Barley (Bere pronounced Bear, up here) for brewing. Sonny Priest, our Shetland master brewer, created a recipe a couple of years ago for a festival in Orkney. It is called Island Bere and it is becoming immensely popular. It is a fantastic beer with a gorgeous smoky aftertaste. Equally good on draught and in the bottle. You can get Sonny s beer down South in the Firkin chain, I believe, so the next time you are a pub in England, ask them if they have any ale from Shetland! See what their reaction is! Do they know where it is for a start? The Shetland Folk Festival is not that far away on the Entertainment calendar and there are some real class acts lined up for this year. I must go to it sometime!! That happens when the weather turns better!! For today though as we can t go anywhere, even the chickens have been shut up as it is too windy for them to go outside, so I will sit and draw up a list of things to be done in the garden and house. I am going to build some raised beds, well not big ones but some that are raised yet sheltered so I can grow more delicate (edible) plants! Hope you are all sheltered and warm, well those of you in the UK at the moment that is. Asia. So I am looking forward to the results. I also have loads of chitted potatoes i.e. Shetland Blacks and Forty Fold which I hope will do well. 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