Wild and wet.

 It's been all over the shop, weather wise. Lots of wind, hail, sleet, rain, sun, just no fog! And yes we do get fog when it's windy.

Our historian friend David has given us loads more on the house. In  January 1906, a   3 masted schooner from Gothenburg dragged it's anchor in high winds and was smashed on the skerries in view of the house. The shop was seen by folk from Walls, to be in trouble and they came to help. There were 7 on board but only 3 made it to safety  At that time, the agricultural show had a hammer throwing competition. The winner was on the cliffs using his skill to throw a weighted rope out to the skerries to rescue the three survivors. They were then bought to the Haa. Unfortunately one succumbed to his injuries but the other two got home to their families. The Captain is buried in the churchyard and 118 villagers accompanied the body the 5 miles to the churchyard.

 The ship was called the Dione. Jill has contacted the Gothenburg maritime museum in the hopes there is an image of the ship. What amazing history we are custodians of!

Having seen the waves today it makes you appreciate what they went through.

In-between showers we have had a few short trips out. Including mother's day teas at the hall. Yummy!

 There are now lots of returning lapwings around.

Jill got confused with a gull at Melby

. It turns out it is likely just a 1st winter common gull that is smaller than usual  ( slightly smaller than a black headed gull) with a solid black bill, instead of two tone and a smart stripey butt.

Tengmalms Owl. yay!

 The last few days have been up and down weatherwise. In between showers , Jill did some work on the path at the side of the house. The steps also got started using rubble blocks up 

The last of the wood got moved away and the container spot will be another parking area soon. Another use for old cement blocks.

It needs some drainage across the middle 

Today, we heard that the Tengmalms owl had been refound in the North at Ollaberry. It is the third sighting and  2 and a half months since we first saw it in the dark on boxing day. It was really good to see it in daylight if tucked up in the trees.

We are grateful the owners let us stand in their driveway for a bit. It's a sweet wee bird.

We are so lucky

 We both had GP appointments today. We really appreciate our Drs surgery. This was the longest we have waited for appointments as we booked on Thursday . Such an amazing service here.

We then headed to town to go to Huws, our missing cladding is finally here. It's been a year! We went and checked on it and it's being delivered on Wednesday next week. Yay.

We were lucky and had some great wildlife on the way home. A very showy hare was happy for us to sit and watch while he fed, stretched,  as scratched up and fed some more before eventually heading of over the hill. They are such characters.!

It was good to see a few migrants appearing. The first wagtail and a pair of Whoopers.

Unst Galley

 Plans changed on Saturday and Jill was still feeling sore from the dentist, so, as a cheer up day we hopped on the ferries to Unst. We hadn't remembered it was their Up Helly Aa. It was lovely to see their galley in full sun

We were surprised the sun held as it was a red sky morning.

The wind was fresh but the birds didn't mind.

With the wind, the waves were special at Westing.

There was an otter and seal fishing too.

Today was surprisingly still sunny so Jill shunted some wood and added to the path, while Rob finished the paperwork. Otec have all they need with our heating complaint so we can now pass it on to RECC who are the consumer body connected with OTEC. They are going to help with the legal bit to get our repairs done. It's all very long winded 

He had enough after lunch, so we popped out locally to Melby and then went looking for Iceland Gulls. We didn't find any, but there were over 50 purple sands at Melby and red throated divers everywhere 

Lovely couple of days