Anyone seen Rob?

 A day spent working on the house and garden. 

Oh don't worry, that's not what you think. It's just a weeny veg patch as Jill won't have much time this year for veggies. Here's Rob:

He's been playing with the sander again. Doing a grand job from knee height to his shoulder height. Looks like he has walked off the set of Mad Max!

Got the washing line up so we shall have to see if the knots hold - and the pegs stay on. We've ordered a new machine as ours died. The washing is piling up so hopefully it will be a possible drying day when it arrives on Wednesday.

Celandine now flowering on the  front grass and bluebells popping up in a few places too. Jill found some rose bushes that are alive so we might buy another to fill a hole. It will be interesting seeing what colour they are.

Jill has signed up for Da Voar redd- up which is a Shetland wide litter collection. 20% of the population join in. There is some rubbish on the shore line by the Wick so that will be a good place to start. They supply bags and arrange collection. All very well organised. To be fair she has been collecting on her walks anyway, not that it's a huge problem here. Good excuse for a walk.

This was Jill's idea for a temporary fix to the hole in the kitchen worktop where the hob was. It took ages to find a slate the right size from the pile. It's still a bit small but it works.

Charming

 Mid morning we headed out and did some- lets see where that road goes. Today it was the Papa Stour ferry road which is a lovely drive. Sweet little harbour and some lovely views.

We popped back to Cope to see if they had any doors as we need to replace a couple and we want reclaimed ones. Unfortunately they didn't have any but we found a couple of bits of furniture we needed. It was lovely to chat to some of the special needs chaps who work there.

What a great charity , will be going back.

We headed back and took a detour to find Huxter Mill near Sandness as we hadn't found it before. Well, we found it this time and how absolutely charming - but also disappointing. Jill walked down not knowing what to expect as the only sign was on a style about 5 inches in size, just saying mills. It was a short walk but then the photos speak for themselves. It was charming

The disappointment was the lack of information and poor repair of the burn and its 3 Mills. It deserves better

Trees

 Yup, we got stuck at the roadworks. Digger was widening roadside gullies. Can't get past in a single track road! They did a good job though

 Rob went to see the consultant at the hospital. They are sending him to Aberdeen for laser surgery and a new lens. It will start in June/ July and we both get to fly as Jill is the carer. That will be fun on the small plane. It seems that the Norfolk and Norwich missed some things. No surprise there.

 Jill did a quick shop at Tescos and we popped into Cope Ltd. The have a great garden centre which they run with special needs adults. Awesome place, we are going back to see the tree lady as she knows what's best for Watsness ( she planted the little area by the Loch).  Then it was down to St Ninians for some long tailed ducks - that weren't

there. It's mind blowingly stunning though and was very windy.

The sand is amazing, full of sparkly quartz and mica.

We then missed the puffins again at Sumburgh. Still gone fishing but we did get home to find they had finally collected our rubbish. Now need to make a little cupboard for the wheelie bin to stop it blowing away and buy some bungees. Apparently we can recycle they are just very loathed to let us know what!

A971 at a standstill

 Shock horror there are roadworks on the main road to our house, the A971.

The 10 cars that use the road daily would all need to leave the area at the same time!

We had an interesting day with 3 visitors calling. Firstly we had the local Councillor to see if we are voting. Unfortunately we haven't sorted that out yet but we had a nice chat. He lives on Papa Stour and is one of only 8 residents. Really nice chap.

In the afternoon we had Maxine and Ernie pop by.  They are first cousins to Sonny and Iona  (brother and sister) who lived here and they popped by  to say hi. Maxine was fascinating and told us a few bits of family history. Sonny and his parents actually lived in the stable ( where Jill found the forge yesterday), he was actually born in there. His grandparents lived in the house. Maxine's dad lived in the croft ruin to the North of the house and all the cousins used to play together. She had very fond memories of the house and was delighted to see us working on it. They will come back in the future to see the transformation.

The sun shone all day so we went for a local area tour before tea. We headed to the Skeld peninsular about 8 miles away. It was lovely and a bit different from our area. Lots of Northern wheatear were showing well and we found a grey  heron and tystie on the way home in Walls harbour.

What a great day

Exciting find

 Rob was sanding and there was a lot of dust so, as it was a beautiful day, Jill had another bonfire!

The net in the garden finally came up, along with 2 others so got dumped on the fire and then lots of rubbish from the big barn joined it.  Lots of rusty metal is now ready to go to the tip and woodworm timber has also gone - that's when the exciting find was made

You can see where the forge was in the stable. There is still loads of rubbish to clear out of the way though.

It stayed love all day so the strimmer came out to cut back some of the tussock of grass that have been left be.  Some lungworm is flowering in the garden and some celandine and we can now identify the bushes that were already growing. They look like elder and honeysuckle.

The courtyard is getting cleared and we thought you would like to see how much rhubarb we actually have over the two beds.

The evenings are lovely and the sun goes down around 8.30pm

Hare today, gone tomorrow

 It was a glorious start to the day with full sun the only downside was it was blowing so hard the starlings in the garden could only fly horizontally. Within half an hour it had totally clouded over and was misty - but the wind dropped.

It stayed murky and tried raining throughout the day so we stayed working on the house. Jill did a little in the garden to cool off after using the paint stripper. The rhubarb is doing well and there is plenty of it. If anyone has any recipes...........

The grass hadn't been touched for years, apart from the odd sheep so strimming is the best answer and turns up all sorts  of rubbish. It's going to be a long job

After the evening meal the sun came out for a stunning evening so we took a local drive to the Sandness area only 5 miles away. Only a mile or so up the road found us watching a mountain hare. Yay.

 A bit of driving around found us at Bousta, a stunning little bay with a  great Northern diver in it and super views.

Some lovely views on the way back including Foula draped on cloud

Fog

 The last 2 days have been mostly fog and wind so we spent yesterday working on the wood paneling but today we tried going out and chased the little bit of sun down in the South.

It was thick fog all the way to Sumburgh

It ended up being quite warm so we stayed in the area all day and treated ourselves to lunch in the Unken Cafe.

We did some car window photography for Rob too.

It was good to catch up with another Hawfinch. There are quite a few passing through.