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Another Cracking Summer in Westray! |
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Wednesday, 29 July 2009 16:40 |
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Well, I keep seeing the weatherman on the telly talking about wet weather. Now the met office are "cooling" their forecast for summer.
It's been great here!
We've had sunny weather for ages now. In fact we could really do with some proper rain. We went down to Birmingham a week ago to collect our daughter and all the way down through the Highlands of Scotland it was scorching (oh how I miss air conditioning in the car, thought we'd not need that again!), as we started down the M6 in England it started to rain, it rained pretty much all whilst we were there, we joked as we drove back north "not to worry it will be sunny once we get to Scotland. And, Hey presto! It pretty much was.
We have had some occassional rain over the last week, indeed it has rained briefly today, but nothhing to shout about. Watching the news I see the "promised" rain for the rest of Britain seems to have performed as predicted.
It's definitely all wrong! But we're loving it.
Frozen north? It doesn't get much better than this... |
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Kirkwall City Pipe Band |
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Monday, 29 June 2009 00:00 |
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 Kirkwall City Pipe Band were in Westray over the weekend with a march and concert on Saturday the 27th.
We missed them last year due to getting stuck off island, so we were determined not to miss them this year.
We weren't dissapointed, what a great day out. The sun was blistering, no really it was! (in fact we've had a run of truly amazing weather), the village was filled with public to watch the march and the Pipers were on top form.
Great entertainment. |
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Google Earth/Maps |
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Monday, 20 April 2009 00:00 |
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 I was updating some maps that I have set up on Google Maps theother day and found that they have updated the satllite images for the Orkney Islands.
They're great now, with lots of detail you can see our house very clearly - Google Maps: Links House
It's just great now, I had a major virtual tour round theisland and discover places I hadn't spotted driving/walking round.
Here's a new beach we discovered, just about on our doorstep, with easy car access (dirt track) so that I can even get Marlen there. Super! |
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New Cat |
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Thursday, 02 April 2009 00:00 |
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 After the distress of losing Nelson, we said "no more cats," or any new pets for that matter.
Of course we can't resist caring for the various waifs and strays that seem to find their way to our house, I think there must be some sign posts that only animals can see! So it was only a matter of time before one would find special favour.
So here is our latest addition "Fudge" she arrived outside our house, bedraggled and starving. Various ctas come nd go enjoying the food that Marlen put out for them. But Fudge didn't go, and tobehonest didn't eat an awful lot either. Basically she just wanted loving. The other stray/feral cats run away when you go out, keeping their distance till you come back in then return to have their fill. Fudge didn't she just wanted smooching.
So in she came. After a visit to the vets for a check over and the all important operation, she settled quickly into life as an "indoor" cat.
As you can see here, she has taken rather a shine to the Rayburn. |
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Roof Collapse! |
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Thursday, 26 March 2009 00:00 |
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 So there I was looking at something on my PC with my son and I commented that the wind sounded a bit odd, he said "No it's just the wind". I wasn't convinced so we opened the manhole to the "attic" (it's not a proper attic as there isn't much room between the ceiling and the roof in old croft style houses like ours) and to myhoror discovered that we could see the sky!
Houses like our have very heavy roof trusses with random cross pieces, purlins in a normal roof, to support the heavy stone slabs that form the roof. Anyway, one of these had rotted at the end and given way allowing one end of one of these stone slabs to drop about 8 inches. Fortunatley, very fortunately, the overlap with the next slab hade prevented it dropping further.
So, major repairs. I evacuated my office and set up camp in the lounge. We then took down the whole ceiling and jacked up the errant slab with an akro prop and replace the rotten timber. We also fitted a few more new timbers just to make sure.
The cold water tank is in this same area as well and as this was an old galvanised tank with an open top (I don't even want to think about what could have been lying in there!). So that was duly replaced with a new building regs compliant sealed plastic water tank while were at it.
So good job all round if and unfortunate starter. |
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