Ok, so sheep were off doing something else when the brains were handed out. Possibly eating, or looking for something to eat, jump on, pull to bits or thinking up new and exciting ways to die. They really are the only animal that enters the world considering how it intends to leave it. They are fine for days, muddling along and then simply turn four feet skywards in the space of 10 minutes. *sigh*
I also have a stalker. His name is Bruce, he is from Oz and is rather confused, considering he is actually a Goose. We think he thinks he is a person, or at least not a goose anyway. Nothing can be done without being joined by a grey feathery shadow (complete with red legs and black feet) and he bullies hell out of the cats, dogs, posties and generally anyone who shows any sort of fear of him. If you are in the house he will walk around till he finds where you are and honk outside the window.
December 30th, 2006
Posted by
helen |
Uncategorized |
no comments
The ewe lies in the straw and strains, her huge bulk making her uncomfortable. At the business end of things the vet manipulates the lamb so it can be born, legs and heads shifted into the right places as nature is somehow not good at this. In a rush of snotty blood a limp wet body surges onto the straw and is frantically rubbed and dried, drugs administered to help it breathe and the tiny body struggles for life. Soon enough the lamb is returned to mum and is licked clean, guided by instinct.
Lambing as i remembered it wasnt like this, it was much more matter of fact, far less intervention and it was just seen as part of the process if lambs didnt make it. However, those were meat lambs and these are pedigree Suffolks far more valuable and problematic at birth.
Christmas day began at 6am when Hazel woke me from my virus induced sleep to ask if i could help as the vet was on his way. All prepared for a Ceasar the procedure is avoided by using ropes and wires to guide the lamb into the world.
A fair bit has changed since i last blogged. I worked at Argo’s bakery for a couple of months which allowed me to move off the boat and into a winter let along the main street, but also left me feeling drained and sick of life as i was working 7 days a week for nearly 3 months, some weeks over 75 hours a week. Working to pay for things that make you happy is something i did for far too long and i am careful not to do it again.
For those of you who know Stromness it is beside the Orca hotel. That huge whale skull? Thats on the outside of my bedroom wall, i sleep around 2m from it and it clonks in the wind. Nice. I share the house with Kev, skipper of the Sharon Rose which works out pretty well. At the moment i am up on the farm with Hazel helping with the lambing for a month and then back into Stromness to work on the new project until we start the diving season.
December 26th, 2006
Posted by
helen |
Uncategorized |
no comments
Ok, so I don’t hate radio 1. Hate is such a strong word, but I intensely dislike it, even though I listen to it all day at the weekends. The lack of a decent radio station up here is doing my head in. A whole new armada of songs have been added to my “ sounded ok the first few times but now played waaaaay too much” list to the point that I actually turn the radio off when they are played yet again. However, in the hours of drivel and inane chatter by presenters who try to be oh so trendy it actually hurts, there is the occasional gem. A cover of Sigur Ros’s Hoppipolla by We Are Scientists made me linger close to the tiny radio with the utter hope that no-one would come in for fags or sweets or pop. And by some weird cosmic karma, for three minutes people avoided the shop and I was in aural heaven.
The two minutes silence at 11am was observed by all three of us in the shop and café. Standing in a row behind the counter, heads bowed in respect for those people who gave the ultimate sacrifice for us. My poppy pinned to my jumper a reminder for the past week or so to myself and to anyone else that we have so much to be grateful for. Sunday brought the Remembrance Day parade, the pipe band leading the people through the narrow winding streets, and we stood silently watching them go by.
Fat white flakes meander down among the rushing raindrops, always coming second in the race to the gutter. The light takes on that heavy, yellowed look, clouds thick like golden syrup with their burden of water. Torrential rain, blown by the wind is coursing down the windows of the shop and the snowflakes among it are blown along, in no hurry whatsoever. I think I know exactly why I love snow so much it is never in a hurry to get anywhere (except in an avalanche, but that is a mere technicality to my musing here so shush you pedants).
On the subject of weather I have decided that when I rule the world hail will be outlawed. Any hail clouds will be tracked down and blasted to oblivion. Rain I can do no problem, it drums on the deck with a soft patter, interspersed with the occasional drip from the a frame onto the wood, but even that is fine. Hail comes onto the deck like someone tipping a skip load of frozen peas from a great height (which I suppose it is exactly like, only less green) and has the audacity to get inside the hatch and lie on the wetroom floor (probably smirking) where someone only wearing socks on their feet to go to the loo can stand on it and it sticks and melts, leaving a soggy cold patch. Bloody bloody bloody weather.
Stormdrift also has a stow-away. Something on this boat eats socks. I seem to have lost so many of them, if we ever have the misfortune to sink you will be able to find the wreck by following the sock slick over the sea for miles. The bilge must be full of them by now, somehow they are working their way down there through tiny cracks I am unaware of (pulled through by the sock monster). Now I know my socks can stink a bit….ok well a lot, but gaining their own intelligence and running away from the laundry bag is quite something. I had better keep tabs on this, I don’t want mutiny among my “cotton rich” overpriced socks. Gods forbid they get my pants in on the act, we could be in serious trouble, and if my bras join in what will NASA do for parachutes to slow the shuttles down?
Someone has nicked a section of the hosepipe from the pier, which seems like such a minor crime on the grand scale of things. Hey its not exactly a huge scandal up here either. But it does mean I can’t put water into our onboard tanks as the section which is left is far too short to reach the Stormdrift over the Sharon Rose. Now this is no great problem, until I run out, probably when I really do need water (gasping for tea while hung over, something like soap in my eye etc etc) and the tap issues forth with nothing but a few drips and an asthmatic wheeze. I’m playing water roulette, and its all going to end in tears.
I work every other week cleaning the red shed for Scapa scuba, sweeping up the million bits of thread Ben drops on the floor and hovering up the dog hairs from Stanley who seems to cast them off at an alarming rate. Somehow this seems to be working in Ben’s favour at the moment, as I have spent most of what I earned back in the shop, buying some custom made three finger mitts (I have pudgy hands and wanted the wrists baggy too) and a new goody bag for scallops and spidge. Some day I will develop some self control, and many people will be a good deal poorer when that day comes.
I’m due to head south next week. I will be seeing my parents for the first time since 9th May and my other half since the 16th. What they don’t know is that this is a short visit before I return to Orkney, and I will be away until next year. Im feeling afraid of this visit. Afraid that I wont be coming back, that I will be given the 101 reasons for not coming back to Orkney and will never see this place again. I love my life now, even the 7am starts, cruddy weather and no money and never want it to change.
Struggling with the gas boiler on the Sharon Rose, the air turns a distinctive shade of blue as once again the pilot light refuses to light. Andy holds the lighted taper in the slot, having just changed a gas bottle for a new one.
Whoomph, the flash is blinding and I do the quick check to see if my eyebrows are still attached. However, the flash was from outside, not inside the boat.
The black sky instantly issues forth with its promised barrage of hailstones, turning the deck into a slippery white skating rink. The rumble of thunder tells us that the storm is close but not overhead, a squall of wind whipping the normally placid water in the harbour into a mini whirlwind of spray some 5 meters high, the boats bounce on their springs as it passes.
A few minutes later the gas is lit and another flash illuminates the sky, the rumble is instantaneous and so loud the doors rattle and I swear my fillings did too. Andy takes great delight in telling me that if you are onboard a boat and it gets struck you fry, but I know he was lying, his lips were moving.
I really do not like thunder, finding a spider and a lump of polystyrene under the bed that I was hiding from the storm could possibly be the stuff of future nightmares (or possibly raining spiders, but that is a bit less likely I feel, and don’t ask about the polystyrene…..shudder, a polystyrene spider in a thunderstorm…..gawd, I’m off for a lie down).
There is a quote in a Terry Pratchett book along the lines of: The world belongs to those people who when faced with a glass and asked if it is half full or half empty exclaim that it is not their glass, their glass was full, and was in fact a bigger glass in any case. I like this, not for the fact that I would ever be someone like that, but for the observation of it all.
The other thing he states which really hit home with me at the moment is that I am the kind of person who apologises when you get your toes stood on. I am now that person, and seem doomed to spend the next few months with bruised toes and losing count of the number of times I have said sorry for having the audacity to get my foot in the same bit of space someone else wanted.
*****************************************************************
Apologies for the lack of updates, this has been mainly due to the fact that i am working lots and have been doing some BIG things, as in lifechanging things. Suddenly I have a proper career, but its secret squirrel at the moment. I feel like the biggest and best thing ever to have happened in my life has just occured, and i cant tell anyone about it. So as far as you know, if my grin gets any bigger, the top of my head will fall off.
I have been south and returned again, and have now moved in with Kev who skippers the sharon Rose up here. Its a lovely little house just along from the Orca hotel…..speaking of the Orca hotel, those of you who have been here will know it as the place with the bloody great whale skull on the wall. That wall happens to be the outside of my bedroom wall and it clonks in the wind. So when im all bleary eyed at 7am, and people ask me why im tired i can reply “the whale kept me awake”.
The deer are no longer bouncing around the field, having all been dispatched by Hazel in possibly the most humane slaughter there can be. I think the most any of them will have noticed is “bloody hell, its quiet in here today”.
Anyhow, christmas is approaching, and i was duly sent away from mums house with two boxes of what will no doubt turn out to be crap destined for the charity shop. Sigh. Oh well, i cant complain, cause my christmas present was possibly the best one i ever had. 
I better go, i have started a new diet (Why do you overeat when all you want to be is slim, by Zoe Harcombe) which is basically a food combining diet. Its either carbs and no fat, or fat and no carbs, with at least 4 hours between. No sugar or refined foods. Easy. Im lighter than i was a week ago and thats got to be good.
The final bit of this post is a minor rantette. My other half went to the bank in the small town where i used to live to get the money out to pay the rent. He then got back into the car and drove home, only then realising he had lost his wallet. A quick drive back to the town and a search of the bank and local pub and no joy. He phoned the bank to cancel his card to find that it had already been used! It turned out the guy who was parked behind him saw him put his pin number into the bank and noticed him drop the wallet. He then picked it up, went to the hole in the wall and helped himself. Fortunatley for us the street is covered by 24 hour police CCTV and he was filmed doing all this. He is yet to be found however, as he may well be a workman from out of the area. Bugger. If that was up here someone would post the damn thing back through your door or hand it in. What a difference a few hundred miles make.
And on that note, im off for my tea.
Take care down there.
H xx
December 5th, 2006
Posted by
helen |
Uncategorized |
no comments