Wednesday and a minor rant
The world carries on turning through the seeminly endless void of space, regardless of what we seem to be doing to it. It will be doing the same in 5000 years time, with or without us.
In the news that this is the second warmest winter on record i find myself wondering how the hell we can sit here in our comfortable houses, driving our cars, taking our holidays completley oblivious to what we are doing to the planet. Mainly its the attitude of “its someone elses problem”, which is great, until the local river floods your house, then its your problem. But instead of blaming us driving the kids to school every day in case a bad man gets them, we blame the environment agency for not making sure the flood defences are ok. Well guess what? We are entering unknown territory now, and its all because of us. A twenty year storm is planned for every twenty years, not every year. Complaining about financial constraints on driving are all good and well, but what exactly will it take for us to sit up and take notice? I hope we never have to find out.
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Busy on the farm, little Joe is really not too happy about being away from his friends, although i wonder how much of the noise emmited by this small black wooly thing is actually due to the lack of milk machine, rather than company. This is solved by putting him in with another group of lambs, the noise gets no better, so its the lack of milk machine which is troubling him. Tough. Get used to it!
Pondering this more, you could use a hungry lamb as a kind of biological weapon. Drop them from an aircraft onto your enemy and they will either deafen them or pester them to death. Death by sheep.
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We get everything done on the farm, and so head down to St Margarets Hope in Burray to check the slipway for loading the Stormdrift on Friday. I take a wonder off with the camera, as Burray seems to be the place where boats come to die, slowly being broken up, a human erosion as parts are cannibalised for use on the Pentalina and the Claymore.
Here are some pics i took, mostly B&W as they seem to define the mood of the place.
This is the Sands of Wright, at the back of Widewall bay. Widewall will be known to divers as the bay next to the James Barrie. The Barrie sits to the right of the picture just beyond the headland.
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The weighing scales had reappeared in the bathroom as the suitcases needed to be checked before the girls left last week. I eventually plucked up courage to step onto them, and nearly fell back off in surprise. Not only am i now a full 15lb lighter than i was in the summer, im about 7lb lighter than i was about 3 weeks ago. I know i am eating less, not by conscious effort, mainly because we are busy all the time, so maybe that is it.
I have serious issues about food and eating, and always will. Imagine feeling guilty every time you eat something, because you know, deep down it could be better/healthier or that you are simply doing something you shouldnt and that if people see you eat, they think you shouldnt be. I know i dont judge people by their appearances, the same cannot be said for the rest of the universe, and that smarts.
Once i am back in Stromness i will be back on the only diet i have ever found easy - no fat with carbs, no carbs with fat and no refined sugar. At least it is the only diet i have ever found that makes sense. We are simply not designed to eat what we do, or drink what we do. A glass of orange juice contains so much more juice than a single orange, our pancreas goes mental and produces insulin, which converts all that sugar…..to fat. So cutting out fat, and not sugar, is pants.
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Hi Helen,
Nice pictures, I didn’t know the MV Communicator was now based up there. I remember it broadcasting as Laser 558, in the days of the pirates. Strange as its the second set of pictures I’ve seen this week after seeing some of the Ross Revenge in harbour the old Caroline ship.
Is it in working condition do you know ?
Comment by ratcliffe | March 4, 2007