主播大秀

Being interested in railway matters, I was delighted to find that the Sanday Light Railway, the most northerly passenger-carrying railway in the UK, is to re-open this year. I have added links from my to the Sanday Light Railway website and to the Stromness webcams of Tim Barthwick.

One Saturday towards the end of March Maureen was preparing the marrowfat peas for Sunday's lunch when she dropped one of the dried peas. Surrey immediately pounced upon the errant pea and played with it for ages. Now this has become something of a routine, Surrey has to have a dried pea when Maureen is preparing them for Sunday's lunch! I've never heard of a cat having a temper tantrum but if Maureen does not give her a dried pea that is what Surrey appears to do, she meows loud and long whilst flinging herself against Maureen's legs.

Malcolm has laid our new carpet tiles in the kitchen and corridor and they look lovely, the kitchen looks & feels much warmer and cosier too. However, one day Maureen pointed out one place where the tiles appear to be "lifting". Upon investigating, I found that the tile was not lifting, Malcolm had laid the tiles too well for that. The culprit was one of Surrey's dried peas that she had managed to poke under the carpet tile. Perhaps this is Surrey's retaliation because the new carpet tiles have stopped her using an old cardboard box to "surf" around the linoleum in the kitchen.

We read in the national press that on Easter Sunday the Archbishop of York had performed four "total immersion" baptisms outside York Minster, using specially constructed baths filled with warm water. Well, Stronsay was there first! On the Saturday before Easter Sunday our minister, Jennifer, performed a total immersion baptism on Isaac Erdman, a teenager, in the sea at Mill Bay. Needless to say, the water was far from warm and both Jennifer & Isaac wore wet suits.

Malcolm & Sue have some new additions to their collection of sheep, ducks, hens, dogs & cats. They now have two Shetland ponies, Henry & Min (aficionados of the "Goon Show" will recognise the names!) and one of their dogs has given birth to seven puppies. Sue telephoned Maureen to give her the good news about the puppies whilst the birth was still in progress and Maureen could actually hear the first two puppies begin to make their first "mewing" sounds. A few days earlier Sue had seen one of their ewes on its back. Thinking it was just that the ewe had too much fleece to regain her feet unaided Sue finished putting her baking in the oven before donning her wellington boots and going to see what was wrong. Much to her surprise, she found that the ewe was giving birth so she called her husband, Malcolm, who dashed home from work just in time to help one lamb into the world. Sadly, a second lamb was stillborn and the ewe died, probably from exhaustion, the next day followed by the first lamb, which had failed to thrive, probably because the mother was unable to pass on her colostrum. Events such as these do bring home just how tenuous is our grip on life.

On a brighter note, the field behind us is slowly filling with ewes and their new-born lambs. Each ewe seems to have two or three lambs which are beginning to gambol in the warm(ish) sunshine that has appeared over the last day or so. We have new neighbours across the road at Helmsley. Clive & Tracy with their girls Jazzy & Georgie moved in shortly before Easter. Clive has borrowed our garage with its inspection pit to do some car repairs as his own garage is full of guinea pigs, hamsters & rabbits. Whilst he was busy in the inspection pit I popped my head around the door to ask if he wanted anything. When I left I closed the door behind me and automatically shot the bolt across the door. When Clive tried to get out he found that he was locked in, fortunately he had his mobile with him so was able to get one of the girls to come over and release him.