主播大秀

This edition of the Saga is somewhat late in being published and a bit sparse in content because my computer has been playing up and I have had to re-install Windows. That did not take long but it did take quite some time to install all the XP Service Packs and updates along with all the other common applications. I have reinstalled the "saved version" of my email address list so I hope that this reaches everyone who wishes to see it.

Today (26 Oct) is very windy (gale F8 to severe gale F9) with torrential rain. All the ferries are cancelled but the forecast says that tomorrow should be more "normal". Malcolm was due to come here today and finish off building Maureen's raised beds in the back yard. Malcolm's wife Sue rang just now to say he would postpone his visit until tomorrow because the hens have yet to appear from the hen-house, the dogs are refusing to leave the house, the ponies (Hen & Min) are looking very sorry for themselves and the sheep are nowhere to be seen.

As I said in my last (short) Saga, high winds forced the cancellation of ferries between Stronsay & Kirkwall on Thursday 26 Oct. According to The Orcadian the wind recorded at Kirkwall airport on Thursday evening averaged 55mph with gusts over 70mph and on the same day Orkney was the wettest place in Britain when just over three inches of rain fell. After a night of strong winds and heavy rain I looked out of the bedroom window and was astonished to see a huge bale of hay resting on the flat roof of the lean-to garage across the road from us. It was not the wind that had put the hay bale on the roof; the wind had loosened the roof and the bale had been placed there deliberately in order to prevent the wind from removing the roof completely.

The same high winds caused big problems with flooding on mainland Orkney - the electrical equipment in the water treatment plant at Kirbister was under several feet of water causing fears of a shortage of fresh water. However, the Scottish Water staff worked long hours and got the system up and running again. More high winds and heavy rain caused the cancellation of Stronsay/Kirkwall ferries again on Tuesday 31 Oct. This forced Michael Lee, tutor of our Monday evening singing class, to dash up to the airfield in order to catch the morning Loganair flight to Kirkwall so that he could be ready to go out to Sanday for their singing class on Wednesday. The high winds also caused some damage to the new garage roof of another house in Whitehall village. When these weather conditions occur everyone just "battens down the hatches" and waits for the wind to die down before going outside in daylight to see what damage has been caused.

After the high winds and heavy rain we had a period of calmer weather. One afternoon Maureen called to me "look out of the window". I did as she asked and saw a herd of young cattle trotting past the house and completely blocking the road. However, the traffic is very light and anybody who was using the road would have been quite happy to wait until the cattle had passed; time is not all that important unless you are going for one of the ferries which run to a very strict timetable.

Stronsay's Remembrance Day service at the War Memorial on Sunday 12 Nov was not very well attended, as it was a bitterly cold day. However, it was at least dry and there was very little wind. It is also possible that some islanders who would have attended were stranded on mainland Orkney when the Saturday evening ferry was cancelled because of bad weather.

I took Surrey over to Kirkwall for her annual vaccinations and for her to be neutered on Tuesday 14 Nov. We were worried about getting to Kirkwall and, more importantly, getting back because some ferries had been cancelled on the previous Saturday and Monday. The Hamnavoe, running between Stromness & Scrabster, was cancelled on Tuesday morning but the Stronsay ferry ran as usual. So Surrey travelled on the ferry in her large cat transporter (trade name "Cat Voyageur"), which was safely secured on the back seat of the car. When I collected her from the vets just before the ferry left for Stronsay she was still groggy after the anaesthetic. A couple of hours later she was back home again, the first thing she did when we opened her cat box was to make a beeline for her litter tray. Then within minutes she was happily jumping on and off chairs, albeit a little more carefully than usual. How resilient cats are! To operate on Surrey the vet had to shave a small square of fur; Surrey has taken to licking the fur around the incision but, fortunately, not the wound itself which is less than an inch long. When Surrey is licking her fur like this it looks for all the world as though she is emulating those men who are bald on top but have long, straggly bits of hair at the side which they vainly try to comb over the bald bit and conceal it. As I was collecting Surrey the vet said they had discovered that Surrey had gingivitis and remarked that it was unusual in such a young cat. The vet also said, very tactfully, that Surrey should not be allowed to get any heavier than she is now so we are placing her on a "diet" involving special biscuits.

One morning earlier this month Maureen put out the usual scraps on the bird table (a large, brightly coloured plastic construction that was originally a child's toy in the shape of a multi-storey garage). When she looked out again from the kitchen window there were the usual starlings and sparrows feeding from the table but there were also two rather strange-looking birds. After donning her glasses Maureen saw that the two newcomers were quite small chickens, one red, one black. When she went out to shoo them away they seemed quite unafraid and simply trotted along in front of her feet, clucking and muttering away to themselves. We eventually discovered that the chickens belonged to Beth, the eldest daughter of Mike & Viv from Ebenezer Stores, and that the chickens were not young ones but mature adult chickens that had not grown to their proper size for some reason or other. We were a bit worried when we saw the chickens in Bob's garden next door as he has a cat (called Socks) but the chickens returned to our bird table next day for their morning meal.

I've had a problem with a blocked nose for some time now. Our doctor had written to the ENT specialist in Aberdeen but said that an appointment might take some time. However, after a nasty bout of infection which made me partially deaf he phoned up the ENT department and sent a fax. As a result I now have an appointment with the ENT specialist when he visits Kirkwall on 30 Nov. I've already made a booking on the plane to fly to/from Kirkwall as the Thursday ferry calls at Eday and takes four hours for the round trip whereas the plane takes about ten minutes each way. Maureen will be extremely pleased if the specialist cures my deafness because she has been permanently deaf in one ear for over a year and we have had some quite surreal conversations in recent weeks when one us has misunderstood what the other was saying or asking.
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Bruce Fletcher
Stronsay, Orkney