It amazing how much starling poo lands on the windows …. However, I can’t help wondering why, when there is just ONE window I can’t reach the top of without something to stand on, that has to be the one with the biggest poo ?

I was consistently sworn at by starlings with nests in the most unlikely places on the roof as I circumnavigated the house. Their range of bad language is vast and positively enviable.

We went into K2 yesterday and ordered some blackout blinds for our little sitting room – that’s where the sofa bed is, and poor Matthew when he stayed with us, suffered grievously with the long daylight hours – he said 03.30 was stupid o’clock to be woken by the sun. So next time you come up Matthew, if you get bumped out of the spare room by someone else (sorry about that but Steve had arrived first), you will have nice blackout blinds. Or, of course, you could come in the winter !!

We had a lovely mooch round Kirkwall the other day – but must make an effort to find some new cod and haddock recipes. That’s all that was left and I wasn’t inspired and I feel cod and haddock should be inspirational really. Oh, there was one small Witch fillet but I knew it wouldn’t be enough. Chicken thai curry was our eventual supper. And very nice it was too, with a small starter of prosciutto and salami on a dressed salad. But yesterday I got lemon sole fillets which I did with a lemon and caper cream sauce on a bed of baby new potatoes, petits pois, sugar snap peas and English asparagus. And very nice it was too !

We also bought a very nifty hedge trimmer from Orkney Tool Hire – a Makita one that uses the batteries Mark already owns. So we managed to trim back the rosa rugose from the front by the driveway and now we can actually see if a car is coming before we pull out and not take our lives in our hands ! They have just gritted the bit of road beside us, doing a great job IMO – but we prefer it if cars take it a bit easy and don’t stoneblast us as we pass them. It will be interesting when they do the two rather vicious corners up past us because when it is first down it’s obviously a bit skiddy, and I can see an accident waiting to happen. On our way back Mark nearly drove off the road in excitement as he saw a new, shiny, BT green box being installed on the outskirts of Stromness. Could it. Would it. Might it possibly be fibre to the cabinet heading out towards us ? So we can get “real” broadband and speed – we get 2M most of the time from the ADSL but that would mean we can wave goodbye to the satellite dish that we really need for the business to get us better connection. Wouldn’t that be great !!

We have had some great weather recently– clear blue skies and feeling hot in a t-shirt. Warmer than any day last summer and the birds and plants are just LOVING it. Mark got the lawn mowed and it is looking very splendid – maybe lawn is a bit of an exaggeration – grass it is, mostly, but it will never be a bowling green ! And he strimmed lots of nettles down (don’t panic you bird lovers, there are, trust me, plenty more out of our strimmers reach).

Standing by the kitchen window the other day I was almost deafened by the sparrows and their babies in the hedge, all the little ones begging to be fed. Then … a kestrel swept across and their little world went silent as they scurried back into the hedge and safety. Fascinating to watch and experience …