Wednesday – Another busy day at the salt mine, working. No day seems to pass however without someone coming to the door about something or other. Today one of our visitors was Ross of RJS Joinery who is rebuilding our rather sad looking porch. He wanted to check some of his previous measurements and also told us that the new double glazed window units had been ordered and should be with us in the first week of December. The cats will look forward to that as once the cat flaps are installed ( yes I know I should have done that earlier but…. I blame the weather now ) this porch will be where they will be spending the nights otherwise they will have the run of the place, and with their desire to catch things and eat them indoors then they can stay in the porch at night! We shall see how this system works out but currently I am temporary doorman to my two feline masters.

In the afternoon we went looking for a multi-fuel burner for the sitting room, as the open fire place, although lovely when lit, it does suck the heat out during the day. A stove will also be more efficient. We found a really nice one at William Wilson and the helpful chap there, Alex, recommenced that we have it fitted by Dave Major which we will do, but after chatting to Dave later, we discovered that he was fully booked until February ! Still this apparently is the way of things in Orkney and in the big scheme of things we can cope.

We don’t currently have space for a tumble dryer here, and most on the island don’t use them anyway, so wanting the embrace the full joys of Island life Anna has been using mother nature to dry the washing, with Orkney being famous ( or is that infamous? ) for its winds then this should be no problem. However today the winds were a little too strong for drying and even the special hurricane force style clothes pegs that they sell here were not up to the job and we gave up, probably much to the delight of our neighbours watching our efforts!