Limpy the Duck

but the limp is improving. A few days ago she couldn't manage across the  field without a little sit-down half way

Skating in Orkney

It doesn't really snow here - too windy and too close to the sea. But we do get a lot of hail  - blown in on strong winds.  At a distance (see above) it really looks like snow on the hills. But close-up its not , its mostly hail.
Thats OK, as long as you aren't walking into it.  But if it then rains on  gtound , covered with hail, it becomes very slippery. 




So we are a bit housebound by the  ice on the drive

 And the sheep  - well the Borerays are ( or should be) used to it, so they get to stay out with some hay - the grass is also covered by a sheet of ice.

 but the Gotlands, limited for the moment to the hard standing are inside - they are too stupid to avoid the ice so try and walk over it and fall over. I wish i had the video !

Shortest day

 
The days are appreciably shorter here than in 'the deep south' ( ie London)  and when we have it , the sun doesn't get much higher than this, looking south.
And the data to prove it

Sunrise in London is 8.04 am. Here it is 9.04 am
Sunset  in London is 15.53 and here is 15.15

So that is an hours' less potential sunlight in the  morning and 38 minutes in the afternoon.

But if you were in Unst, the most northerly Island in Shetland , its even shorter

Its English, Jim, but not as we know it

And i came across this this - the Lords Prayer in 11th Century English . Its got an Orcadian lilt to it .

Horizontal hail

there was a bit of a fuss about the 'Weather bomb' that hit the UK last week. It affected mainly the Western Isles , but we got a bit of bad weather. The Radio Orkney facebook  page collected some  weather pictures . The most dramatic one is probably this

 I suspect  it was at Yesnaby, the west-facing cliffs of mainland Orkney.
So the weather bomb was been and gone and we are back to the usual winter storms in Orkney.  At the start of the week we had some wind and snow and ice and the ferries were off . That too has gone by and its back to normal.

So its a bit windy today

60-70 mph gusts

 Gusts of 60-70 mph.if yo click on the image it will enlarge.  But 60-70 mph winds here don't get a mention in the paper or the news.
When its like  this with an electrical storm on top we do tend to lose the electricity supply. Usually just for a few minutes at a time but occasionally longer, particularly overnight.  And this plays havoc with thing with timers in that havent got  backup batteries- alarm clocks, ovens, VCRs and desktop computers etc. So you just leave it until the storm has gone by.

We dont really get snow - its hail that settles. We've tried to get pictures of sheets of hail falling horizontally but haven't found a way . this is about the best we can manage. The hazy bits  is the hail  getting blown across from right to left.

the sheep have got the idea though - we put up some windbreaks on the fields and the make use of them by getting out of the hail

Winter 2014

We had a bit of a storm at the start of the week

but that wasn't  too bad - the boats were off but not the planes . Radio Orkney facebook page is the best source of information for this sort of thing

the wind has gone , but we have a bit of snow .
The water around the place all had ice on it , so a forceful welly meant that  the animals would be OK

 The sheep and hens arent too bothered  by it all.

It's an A Road

We dont live at the back of beyond - we live on a major trunk road -the A966 from  Norseman to Dounby. The road sign at the junction says so.  And there are other examples travelling up the of the A966  here. Its a trunk orad after all. And there are lots of passing places


there was a major accident on the main Finstown to Stromness road, which led to it being closed and all the traffic was diverted along the A966. So  a steady stream of traffic was going upand down the hill in the course of an evening .  And not everyone is as patient as they should be . And they have between them nad e mess fo the verges as they squeezed past each other.

And all the mud over theroad - nut never mind there has been enough rain  to sort the problem out. it would have served someone right if the had ended up in the ditch and needed to be pulled out.

So with the Lyde closed as well as the main road, that would have caused some chaos