91热爆

According to Bill Miller, RNLI committee secretary on Stronsay, the Lifeboat Sunday events on Stronsay last month raised over 拢2,500 (about 5,000 US dollars).

Regular readers of my ramblings will remember that I got my first hearing aid earlier this year. Batteries for the hearing aid are available from Dr George McKay's surgery so when my first pack of batteries was finished I called to collect a new pack from Katrina, Dr McKay's very friendly and highly efficient practice manager. I popped the new pack of batteries into my shirt pocket and forgot all about them until Maureen came in a couple of days later and handed me the rather tattered remains of the pack of batteries; they had gone, with my shirt, through a complete hot wash cycle and spent quite some time in the tumble drier. Amazingly the batteries still work so I didn't have to go cap in hand and confess to Dr McKay what I'd done.

Karen English from Tennessee, USA is an avid read of the Fletcher Saga and had emailed us to say she was spending a couple of weeks in Orkney and would like to visit Stronsay. So it was that I collected Karen off the morning ferry on 18 June and drove her up to Claremont where Karen, Maureen and I had early morning tea. Fortunately the weather was fine and not too windy so I took Karen on the Grand Tour of Stronsay beginning at the viewpoint on St John's Hill. This proved rather tricky because we found that the grass had not been cut for some time and I had to use my size 13 wellington boots to trample a path through the wet grass for Karen to follow. Next on the agenda was the St Catherine's Bay where our approach via the steep track leading down to the beach from the telephone exchange caused a great stir amongst the myriad of resident rabbits who emerged from cover to flee to the safety of the nearest burrow. Next we drove on southwards and just before Stronsay's very own Fire Station turned right towards Rothiesholm (pronounced "rouse 'em") to see the variety of birds in the small lochs on the way to the road-end at Millfield Moss. Retracing our tracks to the Fire Station we headed for the seal hide and bird hide at Holland Farm, calling in at Olivebank Stores to collect our newspaper. We spent so much time chatting to people in the farmyard at Holland Farm that we didn't really have time to go down to the beach to watch the seals and ended up travelling the back to Claremont via the Old Mill at Lower Millfield. We didn't want to be late getting back to Claremont because Maureen had spent the morning preparing a meal of North Ronaldsay lamb. After the meal we sat chatting but couldn't really relax because we were all heading for Moncur Memorial Church at 4 pm where the Oxford Singers were putting on a concert. The Oxford Singers numbered about 25 in all and were conducted by Stephen Wilkinson, they were part of the St Magnus Festival and their visit to Stronsay (on the same ferry that had brought Karen) was really a rehearsal for their concerts on mainland a few days later. The concert was very enjoyable especially in the glorious acoustics of Stronsay's kirk and we heard pieces by Byrd, Buxtehude, Purcell and JS Bach. After the concert there was just time to have a cup of tea with Karen before delivering back to the quay so she could travel back to Kirkwall.

Maureen's Medieval Hall is now officially a Baronial Hall as she has so much stuff from different periods of history. I think it's going to be like one of these museums or art galleries where only a fraction of its stock is on display and the remainder is "in store".

Margreth's "Mother-In-Law's Tongue" is still flowering



But now Margareth has sent me a photograph of a mystery plant. It lives on the window sill of her daughter's bedroom along with the cheese plant, aspidestra, and staghorn fern. The leaves are wide and furry, the length of each stem is about 10" and it has several yellow-ish "paint brushes" sprouting from it. Does anyone have any idea what it is?





Margareth is not only a healthcare professional with green fingers, she also likes sea fishing and, judging from this photograph, she is quite good at it!



The monks of Papa Stronsay invited us to their annual bonfire and barbeque in honour of St. John the Baptist. However, we didn't go because I was still getting over a slightly queasy stomach and Maureen's Menieres Syndrome makes travelling by sea quite an ordeal. Apparently there was a good turnout on the day despite the rather wet and windy weather which caused the barbeque to be held in one of the huge buildings on Papa Stronsay. There are photographs of the bonfire on the

One of our neighbours who lives just 2 doors away is Julia Crocker (Secretary of the Stronsay Development Trust). Julia has converted the garage of Clifton, her house in Whitehall village, into a very smart arts and crafts shop which was officially opened on 28 June. The shop has some books relevant to Orkney and to Stronsay but it is Julia's intention that the shop will concentrate on art and craft produced on Stronsay by Stronsay residents; the shop does have but it isn't quite finished yet!

We've been having really good weather these last few weeks. Maureen has cleared out her greenhouse; it's really the old coal shed but with the original leaky roof replaced by clear, corrugated plastic one. I've converted the old outside lavatory, which is fairly good condition, into a "potting shed". After whitewashing the interior walls and roof it now seems much less gloomy. In there I've put some lettuce plants we were given, they seem to be thriving, and I've put a few cauliflower seeds and radish seeds into small pots and they seem to be growing OK. One day in July it was so hot that it actually melted the tarred road outside the Fire Station. We're not used to these temperatures!

Mike & Sheila's ducks have raised a brood but one duckling has been brought up by one of their hens and refuses to go anywhere near the duck pond despite the best efforts of Mike & Sheila to encourage it. If the duckling strays too far from its "mother" hen the hen just clucks and the duckling scurries back.

Although we're basking in sunshine we've an eye on the winter so we bought a couple of portable electric lanterns to cope with any power cuts. They are the "wind up" type which will also run from a 12 volt car battery. They should prove very handy and experimentation has shown that about a minute of "winding" will provide around 30 minutes of light.

I went over to Kirkwall on the Friday before the County Show and the weather was fine and warm. Of course on the following day it poured down in the afternoon. It was my first visit to mainland for some weeks and I was surprised to find that Orkney Ferries have moved into the 21st century and the ferry fares can now be paid on board by credit or debit card instead of the old system of either cash or cheque. Whilst in Kirkwall I visited the "new" Tesco store (previously owned by various groups including Presto, Safeway/Morrisons and Somerfield) and noticed that it's still mostly the same staff who've been there through all the changes of ownership. There was some controversy when Tesco announced that they were going to buy the store from Somerfield and even more controversy when Tesco announced that they wanted to build an extension to the store. The store was closed for several weeks when Tesco took over which, apparently, caused quite a bit of congestion in both the Co-op and Lidl stores.

It's our custom to listen to the "Book at Bedtime" on 91热爆 Radio 4. However, at the beginning of each episode the announcers have developed the annoying habit of telling listeners what's going to happen next instead of just giving a resume of what's happened in previous episodes. Yet another reason for me to shout at the wireless.

It's the next month. All of the events are on mainland but on Thu 11 Sep and Fri 12 Sep there is a special event on Stronsay which centres on the 200 year old mystery of "Stronsay Beast". I've booked our tickets, if you're interested in the event I've posted the details on the

Margareth has yet another "mystery" plant! In the photographs below, just at the back of the Mother in laws tongue, is a pot containing four huge (Spanish onion size) bulbs. Out of each bulb grows about a 3ft long "snake" which then branches and produce little white dandelion-like clocks. It does not have leaves and the flowers are tiny, about the size of a garden pea (a pea in the pod not the pod). Margareth inherited this plant 4 years ago and says that she has done nothing with it except neglect it, it gets water from the capillary action of the bench it sits on and lives in an old 8" plastic glue pot. What is it?