91热爆

Arrg! I haven't been able to blog because my camera is being very stubborn. And I have so much to show!! Erlend bought me a piano for Christmas and a bike for St. Valentine's day, the crocuses and snowdrops are out...and the sheep are in! No wait, they are out again because the weather is lovely.

Well, hopefully I can get this camera either fixed or replaced. Meanwhile I'll continue to skulk around everyone elses' blogs!

The books are coming along!! It's a series and I have about 1600 pages so far. Once I edit and tinker the number will shrink but I'm not going to do that until after I get the story out of my head - I don't want to lose it!

Have a great day! Cheerio!!!

So, Erlend and I have joined the chorus...the St. Magnus Festival Chorus!! **GULP** Well, I always say that life is never truly lived until you leap out of your comfort zone. We've done just that ~ and then some!

I trained to be an opera singer in Alaska and did one solo Italian Aria and messed it up with aplomb ~ sang off key because I was scared and because I was freaking about singing off key I totally lost my place halfway through! But I loved it just the same. Anyhoo, I left my training to marry my lovely Erlend and I haven't sung for nearly 2 and a half years... You can imagine the panic as I tried to warm up my rusty voice for the past week! Oddly enough whenever I howled my high notes Brodgar would start running around the house in a panic and Zeb would first run in to check that I was ok and then he'd run away and go hide. That did NOTHING for my confidance HAH!! Oh well. Honesty is the best policy...

We had our first practice last night in this gorgeous kirk in Kirkwall and my handsome farmer is a Tenor and I am a Mezzo-Soprano but there were no sign-up sheets for mezzos. (Uh oh...now what??) I spotted a lady standing with the sign-up sheets and I said to her, "Excuse me? Do you know anything about music?"

"Yes, I do!" she replied cheerfully.

"Oh thank goodness! I'm a mezzo-soprano...where do I go??" I wondered in a half-panic. (Please don't say sopranos Please don't say sopranos...)

"Well...the sopranos go very high, up to a high "A"..." the kind lady told me and I shook my head and waved my hands as if to ward off a devil. "Right." said She. "Why don't you go with the Altos?"

"YES THAT SOUNDS GREAT!" Said I and I dove off to the left and now I'm a mezzo in hiding with the Altos, just the way I like it!

Erlend was off with the Tenors and WOULDN'T you know it, he ended up sitting beside another farmer! These farmers kinda gravitate towards one another even in a big crowd.

So, practice started and I was totally lost. Never before in my life had I seen a score with uh...all the other scores mixed in! To my mortification the Lady to whom I had asked, "Do you know anything about music?" was our chorus director!!!!!! Er... That's just my kind of luck!

Thankfully I was sitting next to someone who had some idea of what was going on. Every two seconds I was asking, "Where are we?!" Suffice it to say, everyone else sounded spectacular and I resembled a howling cat. Halfway through I wanted to cry. At the end of practice both Erlend and I stared at one another with shell-shocked expressions and wondered if we were collectivly insane for thinking we can do this? YOU BET!!

Bwahahahahahahahaaa!

I'm already trying my best to hunt down a voice teacher so he/she can help me master my parts... (Anyone know of anyone in Dounby or Stromness or anyone that makes home visits for lessons?? ARRRG! I wish Orkney had The Yellow Pages...)

I can't take a bike photo yet because of the gales but here are some other photos:


Looks innocent enough, right? But then...


...you open it and AAAAAAK! What do I do?!?!


Here's the piano my handsome farmer bought me for Christmas! The keys are weighted like a real piano and it does not have all those fancy frills like most keyboards. It's just a piano!! (Wow...two rosaries in one photo. If I keep this up I'll soon have my own church!!)


It's taken me two long years to find a winter hat that could stand up to Orkney! These Islands seem so sweet and innocent but let me tell you...they are tough nuggets! Ladies and Gents...I give you the brown velvet bonnet! It's thick and able to keep out the winds and it acts like a helmet ~ today I went out in the hail and I never felt a thing!! HIP HIP HOORAY!!

I love hats and over the past two years I've been able to add several beauties to my collection. I even managed to locate some affordable yet beautiful hatpins that help my hats stay on my head in the perpetual Orkney "breezes." Sadly I can't advertise but suffice it to say, the lady from whom I order my hats does a fantastic job for a fraction of the usual price for hats!


This was last-year's Easter Bonnet.


I have to admit, this is my favorite hat of all!


This is my autumn hat but I wear it year-round.


This one will match all of my blue or green clothes.


This one will be my Easter Bonnet for this year!

I am Madam Sheep and I need a name. Is anyone interested in bestowing a nice name on me so I will no longer be called by a boring ol' number? There's no creativity in that!! If you are interested in naming this nameless yow please leave a comment on my Slave's blog! Thank you and baaaaah! (Slave's Note: This is one of the biggest Wooly Ladies in our flock and she's lovely and tame and deserves a name! I hope you'll help her find something suitable for a hard-working woolly yow!)
Names We Have So Far:
Magnus the Ram
Elsie-yow
Inga, Elsie's daughter
Ingaborg
Martha
Mathilda (she wears the bell that Dag sent from Norway!)
Madaline
Rat Tail
Blue Butt (she had a blue backside last year and the name stuck!)
Ten-Ten