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Even on the Orcadian Online website, a place I visit daily to peruse what the weather will be doing..or more importantly, what the sea will be doing...over the next few days...they have forecast snow, and blizzards, raging winds and high seas...
So ok..they got some of it right...we have the high seas..you wouldnae get me out there on a boat for love nor money...
we have the raging winds...I already have a little structural damage here, hope everyone else is ok and battened down...
But snow?
Tsk...nary a flake, and nope, I don`t count sleet and hail as snow...
So I watch on the news, Scotland has a few centimetres of snow (sigh..I miss good old fashioned inches, ye know...) and so has turned into Sassenach land! Everyone is panicking! Over a scant inch of snow..what happened there? When did a nation for whom every winter brought feet of snow..the real, white, powdery, glorious white stuff...turn into a bunch of spineless whiners at an inch or so of snow on the roads?
C`mon guys..don`t be going down that road, we`re nanny-state-ish enough as it is.....
We Scots are made of sterner stuff than to let a peedie drift of snow daunt us, are we not?
I watched a news reporter yesterday stand in a field over which was barely a scattering of snow...and he was bundled up for the Arctic...and was bleating about how they couldn`t film `over there` because the snow ploughs hadn`t cleared the way!
Snow ploughs!? Hand that bl**dy man a shovel, for crying out loud....
Snow ploughs wouldn`t even have had a stain of white on their own shovels, so scant was that snowfall.
Here, we have no snow..sniff, sob..and I WANT some! It isn`t winter without it. Why, oh why, do they moan on the weather and news about how they really want mild temperatures, sun, no wind, no snow..what do these people want? One bland season all year round?
IT`S WINTER, GUYS..IT`S SUPPOSED TO SNOW...

Instead here, due to, I remain convinced, climate change, we have constant gales and frequent disruptions to our crucial means of transport, the ferries. The ferry companies do a fabulous job here, running the boats in waters I cringe at the thought of crossing, and pretty much always on time. It takes some truly severe weather to stop our ferries.
So the next time you see folks whining about an inch of snow on their roads, as they stand there whilst it melts in glorious, unseasonal, winter sunshine, think of Orkney and the constant gale force winds and the way our ferry boats battle hell and literally high water to keep an essential lifeline open for isolated islanders living on the sharp edge of REAL weather.

Okies. Rant over. Wish it would snow properly here....in feet, not centimetres....

It got here..snow...lots of it, whether it`ll lie or not I dinnae ken, cos it`s awful windy out there. But for now it`s a pretty sight, blizzarding out of the skies like that, laying the barest covering ower the fields and track.
The winds have done some damage though, most notable for me being the loss of a chicken hutch, a substantial one it was too, which is now in bits strewn over a couple of fields, and which I can`t retrieve til the winds drop.
It`s a pity, for I won`t be able to fix it, and it was the one the geese used to nest in.
It really is wrecked now though.
Oh, but it is such a bonny sight, that snow dusting the island.......I hope we get mair.....

As predicted, the snow only lasted a scant day....it whirled down from the sky, all bonny, white and glittering, and settled on the ground, despite the winds trying to scour it across the isle, and gave us a glimpse of the start of a bygone winter.
The pond at the side of the track froze, almost entirely. Two swans live there overwinter..in times past I`ve walked down to the pond and had to break the ice for the swans and ducks so they could swim in a space a little wider than a couple of feet.
But those were winters that dazzled in their brightness, fields full of powdery, drifting, sheets of snow. Those were winters that glittered in low lying sunshine, where mornings brought lemon coloured glows flowing liquidly across a creamy landscape, and evenings turned the gentle hills and dips to quiet fire.
Those were winters I stood out in it, watching the flakes drift down around me, watching them settle on the old wooden wheelbarrow..now no more, after being turned into splinters by a gale....and watched the vegetable gardens become low white humps and hillocks where the stumps of the years brussels and blown cabbages hunkered....
Those were the winters I watched wild birds shelter in the bare twigs of the rose bush hedges, starlings, sparrows, tiny wrens and bright, bold robins.

But last winter, no snow at all...only wet and grey misery, nothing spectacular, nothing real.
And this winter, one small day of snow that brightened the landscape but briefly, and though winter is hardly over yet...I`m wondering if that`ll be it for the duration...back to the rain, the winds, the `in-between-ness` that isn`t quite proper winter but also isn`t anything like spring or summer.
Sigh..I miss the winters of the past.....
So I take solace in the sunrises, which I`m always up to see....swathes of fire across the horizon, a still low winter sun bringing news of the rain to come by way of messenger clouds, heavy, blood-red and fierce looking...and that beautiful, perfect stillness you sometimes get before the island wakes and when even the sea kissing the shore is a hushed thing, tiptoeing into the day.
And I take solace in the sunsets, a different shade of red and gold, painting the fields and the sea to the West with crimson and blushing the land like an embarrassed maiden.

The swans have the whole pond to swim upon now, and are joined by herons and wild mallards and my own lazier, fatter, domestic heinz 57 ducks....
The sea is frothing white and grey and chattering on the shingle beach, rolling the rocks around and clawing at the sandy beach.
The shattered pieces of my hen hutch still lie trapped against the field fence, waiting for the winds to drop so I can haul them back and see if anything can be salvaged.
The skies are what we call north of the Border, soft....pearl and palest pink, cloud bleeding into cloud with blurred, feathered edges, nothing harsh but nothing warm either...
The homes dotted about Sanday, for the most part, rise up from the soil like they grew organically from it....earth coloured rock and slate tiles weathered and mossed and lichened like the stone dykes that circle the gardens.
Some of them show smoke drifting skyward in the winds, fragrant with coal or peat and blown into oblivion after a few feet.
Around the pond, reeds and grasses stand stiff and unyielding, bronzed and bare, winter-stark.
It`s bleak, here, often.
But it`s one of the bonniest place on earth.

Finally got round to bathing the dog...she looks gorgeous, doesn`t she?
My favourite dogs are collies..they are bright, quick and loyal. She`s an old hound, was getting a little smelly, as dogs do when they`re outdoors a lot (she will insist on eating weeks old dead bunnies and ducks, dunno why....) but she`s still fit and active and, I think, very cute. :-)

A major part of any sleepless persons life is what to do in the night hours. Tv? Rubbish, for the most part, and though I have my favourite dvd`s...god, how many times have I watched The 13th Warrior now?....sometimes, neither movie nor book gives you what you need.
And you get to being a little restless, trapped in the silent dark hours when it seems as if you`re the only one alive who isn`t reclining in the arms of Morpheus.
But I`ve been like this, off and on, since my teen years, so am used to it and have developed admirable coping strategies. Wanna know what some of them are?
*grins widely*
I collect weapons. And I use some of them too..crossbows, archery bows...swords..throwing axes...
I`m lucky enough here to have the outdoor space to be able to practice with these and they are a source of enormous fun and exercise.
I can open up the hay barn doors and in there is a peedie lightbulb which shines upon the target I can set up in there, in front of the bales.
So from outside, I can shoot/fire anything, at any time of day or night.
Or, if it`s too cold or windy outside, I can just sit with some natural wax and polish the beechwood stocks of the crossbows or the laminated limbs of the recurve bows, or the leather clad limbs of the Hunic, my favourite bow.
Sitting by the softly ticking stove, with the scent of beeswax, silence or the song of the wind outside, the wood begins to gleam in the lamplight and you know, there is something quite timeless about all of those things brought together in the night hours, and it`s hugely satisfying.
Or if I am too restless even for that, I`ll go for a walk.
Round the corner of the hof, a curved stone wall bejewelled with moss and lichen, down the softly sloping track, past the pond where I stop and look, and listen, to see what`s out there upon the waters...usually, there are a couple of wild mallards, and the swans, and always somewhere around are the moorhens, the same ones that daily live in my garden alongside my own fat, tame domestic ducks, sharing the barley.
Past the pond and across the single track road at the bottom of the track, across the wee stone bridge and out onto the beach, where the Peedie Sea stretches across to Stronsay under the moonlight, waves gleaming then vanishing, then returning again, an eternal dance made beautiful and otherworldly under silver light.
You wonder, sometimes, how many other sleepless folks ever stood and just watched the sea at night. Watching seals pop up and peer over the water at you, then disappear again when you don`t provide suitable entertainment for them. Watching the occasional sea otter cross the road on the way from one stretch of water to another...
How many others, standing, wondering where the waters lead, thinking random thoughts of what the day ahead might bring and would you have the energy to deal with it?
Lack of sleep always catches up with you, but usually not til daytime, as if there is something about the daylight that saps the strength...a kind of perverse relation of the Curse of Macha perhaps....
but at that moment, on the shore, watching the rhythm of the ocean and the moon walk the skies above you, there`s no tiredness, and instead a kind of contentness happens and it`s peaceful and slowly steals away the restlessness from you.
It`s a soothing, bonny thing to do.
Then it`s time to turn back across the road, up the track, watching the house grow nearer, seeing the warm glow of lamplight in the window, seeing a small silver trail of smoke leave the lum, happy you have such a roof over your head in such a bonny, peaceful place.

The only other coping mechanisms I have for such nights are the books, or the movies....
So that`s what I do...them`s yer choices, as me dad would say....read, watch, polish or shoot..
or take the track to the shore and listen to the song of the waves and the wind, soft and keening, high overhead.

I`m not Orcadian, I`m Scots. I`m lucky enough to have lived here a fair few years now, in such a bonny place where the folks, for the most part, are kind and friendly, and the scenery is unique and very special.
Sometimes, I admit, I get homesick for Scotland (and can now hear Orcadians do the "well bu**er off back there then!") but I`ll remind them that lots of Orcadians move home, sometimes to the other end of the earth, and they write often about how homesick for Orkney they get..so why shouldn`t I miss the place I was birthed in?
Got very few complaints about living here and of those, the biggest is the inclement weather which I can do nothing about so aside from having the occasional pleep aboot it, well, it`s putten up with. ;-) (um..is putten an actual word?)
I do think it takes a particular mindset and character to live on the Isles. I`ve been on some of the Western Isles and they are softer across there, kinder, often with trees and hills and bonny looking just like the highlands.
And `softer`, by the way, like Ireland, which they`re also closer to, in that gentler way.
Here, further North, it`s a beautiful but harsh landscape...fields and dunes and bare rock scoured by grit-carrying winds and shaped sharp and jagged by the sea constantly hammering at the door.
Sometimes the elements batter at us so fiercely, as if the very wind held a long remembered grudge, that all you want to do is find a tiny space, hunker down, and hope for the best...
This morning, after getting up at four, I went outside in a bit of a stiff wind (understatement for, I nearly got blown on me backside going round the corner of the house again...)
and watched the sky, which was then black, and saw the remnants of pale streamers of light shift and dance there, almost imperceptibe now but still there.
And later, as the sun rose, I went out again, to rescue one of the cats who had foolishly tried to stalk one of the geese, and had been chased into the rose hedge and was cowering there, feared to come out in the face of an angry, wings-outstretched, hissing harridan..hopefully the cat will have learned her lesson..but I doubt it.
So after I picked her out the rose hedge, gaining sharp thorns in hands and arms meantime, I turned to look behind me and saw the bonniest sight I have seen for a goodly while.
The sky was on fire. Trails of feathered and plump clouds strewn above the skyscape, all awash with liquid gold and fiery oranges, warm crimsons and just the whole thing looking for all the world like some pyromaniac had decided to light a match up there...
I had the strange notion that if the wind hadn`t been blowing, and it had been calm and quiet, I might have heard that sky crackle and spark like a real fire.
It made me pause, after putting down the struggling cat which shot off into the house away from the still angry goose.
It made me think, well, there aren`t, here, the hills and trees of Scotland..no rivers and glens where the wildcat stalks or the deer graze.
There, in those places, I have limited vision, for there are always trees or bushes, hills or farms and crofts to look at every way you turn, and in the thickness of it, always something to catch your attention, from tiny things like field mice or a lone proud thistle, to the larger master painting of hill and glen and stag and hind running the moors.
But here, there is nothing in the way of seeing. Every way I turn, there is the land or the sea, stretching so far I can see nothing else. I have to look closer to see the tiny things, the mouse in the stone dyke, raising a ....clutch...?...of babies...or the heron hiding in the reeds by the pond, fishing quietly, stiff and still against the winds.
But the larger painting of it?
Oh, that`s vast indeed....seascapes always changing with each day`s moody weather, never dull, never still.
Light shifting over the scant land making shadowy hollows of gentle dips in the earth, making small `hills` of the highest points where the light bathes it all in warmth.
Most of all though, the skyscape above me never grows old. I once sent a picture of a sunrise to a friend in England. He said, "Well, we have the same sky here you know" and thought it nothing special.
But he was wrong.
Orkney skies are marvellous, beautiful, enthralling things.
And I never tire of watching them. The sunrise has gone now, the fire has died down and the colour if it all is pearl and dove grey, with a few tiny scattered patchwork pieces of baby pink. Another `soft` sky. What we lack in the lushness of further south, here, we make up for in distance and space, and beautiful wildness.
But for a while I stood under a fire and felt the heat of it echo in my soul like a song.

The cat, however, is distinctly unimpressed and is glaring at the geese now from a nearby wall, cleverly out of reach. I`m sure she plots revenge....

When I was a wee lassie, the world seemed bigger. Did it not seem like that to you?
A garden we would call now, a postage stamp could be a jungle or, if you lived on the North East coat of Scotland, a desert or the Arctic! ;-)
Because you were small enough to find the hidey holes in it, a comfy and secret seat behind the rose bushes or under the low branches of the elder or fir tree. And from your `throne` you looked out across the garden and could embroil the landscape of it in your daydreams.
Or did you not do that too? Ahem..am I the only one here who did that? Oh dearie me.....sigh...
When I was wee, the world seemed much more full of mystery and enchantment. Fairy tales, although your friends soon put you right about the myth of them, still enthralled you because somehow, they held a grain of `might be` in them, so when the wind whistled round your door of a wild winters night you would still lend an ear to listen out for the Cailleach chapping the door, demanding to be let in and have a bed for the night...and if your family were foolish enough to say no...well...you could just bet it would be YOUR soul she took in price....oh aye....
and the house brownie could be conveniently blamed for the mystifying disappearance of mam`s sewing scissors or dad`s right wellie boot....
and you knew that once the brownie had had its fun with those things, they`d be put back, right back, in the place they were looked for, no harm done, except older folks thinking they might be losing their marbles, their eyesight, or both....
When I was wee, an adult could keep you spellbound by spinning a story made of words that birthed pictures in your imagination...it wasn`t already laid out for us, you see, the story, in film or game, because like when reading books, you`d to employ your own inner vision and make the words come to life in your mind.
When I was wee, games played seemed, somehow, more fun, more innocent, from swinging on the tarzan rope over the burn to building the go-kart that would have adults nowadays throwing up their hands in horror at the use of rusty auld nails, and bits of fencewire holding the rickety but tough thing together as you hurtled down the Brae at what you thought was warp speed....
Those were days kids were happy to play outside in all weathers, and nope, we didn`t even usually get well wrapped up for it if it rained...we just stayed out and played harder to avoid getting cold, but a wee drop water? Och, that was nothing.....
And when you saw a group of us kids, there wasn`t the sinking feeling that you`d be having to walk past a gang of ASBO`s or wait for one of them producing a flick knife and demanding your purse....the worse we`d do would be to poke our tongue out at the departing adults back, or throw out a funny nickname then run away very fast, the tune a song of pattering childrens feet and giggling laughter, not even really malicious.
Don`t times change though, eh? Not always for the best, don`t you think?

When you`re wee, the world seems bigger, more mysterious, enchanting even through the fear of the unknown, and somehow, `fresher`, cleaner, shiny new and exciting, full of possibilities seen through the eyes of a child.
Days stretch before you full of those possibilities where anything could happen, and even uneventful and sometimes boring days didn`t dull your enthusiasm for the next one to come.
Life was simpler, though you`d never have said so because whether or not Mary spoke to you next day in school was, of course, of crucial importance and might decide the course of the rest of your life....but somehow, (and even though there were those of us children for whom the adult world intruded maybe too soon...) the relative innocence of childhood was protected more than it seems today, when access to the media and the Internet give children a wider, more detailed view of what the world is actually like..
Back when I was wee, a letter coming in the post was more of an event than an email in your inbox.
A rare trip to the cinema was worthy of discussion for the next year, unlike sitting down one night to watch the latest dvd...
Carefully deciding which sweeties got the honour of your hard earned pocket money pennies was more fulfilling than being able to go into the supermarket and choose from a glut of junk foods...
And somehow, our attention span spun out more than half an hour before disinterest and boredom and destructive behaviour set in...a comic could keep me going all day, read and reread..a book for a windy rainy winters day could see me on the window seat with lit up eyes, stepping into the Land That Time Forgot maybe...
and mam would have to come poke at me to get me to eat dinner, because time got forgotten, not the Land.

Sometimes the lure of nostalgia can provide us with rose tinted specs that maybe also colour our memories of times past, and amplify the innocence and satisfaction of a childhood often well spent.
But more often than not, our memories run true, and what we remember fondly WAS, and did unfold like our thoughts of it give out to our sometimes jaded, tired adult mind.

When I was a wee lassie the world seemed bigger, mysterious and exciting.
Then I grew up....

Well, maybe...
When life gets to being a bit rough, and I start to feel down, I look for ways to make myself feel better.
One of those ways is really weather-reliant...I garden.
Now granted, my own garden is hardly the neat, beflowered, manicured treasures you find further south..anything that grows here has to be tough, hardy, much like the folk and the sturdy wee coos....:D

Today was a fabulously sunny, calm day, so off I went, spade in hand, to continue digging the tattie patch I started the other day.
It`s a grand thing, to be able to take your time at such a thing, to be able to look in the direction of a keening curlew or noisy oystercatcher, or to stand a wee while and watch fishing boats saunter into Kettletoft harbour.
It`s a grand thing, to be able to watch your own geese settle down and doze in the fine unseasonal sunshine and keep guard over the surrounding fields where sheep bleat on occasion..what more could you ask for, the sounds of the countryside all around you and add to it a gentle breeze and the sea kissing the shore and wow, what a day!
There is little that smells so damn good and honest as freshly turned soil. Each spadeful unleashing that aroma that just smells so clean and new and just..well...good..y`know?
Whatever it is that makes weeds so sturdy and indestructible, if we could harness that in medicine somehow we might be on the road to immortality...though, of course, some weeds are already used in medicine..I always have a fine crop of coltsfoot, like it or not...
well though, in atween those fine fat forkfulls of soil, rich in worm and weed, there are broken pieces of crockery....you know what I mean? old, worn, obviously been there a while, and how come I never dug those bits up last year, or the year afore, digging in the exact same place?
Pretty crockery some of it must have been too...willow pattern teacups, obviously....dinner dishes...old stone jam jars...and the large glazed brown pieces of crockpot, for soups and stewings.....
Now, there is no record of homes ever having been on my tattie patch...so I have to wonder, where the heck do these come from, and how did they get there? Because, there`s a LOT!
So what happened to Sanday`s bygone crockery? Was there a domestic war that spanned a few generations? Because some of it comes from Victorian times, others from what looks like the Pyrex fifties...
Did the men and women of this bonny isle have a war of the sexes, with the women chucking the domestic ware...and missing?
I now have visions of generations of menfolks standing out among the tatties, pleading innocence or their cause, and ducking...a lot.....
I filled a peedie bucket with broken bits of china and earthenware....
some of it comes in useful...a few years ago I made a driftwood mirror for the bathroom and using that white kind of plaster, set the bonnier bits of broken crockery into the frame of it. I still have it and it still looks nice....

Today had a real feel of spring to it, and that isn`t quite right for February, I know it. But instead of pleeping aboot it, I`ll just hope it holds true to this for a peedie whiles yet, so I can get the garden finished and maybe my own snowdrops will poke their lovely white heads above the frosted ground, much later than everyone elses but nonetheless welcome for all that.

And when things get me down, then I go out and do simple gardening and am reminded I have the chance to do it, so am soon feeling better for it. I`m a lucky woman...I live in a bonny, peaceful place, I live a simple, quiet life, and am appreciative of days like this has been.
Though if anyone can help solve the broken teacup mystery, please tell....it`ll drive me scatty thinking of it....

So, I have this cold/flu/virus thingy. And it sucks. Got a hacking cough, thumping headache, aches all over, runny nose (even though it`s not getting very far, har..ahem..sorry..a joke from childhood there..) and a throat that feels like it`s been sandpaperd.
And I gotta work. Yup. Got orders to fill, deadlines to meet..but all I wanna do is lie in bed or under a furry, fleecy blanket on the couch and watch junk tv til it narcotises my slightly fevered brain.
But I can`t, so have compromised..I work a peedie bit, then rest, then work another peedie bit, then rest.
Isn`t it funny how, when we feel poorly, we revert to childhood?
When I was wee, and had a cold or the flu, dad would give me a concoction of single malt whisky with blackcurrent juice and honey, all nice and warm.
Yes, I know social workers and other busybodies will throw up their hands in horror at the thought..but the whisky was never enough to get me drunk, and the whole thing was soothing and calmed a cough and was just enough to help me drift off into healing sleep.
Now though, I forego the whisky and just take ordinary painkillers and stoke the stove and snuggle on the sheepskin covered couch under a warm blanket with a stack of dvd`s to watch and a few good books on the table beside me.
Some channels are going through their retro phase...oldies like UFO and the Professionals, anyone remember that?
The Two Ronnies, always make me laugh but oh how I wish that someone would show the Morecambe and Wise show again, haven`t seen it for ages and I miss them. Or Tommy Cooper, who always made me giggle even if I barely understood him half the time.
Nowadays it`s all `alternative` comedians, and what the heck are they? Poking fun at the misfortune of others, or swearing lots and trying to pretend that is funny..well, it`s not.
The Fork Handles sketch from the Two Ronnies...THAT was funny..
Tommy`s `bottle/glass/glass/bottle`...THAT was funny...Eric and Ernies fabulous plays wot Ernie wrote..and the songs..remember Shirley Bassey walking down those stairs with one pit boot on? or Tom Jones trying not to crack up as Eric and Ernie joined in the song in the background?
Sigh...
I guess I won`t get away with naming comedy shows now, here, on the Beeb owned site..especially if they aren`t Beeb material..but it wouldn`t matter because I wouldn`t want to dignify them by discussion..they`re just not a patch on the old days of British comedy....
So anyways, when I`m under the weather, these are my `comfort blanket` ideas....
a snack or two to keep my strength up, usually some form of chocolate which is, of course, the ultimate medicinal food...
a bottle of Lucozade because that`s what mum used to give me, convinced by sixties and seventies ads that it really was a health drink...
something to read, watch or listen to that makes you feel good..so in my case a Stephen King book or some Hammer Horror or better still, Carry On movies...
a warm fire or room is also essential...
and taking the phone off the hook too.
Then just lean back, get comfy and shut the world out and giggle at Sid, Babs and the crowd or get that delicious shiver up your spine (to go with the fluey shivers) at IT.....

By dose is so bunged up by the way, I talk like dis now and it is so red with blowing it, I`m doing me best impression of Rudolph....

Aye, there are plenty worse off than me...but I`m not anyone else, just me. So I`ll relish the time out in spite of the symptoms and pretend my childhood isn`t umpteen years ahind me and remember how mam used to sing `There`s A Tiny House` to me whenever I felt poorly and was bedbound, and how dad used to hand me the concoction of an evening that helped me sleep, and relish the steady warmth of a good old fashioned hot water bottle at my feet.....
Viva Sid, Babs and co....and Carry On Screaming! ...

....Doesn`t like me!
Last week we`d a thunderstorm here on Sanday. It fair rolled across the island..you know how it begins..the sky darkens and that much overused but well fitting word, `ominous`, happens....like a great bruised and unhealthy face the sky glares down at us, close quarters, then the thunder rolls across it like the biggest drum in the world is being beaten with half an oar maybe, or a giants thighbone...
And there you are, sitting quite happily tapping away at the keys on your laptop, which is, where else, but on your lap...
and there`s this blinding flash from just outside the window, and in a micro second there`s also a `fizzzz` at the cable end and it travels down the line and the back of the laptop lights up like a Jul tree and your hands get a whack and begin buzzing a fair bit....
and the Internet freezes...
So, long story short, that day last week I spent the day alternately cursing at the lightning, nursing hands that felt like the worst kinda pins and needles, and trying to wade through the "Press button one for blah blah blah" that is the BT helpline....
only to get a tech assistant who barely speaks English and has no real grasp of what I am saying when I tell him, yes, I did xyz and am sure it isn`t the actual laptop and yes, we DID have a lightning strike...
it took out my modem, which left me without the net for about a week.
During that time I came to realise just how much we rely on modern technology to keep us connected now...
I run a small business which relies upon being online.
I have friends I keep in regular contact with, some of whom thought I`d taken a snit or thrown some kinda wobbly at them for no reason because I didn`t ...couldn`t...get in touch...and some who were quite worried in case I was ill or hurt...
and I rely on the Net for little daily checking things. like logging into the Orcadian Online to check the weather here, or the Met Office for the Shipping forecast and suchlike, not to mention digital banking.....
Well, all of that went in one tiny fizz bang wallop and tingle.....
Our local island hostelry, the Belsair, runs a small Internet cafe...and they were kind enough to put up with my knocking their door at 9am of a morning so I could get online to inform folks why I wasn`t `talking` for a peedie while....
and thanks to that I was able to get online a couple of times to take care of business and banking.
Two more kindly folks are harder to find. Can`t thank them enough.
But the whole thing made me realise how much I take this technology for granted.
It keeps me in touch with folks I otherwise wouldn`t know, it makes business so much easier than in the days of paper and phone alone...
it provides information at the touch of a keyboard and allows me to have fun too as I load my Youtube up with `favourites`, old and loved songs that you think are lost forever only to see someone else thinks they`re worth sharing too!
We`ve come a long way, baby.....
in my youth, video recorders were Betamax and massive, clunky things...the first remote control tv`s had a lead from the remote to the telly and made a chunky sound as you changed the channel...all three of them....
mobile phones were in the realms of sci fi and akin to the communicators of Star Trek....
And the earliest computors needed an entire room to themselves, so massive they were, and could just about calculate two plus four inside a day....
And here we are...if mobile phones get any smaller I`ll need a microscope (electron, of course) to see the buttons....
my MP3 player lets me hear anything I like, but still reminds me of Sunday nights spent with my ear glued to the radio to listen to the top forty...and didn`t that die a death...sad...
the dvd recorder gives me cinematic quality recordings when I remember using early videos that often skipped, glitched and sometimes didn`t even run the voices in sync...and the quality of it all was so `soft focus` that there was never any need for aging actresses to hit the botox or facelifts because hell, who could see them through the fog of eighties video quality?

But amid all the glitz and glamour and functionality and excitement of up to date technology, folks forget there`s an ancient and sentient one that can kick the backside of any of it.
Thor strode the skies in his goat-drawn wain, Toothgrinder, Toothgnasher at the head, and cracked the whip and threw Mjollnir out into the heavens and the sparks struck from massive hooves lit up the darkness and one went astray and fried my modem and left me with still tingling fingers as a memento, a reminder that, whilst humans might think they have the upper hand, all it takes is one ancient God of Thunder to have a playful day and we are, truly, back in the Dark Ages.


Know something? It wasn`t half bad either......;-)