The egg glut is now in full swing -- over the last week we've been averaging 8 eggs a day -- am thinking of reducing the price from £1.50 to £1.00 to try to clear some of the backlog...

Today of course it is windy again, but we've had four lovely days in a row this week so was able to bring my swim count up to 15 for 2025 thus far...

The light is coming back and it's SO NICE to not be getting up in the dark.  Here's our equinox bonfire to welcome the next six months of happiness and light!

Mornings have been quite dramatic in the views department -- this is the moon at about 5:30 am the other day...

And this is from about a week earlier -- same view, same viewpoint -- and you can only just see the top of my neighbour's roof through the fog!

In the kitchen recently:  Bunny casserole -- wild bunny from Sanday, shot by somebody else and gifted to us...

Gingerbread cake -- much as I love things like this, I am looking forward to the rhubarb coming so we can have "summer desserts" with fruit and cream and eggs as opposed to "winter desserts" with warming spices...

Hamentaschen of course, because it was Purim the other day...  I don't normally get political on this blog, but I think this article about Purim is worth sharing...

And to finish off, brie & sausage pizza because the pizza place is closed until April!  :)

Following on from last week's vole, now we have a mouse!  Possibly this is more a sign of the beginning of spring than it is a sign of the cats still loving me...!  :)

In big news, the thing we've been awaiting for some time now -- the contractors finally came and put the trunking for the fibre up our road!  They've been working on the island for something like six months now and I kept wondering when they would end up here...  Next step is for them to run the cable through the trunking and then connect it up to our house so fingers crossed in a few months time we should have a fibre connection which will make writing this blog easier as our currently upload speed is only around 1mbps!

Never mind elf on a shelf -- here's Cookie in a nook-ie...  :)  (Is that a word?  :) )

And chocolate seems to be the baking theme of the week...  Chocolate muffins (which slightly exploded because I overfilled -- because my eggs are too large!)...

...and chocolate hazelnut tart -- which also makes good use of all the eggs we are getting now.  We're nearly getting enough to start putting eggs for sale in the honesty box again!

And I've had another couple of swims so up to 12 for the year now!

Firstly I want to say thank you to whichever of the cats left me this vole in the porch the other day.  It's been quite some time since they've brought me a present -- it's good to know that they haven't forgotten to show me how much they love me!  :)

More things that I do on a regular basis:  

Homemade curry powder -- ground by hand with my mortar & pestle -- and an essential ingredient in...

...our daily lunchtime soup...  Made with dried pink flamingo peas and lots of veggies, we have this for lunch every day with fried eggs on toast (not pictured).

Bit of a random thing happened yesterday when I was feeding the sheep:  I am used to our regular peedie plane overhead twice a day, but I was startled by this plane flying much lower than the peedie plane does - and what a strange route it's taken around the islands...  

Spotted this bit of insanity in a charity shop in Kirkwall -- somehow this item, allegedly designed to make the job of picking up dog poop easier, seems to be far more complicated than simply putting your hand inside a bag and grabbing it...  Capitalism for the useless objects win....

Spring continues to show signs that it's on its way -- the crocuses are up!

And there have been several more swims -- this morning was number 11, so I am well ahead of target for the year already!  Let's hope this means that this summer will be more swimmable than last year...

In other news, ReFlex Orkney have been out and done a comprehensive energy use survey on the house, complete with thermal imaging, so I now have a lovely 23 page report full of charts & tables to digest to help us figure out what the next steps are in making our home more energy efficient.  Watch this space...

In the kitchen again...  

Yet again, somebody on the island had more oranges than they could use, so now that we were down to the last three jars of marmalade from last year, I made enough to hopefully get us through another year!

Fresh out of the oven this morning -- spice cake -- haven't tasted it yet as it's still cooling, but if it tastes as good as it smells....

Earlier in the week I made some chocolate pepper nuts...

The weather has been much better than last February -- I've managed to get another few swims in -- weekend before last I had three swims in four days -- so the count for 2025 is now up to 8 -- ahead of my target of a swim a week.

Today was swim number 5 for the year -- not quite as sunny as the forecast promised, but a nice swim nonetheless.

The snowdrops are out in full force so fingers crossed this means that springtime has got the memo that it needs to be getting here soon.  Plus, I've had enough of the mud!  :)

Not long after we first came here, I realised that I needed a hat with ear-flaps and strings to tie under my chin as I spend too much time trying to do things one-handed while holding onto my hat with my other hand (this is particularly difficult when I'm riding my bicycle...) -- and I finally knitted one!

I actually started this hat way back in December 2023 and I knitted about a third of it -- and then I proceeded to have a mental block about knitting for a number of months.  In August, when Heidi was here, she had socks with her that she was knitting -- which helpfully spurred me on to picking up my knitting again, and I finished this on Sunday.  I think there is a bit of a cosmonaut look about it with the flaps down and tied, but it is beyond nice to be able to have warm ears without holding on to my hat!  :)

In the kitchen, we've had a yummy Greylag goose, barley, and mushroom casserole...

...and some beremeal ginger nuts...

And let's not forget the highlight of every alternate month -- it's Booky McBookface day with lots of new reading material for me!  :)

Weather has been wintry of late, so have been spending lots of time in the kitchen.

Things that I have realised that I never post about -- the bread...  I bake all our own bread -- two different loaves -- every single week.

This is the yeast risen loaf -- 75% white and 25% wholemeal.  4 hours start to finish but only about 15 minutes of my time.  Incredibly easy, the kneading bit is great if you are mad about something and need to get your aggression out, and totally delicious...

And this is the sourdough -- 50% white and 50% wholemeal.  Yes, it's in a tin.  I know.  I eat most of my bread toasted, and tin-shaped loaves just are easier for making toast.  If sourdough in a tin offends you, deal with it...  :)

On the pie front, now that the hens are laying again, yesterday I made this yummy pear custard pie -- and clearly Danny really likes it because when I got up this morning I found that MORE THAN HALF of the pie had been eaten!  :)

And because this is the UK and pies here can be savoury as well as sweet, I also made a fish pie -- yum yum yum!

We did have one nice day in all the bad weather -- so of course I went swimming -- swim #4 of 2025....

Now off to try to get warm before I go out to feed the sheep in the wind!  :)

We've suddenly got some unexpected good weather!  Temperatures around 8 degrees (that's 45 in American money), calm, and sunshine!  I went swimming Saturday AND today -- possibility I might make it in tomorrow morning as well -- if I do, that will be a miracle to have three consecutive swimming days in January!

Danny and I went for a walk at Cata Sands yesterday afternoon -- these photos show just how calm the wind is -- you would never normally get reflections this clear!

This hen has started hanging out on the windowsills -- she's startled me quite a few times now!

And here's Cookie's latest snoozing spot!