Happy Birthday Cookie!

Hard to believe it was a year ago that little Cookie was born!  She is all grown up and totally fearless and fierce now!

Lamb number 2 -- to Shy Ewe -- born late last night I think.  We were watching her with binoculars last night as the sun set and she was definitely getting ready but hadn't started yet -- and 6am this morning there was a lamb waiting for me again!  Adorable, but I am realising that I really do have a preference for black sheep...!  Those Balwen have spoiled me for life...  :)

In other news, we couldn't keep up with the duck eggs and they are not selling at the speed we had hoped, so we have given some of the ducks to somebody else on the island and now only have two left -- that should make the egg situation a bit more manageable...

AND last but not least we have finally got a new cockerel -- he is massive!  Looking forward to the size of his babies!

FIRST LAMB

After weeks and weeks of waiting, our first lamb is here!  (Belated birthday present for me!)  So excited for so many reasons -- this is my first lamb since 2007 -- 16 years!  Black ewe is my favourite, and I was not at all confident that she was in lamb and I totally hadn't picked her to lamb first!  Woo hoo!  Lamb!  Welcome to the world little one!

The Outside World

One of the things about living on a very small remote island is that from time to time, you may need to leave your island...  I went to London a few weeks ago, which was my first time outside Orkney since we moved here 18 months ago.

I went there to see specific people, and that bit of the trip was fine, and I'm glad that I saw the people I saw, but being in London itself, London as a destination, being away from Orkney -- it's taken me a couple of weeks to write this post because I've been trying to process my thoughts about the trip, and I've finally come to the conclusion that I don't really need to leave Orkney for anything.  London is just a big crowded noisy place full of useless stuff.  (Photo below illustrates my point perfectly -- and there were SO many things I could have chosen to illustrate this...  And if you think that an "all-avocado casual dining concept" is NOT a useless thing, please go find something else to read...)

The outside world in general just has less and less relevance to my life.  Perhaps this is why I am not posting here as frequently -- because I am just getting on and doing stuff, and the idea of writing about it and sending it out into the void for unknown people to read seems rather pointless.