The plan for Xmas dinner had been for Danny to get us a goose, but the weather has just been too bad to go out shooting so instead I channelled Laura Ingalls Wilder and we harvested ourselves a young cockerel.  He killed out at a very respectable 3 lb 14 oz and is now resting in the fridge awaiting his date with the oven on Wednesday...

In other news, I finally got around to altering a lovely pair of heavy wool trousers that I picked up at a charity shop in Kirkwall probably over a year ago.  Whoever invented wide leg trousers -- no clue what they were thinking -- all this extra fabric flapping around your leg making it difficult to get your foot in your boot -- really!  So I tapered the legs and took in the waistband a bit as well.  It's such a shame that everything is synthetic nowadays -- these are made of a lovely thick wool which is warm and hard wearing and I expect them to last me quite a long time now.

The trousers have got a tag in them from the original tailor -- and surprise surprise -- they still exist!

I've done all my alterations in contrasting thread (the original stitching that I had to unpick -- black thread on black wool in the middle of winter when there is no light -- I ended up having to go to the Reuse Centre where I was lucky to find a task lamp so I could see what I was doing), so if somebody else ever gets their hands on these in the future, the history of the trousers will be visible via the stitching!  :)

In VERY exciting news, the chickens laid their first egg of the season on Thursday -- perhaps they didn't get the memo that the days don't actually start lengthening until today?!  :)

We celebrated with fried eggs on toast!  Yum yum yum!

Few photos from my trip to town on Thursday to see the dentist:

Here's a curlew -- clearly they are tamer in town as I can never get this close to them here!

The boards across the windows are going up in preparation for the Ba..

And even the recycling centre in town is getting into the festive spirit!  :)

No fire for solstice last night as 90mph winds made me think a fire would not be a good idea, so I'll just leave you with this photo of Cookie hanging out in the paper recycling bin!  :)