Today is all about the daffodils!  We are very lucky in that we didn't have to plant any of these -- they were all just here to surprise and delight us our first spring and every year thereafter!  

I am always amazed at how many different varieties of daffodil there are!

And just so that they don't feel left out -- here are the kitties!  The pot Cookie is sitting in is the pot that the catnip is growing in -- her loss if she kills it!  :)

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...