Sunny Sanday

Simple really, standard 60w bulb goes pop in our outside light. One quick 5-minute job coming up, and a chance to ‘go green’ ‘save money’ ‘save the environment’. Should have been quite easy…………….get ladders, check ladders are safe, fetch posidrive screwdriver, undo top two screws, struggle getting bottom two screws undone. Climb down ladder, search for screw extractor kit, find kit, find cordless driver, lose extractor bit from driver, recruit ducks to search for bit. Use larger bit, climb ladder, find it doesn’t fit plus need bit extension, climb down ladder, find missing extractor bit courtesy of two ducks trying to eat said bit, find bit extension. Climb ladder, extractor still doesn’t work. Climb down ladder. Find two smaller screwdrivers, climb ladder, struggle still to get bottom two screws undone. Climb down ladder, give up trying to get screws undone. Climb up ladder, work out if by gently bending cover access to blown bulb is accessible, it is, remove blown bulb, climb down ladder. Fetch new energy saving bulb, climb ladder, bulb doesn’t fit, it’s too long, climb down ladder, swap energy saving bulb for one in the house that’s smaller. Go back outside, climb ladder, damage bulb whilst trying to fit bulb. Climb down ladder, carefully dispose of damaged bulb, go back inside the house to pinch another bulb that will fit. Go back outside, climb ladder, fit bulb, tighten up top two screws, climb down ladder, go inside to turn on outside light, go back outside to check bulb works, bulb works! Tidy up tools, undertake a highly taxed and anti-social habit, forget to switch outside light off, switch outside light off. Empty ashtray into Rayburn, write on wish list, “energy saving bulbs”, “design & build Orkney proof outside light where anti-corrosive galvanised screws won’t corrode”.
Sit down, write Island Blog……………..another 5-minute job satisfactorily completed.

So our estimated cost of our 60w light bulb was about £6.11 per year for 3 hours per night, with our new energy saving light bulb works out at just under £2.00 per year for 3 hours a night………so we’ve saved about £4.00 a year……….okay then, but now need to take into consideration one damaged energy saving bulb which will need replacing, this won’t pay for itself this year!

All that hassle to go “Green” to “save the planet” or incredible hulk green, due to the fact one is rather peeved at the whole ordeal? Not sure yet, I shall wait and see if our daily average of electric reduces. The efforts we go through to go green, the biggest hassle is cost of going green in the first place. If this was affordable, we’d be green already, especially once I’ve worked out how to build our very own wind turbine, oh and the odd solar panel, maybe even some energy force fields, or a rather large weather proof dome over us with our own climate control system. Although just with a little turbine we can become even greener, and more self sufficient, burn less fossil fuels, save money, spend money on more green products…….but when you’re in a situation where every penny goes toward paying bills and the cost of living, which isn’t the cheapest living on a small Island, then going green is pretty tough……….going incredible hulk green and getting peeved, that’s quite easy ;-)

However………..our ducks are doing really well, turning into two great little characters, and they’re about to get some little friends in the form of 3 chickens and a cockerel. Which means we can wake up in the morning to quack-a-doodle-doo. Although if they learn anything off the ducks, they’ll soon learn how to have a sleep in and not bother wanting to get up in the morning. However, before the arrival of some new feathered friends I have to work out how to build some sort of gate about 14’ wide and about 6’ high, preferably out of thin air that won’t cost a penny apart from already owned resources……….which is getting rather thin on the ground. It is already slightly higher up the list from “build & design Orkney proof outside light”. Might just add “build energy force field” “sell said force field” “buy gate”, “buy chicken wire”, “buy new fence posts” ……… one can only wish! ;-)

...as always, just another day, the road-works never reached us, pretty thankful, as I was dreading a broken window or two, but confused to why we have now have loose chippings on two very random stretches of road, what was a nice smooth tarmac road, still it wouldn’t be the same if the powers that be didn’t keep our minds boggling once in a while!

The ducks seem to be growing slowly, learning new skills, requiring more attention and finding new ways of annoying me, but they’re cute and fluffy and will remain so for a good while yet. As they’re getting older, I’m letting them have more of a wander, including the kitchen floor, outside, and in a large open topped box.





They're looking at their reflections in the glass, not what's cooking, nor thinking when they're going to be sat inside it! ;-)

Been very thankful for the weather we’ve had, apart from a few light spots of drizzle now and then, we’ve certainly been a lot dryer than down south! Even my folks are having to avoid various roads that are flooded, and an old farming friend phoned me for a weather forecast as he was trying to prepare for flooding! It’s not been long since he was flooded out a few years ago, the farmhouse and his car got soaked, thankfully the animals and the farm yard are raised up so just about got a way from it, but the weather is bizarre! Prediction has gone out the window, and you can’t even state that a particular time of year is going to be one thing or another weather wise. As long as we stay reasonable for my wife’s return, which should be Wednesday, I don’t really mind what we get.



Really does make a change, having some really nice weather, not perfect by any means! Still, we do get a wonderful blue in the sky!

There’s no real change with her Granny, she’s resilient I’ll give her that, but it does seem that most of fault lies with the healthcare, or lack there of! So along with a severe lung infection, the dreaded MRSA, what was an incorrect oxygen dose that caused her heart to fail and the latest update of fluid on the lungs, she’s still pulling through, stable, but it’s going to be months and months of recovery if she gets that far.

So, wife should be back on Wednesday providing planes work, connect and there are no delays, although there’s more chance of our Hermit becoming Prime Minister! Still, my wife will have a nice renovated Rayburn to come back to, here’s me wondering why it’s doing a very good impression of a smoke machine and I find a collar had broken away from the flue box join, making a nice bridge blockade for the smoke to go no where apart from every gap it could find. The astonishing fact of no wind didn’t help matters, we often complain about it being a apart of the windswept Northern Isles, but as soon as you want some, it’s no where to be seen! So after a good dismantle of the whole thing, a good clean, a re-assemble, huge amounts of new fire cement, a full vacuum cleaner bag and a lick of new paint the Rayburn is burning clean, efficient, and is giving me more hot water than I know what to do with! I think I’ve cleaned the kitchen floor more times in the past few days than we have for the past few months! It is a wonderful piece of engineering though, over 60 years old, it can cook, heat, defrost, give ample amounts of hot water, dry our washing that we hang above it, be a towel rail and in the warm temperatures of summer we have at the moment, it pretty much heats most of the house! So much for the new stove installed in the living room that I think has been lit 3 times since January! They certainly don’t make them how they used to, such and old cliché but true, unless you have a rather deep wallet with bank account to go with it! Still, in winter when the power cuts happen, it’s blowing a gale, and every where is cold, providing you’ve something to burn, you get heat, hot water, and cooking facilities on it. So despite the daily ritual of de-ashing it, poking it, cleaning the dust from it, it’s value to us really can’t be measured, it is invaluable, and can one really get sentimental about such a thing? I guess so!

Well that's the duck alarm going, Meep is chirping away to find out what's been keeping me!

Hello

New here, although I believe some have already come across my wife’s blog (Housewife). Some sad news to start with, my wife’s Granny has taken a turn for the worst, she’s elderly and has been suffering breathing problems for some time. Last night we got the call that she might not make the night, so all efforts were put into finding a quick way to fly to Ireland. Not as easy as you may think whilst living on a small island surrounded my lots of wet stuff! Nor is it cheap, I think with the final price of the one-way flight, could have been a nice stay in a hotel in Dubai! However, as luck might have it, flights were found, and my wife has got off to a good start, weather is good, if not rather dull, and the latest update is her Gran is stable. Funerals take place quicker than you can blink in Ireland, so one has to move fast, hopefully it may not come to that, but we’ll wait and see.

In the meantime I’ve been left home alone with our two little ducklings, who I have to admit, have been very well behaved under the circumstances, working as a dairy manager previously and with lots of contact with various animals, I’m pretty sure they ‘do’ sense what’s up when the time is right.

They had their first constitutional yesterday afternoon, both went head to head in a battle of attack the dock leaves, and who could snap up the most little bugs in close proximity, and I’m pleased to say ‘here’s some pictures’.





They’ve had their new house built for indoor and outdoor use, I just wish it could hover as it’s not the easiest thing to move about, but they do seem happy and content with it all. I’m just hoping they both grow up to be happy healthy adult ducks! Still, it’s nice to have them at that ‘cute fluffy looking like bath toys’ stage. I’m sure my wife and I will update as time goes on.

With much to do, sort, and calls to make, I’m still trying to anticipate when the exciting road works start, totally novel here, it doesn’t happen that often, and the outside of our home got decorated with road signs by the council last night. We did see the dreaded 20mph loose chipping signs and looked quite fearfully at our rather old, thin and very warped glass in our sash windows. One little stone coming flying up is all it takes to break one! Although new glass would be nice, looking out first thing in the morning and seeing a 4 foot high rabbit looking back at you from across the adjacent field can be quite alarming, move you head an inch the other way and you have a 6 foot long sausage rabbit! Flat fields grow mountains, and the 3 turbines we can see become rather odd looking. It’s about then you’ve woken up realised you’re not seeing things and it’s the rather warped shaped panes of glass in the window.

I wonder if anyone will phone Sally Traffic from BBC Radio 2 to alert her of our impending road surfacing? I’m sure it would bring a smile to the Radio 2 listeners on the Island!

Well I must get on, I have two chirping ducks to attend to, a Stove to check that it’s still lit, shopping to do, and to check on my beloved wife to make sure things are ok. Did I mention the ducks? Quack! Well more of a chirp, they can’t master the quack just yet!