What Spring?

It's turned cold, wet and windy again. Which isn't good news as folk here are busy lambing. The byre and barn at Sandside has ewes and peedie lambs in sheltering from the worst of the weather. Poor wee things! I think Charlie Boy will be requesting earplugs with his breakfast cat food tomorrow - it's a bit noisy in there! The weather is set to get worse with the potential for snow on low ground next week!! Not that unusual really but my heart was set on Spring having arrived now.

The only gardening I've been able to do today was pot up seeds for marrows, courgettes (green and yellow) and some garlic chives. I have tatties waiting to go in the ground - Pink Fir Apple again, plus a "Pentland" variety which I'm hoping is a good hardy variety as it is named after the Pentland Firth (the stretch of water between Orkney Mainland and the island of Scotland ;-) ....). Lots of other seeds to plant too but they will go directly into the ground (peas, beans, chard, spinach, salad leaves).

Still no flights out of Orkney. Some domestic flights in Scotland may go this weekend but generally the UK (and large parts of continental Europe) shut down till tomorrow night! There was a film of dust over my island car yesterday, but that's not unusual being so close to the shore - often gets sand covered. But my mainland car had a definite film of grit over it which I suspect was volcanic ash.

On the news last night was a report of a Coastguard helicopter having to medically evacuate a casualty from Shetland and then being grounded and cleaned afterwards with tiny particles of ash found on the rotor blades, fuselage and around the engine. So the precautions of grounding aircraft seems worth the effort - if frustrating!! I suppose we are used to be able to go where we want when we want these days. Though if you live on an island you do get more used to adding a day on either side of a trip south just in case of delays or cancellations to ferries or planes!

Oh - I know I mentioned lambs earlier - no pictures - I *told* you it was cold, wet and raining, I'm not hanging about outdoors taking photos!! Plus I'd probably be tempted to bring them all indoors and wrap them in the duvet...... I'm still a "soft southern townie" at heart it seems.....