ࡱ>    !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789;Root EntryZ O2]h:CONTENTS nCompObjVSPELLING ut this and has been most vociferous in his objections. I can entirely emphasise with him too. Yes we need alternative power sources in view of the fact of the oil crisis and wind here is a natural resource we can use to good effect but surely it would be far better to give each community a couple of wind turbines so that we can all take advantage of their product rather than stick wind turbines (and we are talking wind turbines of mega proportions here) all over the most beautiful parts of Shetland with the idea of selling power to the national grid and I guess the population here in the end not benefiting one iota. Incidentally my neighbour thinks community turbines are a much better idea too. Da Voar Redd Up came in the second to last week end of April and what locals do to help is fantastic. I read somewhere that a whale stranded on a beach was found to have consumed 800 plastic bags!! My youngest daughter and I went around several of the fields in front of our house and filled two big bags with old plastic bottles and shreds of plastic sheeting from silage bales that had caught on the barbed wire fences. It looks so much nicer now and the noise that used to make in a high wind was quite annoying, even more than that of a large wind turbine! The plastic bags on the fences actually sounded like a bullroarer in a strong breeze (top marks for anyone who can tell me what that is!!) If you recently the second Crocodile Dundee film on ITV 2 then that might give you a clue! Folk Festival is coming up very soon and as usual I left it all far too late. Not a single ticket to be had for love or money and it looks like there are some splendid acts coming to Shetland this year. Never mind maybe next year! I worked at the Town Hall last Sunday for a Jazz concert wCHNKWKS nTEXTTEXT_FDPPFDPPbFDPCFDPCdSTSHSTSHfSTSHSTSHf2SYIDSYIDPfSGP SGP dfINK INK hfBTEPPLC lfBTECPLC fFONTFONTf<TOKNPLC fSTRSPLC hg:PRNTWNPRg FRAMFRAMlTITLTITLJmDOP DOP dm" good effect but surely it would be MAY ISSUE 2008 The snow came back with a vengeance; the weather really is up the Khyber!! We have been watching the meteoric rises in the oil price with some alarm because we are still paying off our January oil bill and then one of my wife s colleagues at the airport bought 1000 litres this week and it cost 623.00. Our tank in January cost 444 so it gives you some idea of how the cost of living has shot up. Of course this also has a direct bearing on the cost of foodstuffs and other essentials. I watched the news the other evening about the haulier s fuel protest and for once I emphasise with them. How are they expected to run a business (and provide a service to rural areas especially) when their diesel bill goes up every day. What ever the cost of fuel is on the mainland, in Shetland there is another 10p added to that so bear that in mind when you fill your tank up and blanch at the price, just think what we are having to pay. Of course the flip side of the coin argument is that most of this cost is the tax on a litre of fuel and that goes to pay for the NHS and other services. However I think the government has got to very quickly do some serious thinking or else this whole situation could go the wrong way very quickly. Wind farms are the big topic up in Shetland at the moment and there is serious opposition to the one planned for up here. Mainly because it seems to have turned from a small affair in order to benefit the population here into a massive project which will dominate the Shetland sky line (and ruin it for tourists) and cause chaos to the islands in respects of building programmes going on. Not to mention the damage it will cause to the landscape aseptically speaking. Now my neighbour, a passionate artist, has been sticking his neck out abohich my eldest daughter was singing in and the amount of young talent musicians was really something else. Some superb musicians in the making. I just bought some lovely sandy top soil to grow potatoes in at the end of the garden and since September 2005 got to empty the compost bin for the first time! Now I can hear some of you expert gardeners saying that he shouldn t leave a bin full for that long. Well it wasn t actually full because all of the stuff inside had broken right down and since June last year our chickens get first pick of most of the composting material. Needless to say I used a couple of pallets and made a largish raised bed at the bottom of the garden and have planted loads of Shetland Blacks. Things are slowly beginning to stir in the garden. I am going to have a very healthy crop of garlic and the onions are also coming on nicely. I am growing a lot of leeks this year as well as kale, winter cabbage and carrots and hope to freeze a lot to take us through the winter months. The chickens are laying flat out at the moment and we have another hen sitting on eggs under the house again. I hope we get some chicks out of this batch and that they survive as well! There is a rather yukky end to this particular topic. I had been away and the children found two green eggs in the run and got them out, washed them and put them in the fridge. My dear wife decided one morning she was going to have fried eggs for breakfast.  Hmm two nice green ones ! I heard this little voice asking me to come very quickly into the kitchen and get rid of the broken egg in the frying pan. It was in a rather advanced stage of decomposition and I very quickly took the pan outside and chucked the shell and contents in to the field (it smelt that bad even the crows wouldn t touch it). My poor wife was greener than the eggs! (Shetland hens lay a green egg by the way; it is the pigment in the shell) and she has been rather put off now. The smell I can only describe like the very worst sewerage smell along with sick and another unmentionables. Amazing really to think that it came from one tiny egg& and the Chinese like eating Thousand Year egg! I worked out that the broody hen had gone under the house to lay and seen the previous hens nest with two eggs in it so after a while of sitting on them obviously decided she didn t want them underneath her so turfed them out! So there you are. She came out today when I was collecting the eggs (fresh ones!) and I put some food out for her. She was walking around like she was tiddly. It is because they sit for so long on the eggs I guess that their legs get a little weak. Once the vegetables get to a respectable and strong height I will be able to start feeding the chickens some greens which will give them some added value in their diet. They can t eat scraps and mixed grains all the time. Foords Chocolates? This enterprise is based up in Unst and I was teaching one day in the hols and had the children with me so decided to pop up to Unst to buy some beer from Valhalla and as a treat took my 3Cs to Foords. I had something called a Ciocchino which I have to say is a very sexy luxurious sipping chocolate drink made with 63% chocolate and cream served hot. Absolutely a voluptuous drinking experience and something I could thoroughly recommend. The caf and chocolate making factory is now situated in the Saxa Ford complex and is situated on the main road of the base. Comfortably decorated with pristine tables and posters and pictures dedicated to chocolate plus a children s room decorated by the pupils of Baltasound School with some very innovative jigsaw decorations and lovely illustrations. A great selection of chocolates like truffles, milk and dark selections and things for the kids: mice, pigs and even dinosaurs. Well worth a visit! ASDA - according to a contestant on  The Weakest Link the store has a motivation exercise which basically involves staff members clapping and shouting  A give us a A!  S give us an S and so on. Japanese companies do the same sort of thing involving exercises first thing in the morning. When Nissan set up its factory in Sunderland I vaguely remember something about them trying to introduce morning exercises. Now& .I wonder if Connachies do the same sort of thing first thing in the morning? Oh yes and we have Tesco coming to Shetland. Apparently this is so they can boast that they have a store in every postcode. Shetland s producers immediate worry in inviting this supermarket behemoth to its sceptred isles is that the store will still sell local produce. I know of one or two local producers who have reservations about dealing with this supermarket chain in particular. We shall wait and see what unfolds& . The main problem about shopping here being that most fresh produce namely vegetables is that they have already built up some miles, either by road or air. To be fair at present Somerfield and Coop do sell local vegetables and of course Shetland Smokehouse and McNabs products but it would be nice to see more local meat sold here. The main problem apparently is that the supermarkets say that they don t have a butcher on site. I can t see why, subject to sensible supervision that meat can be butchered at the abattoir and then it be processed in one location and then sold in the supermarket. I guess the argument is going to be  oh well that is extra cost for us and  well we have to observe health & safety . Surely this would not be too much extra cost for these industry giants? Sunshine has been visiting us on occasions and we had a super hot day on Sunday last, even though I was working. Get planting at last I thought but true to form Monday was the wettest grey horrid day we had had for a while. Though still too early to put seedlings out as there was a dry cold wind that came in from the north east and stuffed my seedlings that I did put out. A rare feathered visitor came to our garden the same weekend. It was a male hawfinch which apparently is quite a rare visitor for Shetland. Beautiful bird and it was quite happily munching away on the chicken feed that my youngest had thoughtfully spread all over the garden!!! My photo of the hawfinch is posted on Nature in Shetland s website: http://www.nature-shetland.co.uk/ and go on to Bird sightings. One twitcher sat in his car outside our house with his camera lense stuck out the window for nearly three hours and then when, giving up patience, he drove away, the hawfinch neatly flew in and sat right on the lawn where he would have been snapped easily. He has gone now as we have not seen him for about 5 days so he has probably left the islands. We had a killer whale alert one evening so we were kitted up (with cameras, kids in their pyjamas, shoes and coats) and out on the road within 5 minutes but didn t see anything! Never mind better luck next time. Good practice for the real thing. We didn t get to see any last year as we were away around the time you normally see them. A flying visit from a friend who lives in Spain. She comes up to see her son, wife and grandson and very kindly bought me an air dried ham which en route she was hanging in her hotel wardrobe to keep it cool, just hoping that the maid on room service was not Spanish!, and a bottle of Chincon which is a form of Anisette (a bit like Pernod). As the ham is far too big (it was 4 kilos!) to fit in our fridge we keep it in our sunroom which is certainly cool enough. My eldest was completely put off by this as the trotter is still attached!  Can t you cut it off Dad? . There is nothing quite like a properly air dried ham, it is delicious; something to nibble on before dinner. I like the whole Spanish idea of Tapas anyway and would love to go back to Spain and or Italy again. Anyway it being the 1st of May today I am off to Lerwick this afternoon for a little ceremony at the Town Hall. Now Anzac Day was celebrated by our little New Zealand community, as there are a few of us here, but it was at 06:30 in the morning and I also had to teach the nursery class at Sandwick so had to prioritise. It went very well by all accounts and today the Council Convenor Sandy Cluness is giving a little speech because Shetland Island Council has been given a NZ flag by Helen Clarke the NZ Prime Minister. That is all I know at present but a friend of mine, Jessie another Kiwi, sent me an email telling to be there or be square so I m going! There are a few Kiwis up here mind. I might take my flag my Dad sent me. It s All black (!!) with a ruddy big Kiwi sticking its tongue out and holding a taihaha (a Maori fighting spear)! I will let you know what happened! Toodle pip. e for % " "$%%..d4f4;;C"CHIJIL0R2RTTZZaaaaa(2"'( ) @S  N6O["[aa "  "PSS"  "PS" ." "PS"  "PS" ." <{<{ " "ttabad(<{Times New Roman z&/"@"!" "HG!http://www.nature-shetland.co.uk// " " "TTTTEPSON Stylus DX4800 Series< od EPSON Stylus DX4800 SeriesDLLName32=E_FUICADE.DLLP TS_URLTSupportURL PSOLVER4  : @ TTTT@ TTTTd2 ,winspoolEPSON Stylus DX4800 SeriesUSB001F"\""V"$c"` "``""A."@"\""V"$c"` "``"."May 2008.wps""p"pp (" )"ery well by all accounts and today the Council Convenor Sandy Z O2Quill96 Story Group Class9qy2y2=y22)y222 y2 2 y2 2 y2 2y22Jy2P2y224y2:2fy2j2y22 y22*y232<y2@2 y22y22y22y22C!y2M!2!y2!{2u#y2x#2&y2&2&y2&2*y2*2*y2*23,y28,2,y2,2-y2-2.y2.2/y2/2/y2/