It was a beautiful sunrise and all was calm and quiet.  Lovely.

So, after long consulation with Daisy, we decided to put Tiddles and Waffle outside so they could stretch their legs, see their friends and eat in the field/track of minimal grazing.

Tiddles was very happy and I was pleased to see he moved very nicely over the hard-standing to get to the field/track.

Dear little Tiddles has been such a good boy during his incarceration – never complaining and always trying to smile and give anyone his best kisses.

We watched the ponies go out while the sun rose.  There was lots of playing and cantering from the little boys.  The old ladies were just head down, and eat.

And, for absolutely the very last time, seriously, I am not going out again, I drove my sledge around, accompanied by our guest and Daisy, to dish out the last of the Christmas presents.

It was good to show our guest a little bit of Shetland when it is calm and beautiful.  Pouring rain and a killer wind is not a great advert.

Once home, and wanting to make the most of the rare windless day, I galvanised my troops to come and help me do some fencing.

I wanted a top wire put on the electric fence of the older larger track – the one they all escaped through and are banished from for a while.  It was the usual family affair and we achieved great things.  The fence is now (hopefully) invincible.

Tomorrow the wind returns again.  It was brief, but it was pretty.

Every Christmas I hand Daisy a jigsaw puzzle and off she goes.

Monster has a keen interest and apparently vaguely rearranges it at night!

Ted, (who “does not do men”) has a new best friend.  Mum would’ve been thrilled to see him like this.  He is a very changed dog.

This afternoon, we all piled into the car and I drove us to Lerwick. Continuing with our Christmas traditions, we introduced our guest to the “Royal Ballet 2023/24 Season: The Nutcracker” film.

It was excellent and we are all just home again with me having a spent a blissful afternoon not worrying about the ponies and the amount of work I would have to do later now there are three of us.  When we opened the shed door, the old ladies trotted inside for their rather late tea. Anyway, once home we got everything done in record time.

Christmas is finally happening and I am beginning to relax.

Today has not been the weather for being outside. Not even slightly.  When the sheep refused to go into their field, I completely understood and I gave them three haynets in their shed.  Dahlia and Gussie also got a haynet in their’s.

Pepper agreed and wanted to be inside too.

Despite this, the old ladies (Vitamin and Fivla) went out for most of the daylight hours (in a Force 9/10) which I think was very tough of them.  They didn’t want to stay inside and so I took them outside and they trudged off to find their grazing for most of the morning.

I think Tiddles was rather glad to be staying indoors.

Waffle wasn’t. He had wanted out, trotting around his stall being annoying, and I think this is something we will work towards once the weather calms down.  Possibly next July then.

However, I got Vitamin and Fivla in early as the wind is going to get up to dangerous levels shortly.  Inside, us hoomans continued with our Christmas traditions and watched our favourite film – Tři oříšky pro Popelku (Three Wishes for Cinderella).

I will have to go out later and am slightly worried how I am going to achieve this.  Hope I don’t get blown over.  It’s not much fun out there.

Everyone is home for Christmas.  I am now officially happy.

And we have the Christmas decorations up.  This was the first thing to do after lunch.  We had waited for everyone to come home before doing this.

Lots of help from everyone made things much easier.

Apparently (Daisy took this photo).

It is lovely to see the old familiar decorations.  They are part of our family Christmas tradition.

Even Lambie is immortalised on the tree.

And I have half of Mum’s decorations too.

The festive branches are up.  As Flossie said “there is stuff everywhere” with no theme.

I wonder if it will bring out the festive spirit in us all now.

After doing all the ponies, sheep, horses, etc I drove off to Turriefield for the last time this year.

We were weighing, packing and labelling veg ready for Christmas.

My job was carrots. I had “a few” carrots to pack up and distribute.

This the stack of  veg going to a shop in Lerwick tomorrow.

The veg boxes were getting fuller and fuller.

Wonderful.  Worth all the effort in my book.

I got back home around lunch time to find the containers were full of little ponies who were thoroughly bored of the weather.

Every time I see a pony in a container, I think this was definitely the right decision.

So I threw them all some unsellable little swedes which they were very happy to scoff down.

I was surprised to see Vitamin and Fivla even having a go – their teeth are not great but they managed.

This time tomorrow…….