I am working on something for you – to say thank you for reading my crappery and for all the support you give me too.

As you can see, there is a new heading called Advent Calendar on the top line of this blog.

Everyday you will be able to open the relevant numbered door and there is a surprise waiting (not dissimilar to the printed version).  I am sorry there is no chocolate, though in my day, chocolate advent calendars had not been invented.  This is a recent invention and perhaps Not A Good Thing.

Anyway, you have my full permission to download the surprise and it is Desktop/Screensaver size too so you can load it onto your computer’s desktop and lovingly gaze at each picture for as long as you like.

If you are of the inclination, you could even build it into a Screensaver.  That is up to you.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the Advent Calendar.  Obviously it starts tomorrow.

Right, off to find 24 pictures that you will want to keep! 

Yesterday, I sat in the car and took photos of the waves on Dale Beach in the storm.  These are the results.  I won’t put them in the calendar.  It will just make you feel very cold.

               

It was fairly hairy sitting in the car taking these pics, I can tell you.

Having left the ponies feeling utterly disappointed with myself yesterday, I took BeAnne for a walk on Sandness beach to cheer myself up.

I have always liked Sandness beach.  We had it all to ourselves as usual, which improved my mood greatly.  Just one other person on the beach constitutes a crowd for me of Brighton proportions.  I start to get resentful that they are there and I have to share!

Sadly, the coast is being eaten away by the fierce Atlantic ocean very quickly.  I am reminded of my Geography lessons eons ago when we discussed coastal erosion.  Every year the farmer moves his fence back a couple of yards and there is no let up, especially after a storm.

The wind was blowing (but not like today) and the turnstones (?) sheltered from the waves.  Very clever thinking.

I found the beach exhilerating.  Walking on sand is meant to be good for my ankle and my physiotherapist even suggested I walked in the sea in my barefeet.  (He can suggest it all he likes – it is not going to happen in a Shetland winter.) I have just looked it up and the sea temperature today is 10.2°C / 50.4°F.

So BeAnne and I pottered along.  She is a very easy dog to have around as she just comes too.

You don’t have to look or check for her.  These days, she is turning into a bit of a middle-aged matron but she still put up about 100 rabbits who swarmed around her in the sand-dunes.  She sat down.

 

They bored her.  They were not polecats (or seaweed).

It was good walk – the type that blew out my cobwebs.

I photographed the sea for a while, just playing with my camera really.  Thank goodness I don’t have to take rolls and rolls of film down to the chemist to be developed!

Nice sheep, too on the way home.  Looks like family photo (not mine, I hasten to add!)

 

 

I am a crap photographer.  It is official.

Today I went out, before the Storm gets here tomorrow, to take some photos of the bebbies (Carina, Lyra, Gwendolinda and Zoot) for the new website I am constructing for Thordale Shetland Stud  This website is nearly killing me but, with much help and/or gin from a kind person, I will succeed.

The photos of these four fillies that I have gathered recently are rubbish so I thought I would go up to their field, take some more and use them.  How difficult can that be?

Apparently impossible.

Here is Lyra – looking err, well, errr…

Yup, that!  Fail.

Ok, Carina.  I can do this.  She looks lovely.  Really turning out to be a good filly.

Ok, not brilliant, her front legs stick out as she stands down hill.

And now she looks like there is a rollercoaster ride on her back.  Is that known as “bum high”?

 

This was the best shot I could manage by flapping my coat at her!  Bloody Zoot in the background.

Talking of Bloody Zoot.  She followed me everywhere.  I never got a good photo of her because her little mouth was busy eating my coat.

I shouted at her in the end and she took it as an affront with some added umbrage.

FFS, now she is foreshortened and looks pathetic and miserable.  It was because I shouted and hurt her feelings.  Hell awaits.

Ok, last gasp.  Gwendolinda.  Now you know where you are with Gwendolinda.  She is looking very good in real life.  Sadly, this does not happen on photograph.

So I left them eating and told them that I was giving up.

And then I turned round and took a nice one of Lyra-Lyra Pants on Fyra.

While Vitamin, her mother looked on.

I left in a sulk.  I may resort to just photos of heads for the filly section until I can do better.

I

My plaster has been off for a month now.  Yay.  That is eight weeks of my life I will never get back.  I have also made the concerted effort to take no more painkillers either.  If I can manage the pain, then I must learn to live with it.  Mostly this theory works.

I have religiously been doing my physiotherapy exercises and have 100% of ankle movement back.  I have returned to walking my 2 miles every day on the road.  Sometimes I go onto the hill or in the field and it is not as difficult as I thought it would be.  I just have to be careful.  BeAnne is always by my side.  She loves the walks and bounces about happily missing every rabbit she puts up.

The winter walks can be hard going sometimes, especially if the weather is not helpful.  Today was no exception.  There was a good strong wind and it blew against me all of the way out and then rain all the way home.  I came home feeling very virtuous, if soaked.

Today’s reward for my strenuous effort (walking into the wind must use more muscle effort and calories)  however was a double a rainbow over my little house and I managed to capture it on my piddly phone.  I am rather pleased with that photo.

There are some spectacular winter sunsets too this time of year.

So I will keep walking to get my fitness back and then I will be ready to start riding again in the New Year. This is enough of an incentive to keep me walking.   I have all sorts of plans for next year – out and about south with my camera.  There will be no stopping me then. 

 

I will be pleased to say goodbye to 2013.  That double rainbow is for me and my future.

 

 

 

I know little Thordale Borealis (aka Bozz-Bozz) had quite a following here on Internet-land.  He was a character and entranced all he met.  I mean, what is not to love and that nose is definitely for snogging?

In July, Jo cleaned the scruff-bag, sorry registered Shetland pony colt, and turned him into a Respectable Citizen.  We packed his red spotty hankie, put it on a stick and sent him on his travels to his new home.

Bozz-Bozz loaded like a pro onto the Northlink Freight horsebox.  We said our goodbyes telling him to do us proud.

Bozz-Bozz probably offered to steer the ship south to Aberdeen for the captain.  He is that kind of “helpful” little chap.

Anyway, that all seems ages ago and I miss the little chap.  He was a constant source of smiles during a dreary winter.  I taught him and his brother, Arcturus, to eat carrot slices.

Bozz-Bozz undertook a long, long journey and now lives in Jersey, Channel Islands with a number of his compatriots, including Whiffy’s son and heir, Snoggin (the dapple grey) who is the spit of his mother and pulls a cart beautifully.

I was reminded of Bozz-Bozz when his new owner put up a whole load of photos on FB recently.  I have shamelessly stolen them and hope she doesn’t mind (insert weak hopeful grin, here).

So for the Bozz-Bozz Fan Club (Official), here are some recent photos of the boy.  His owners love him very much and appreciate his sense of humour, which is lucky!  They even took him to a show when he arrived and said “Boris won his entry fee back. Clever little man!” so that was a success.

And here is the little lad now.  He is growing and doing very well.  He is destined to be gelded, I think, and then a driving future awaits.

  

A darling Thordale boy.