Our third day of bad weather.  I am bored of it now and so are the horses.  With cabin fever, I thought I would have a bit of a drive around to see if there was anything good to photograph.

So off I trundled, looking at the scenery and snapping away at anything interesting, like the heron or hegri flying away.

The hill ponies were ignoring the weather and standing with their bottoms into the wind. There is always plenty of shelter in the scattled (Shetland common grazing).

They looked up at me but weren’t interested.  Consuming food to convert to heat is all animals want to do.

And so I drove about being watched by the locals.

I think this is a rook, not a raven. I am not sure but there were two of them gliding around on the air currents coming off the hill.

It is not all doom and gloom on a dreich day like this.  The colours are beautiful and sheep look like woolly maggots, a friend of mine always says!

The hill sheep know their way around the hill very well.  They live in small herds never really straying from their area.  It is where they are born, live and die.  They know where the shelter is and how to use it.  The over-hanging peat hags are very useful for this purpose.

So you can see it is a foul day.  The wind is blowing the rain horizontal and everyone is fed up.  Storm is on his third rug and my kitchen resembles Widow Twankey’s drying room – 2 rugs, 1 survival suit (I walked the dogs), and I am on my second set of clothes.

Apparently it might stop on Monday!  Anyone remember sunshine?

I revisited my Icelandic horse photos on Flickr today.  You can see the best of the bunch here, if you are interested. 

This is the skewbald stallion is Álfur frá Selfossi being ridden by his owner, Christina Lund.

We went in August 2012 and it was my first time visiting this incredibly special and magical country.  I would definitely go again, any season armed with every camera I own.  Iceland is addictive.

We spent most of our time gazing at the horses that were living beside our little house where we stayed, in their natural environment trying hard not to buy everything we saw.

If it were easier to import horses into this country (and perhaps a little cheaper), I would’ve bought more.  They have a very roundabout route to go – Iceland to Liège (Belgium), then into Britain somewhere in the south.  It is a pity they can’t drop them off in Shetland en route.

I did, somehow, end up with four horses in my suitcase and that was me being restrained while I left the Voice of Reason at home.

Looking at my photos today, I realised I need to go back.  I need to see it all, and more, again.

It wasn’t just horses we looked at.  We went round, Jo, me and Daisy and saw fascinating geographical stuff including the Strokkur Geyser.

(a fountain geyser in the geothermal area beside the Hvítá River in Iceland in the southwest part of the country, east of Reykjavík. It is one of Iceland’s most famous geysers, erupting about every 4–8 minutes 15 – 20 m high, sometimes up to 40 m high – thank you Wikipedia).

I will admit to get rid of the people standing round the Geyser, I might’ve muttered the words “BBC” to get some space to photograph it!

I just happen to wonder if anyone would perhaps like, maybe if they were feeling slightly peckish……..

…. some food?  and whoosh, I only had to ask once.

Taktur and Storm had been welded together all morning waiting for my magic words but I had other tasks to do so had left them in their field until later.  It wasn’t like they were going to starve.

This is Taktur’s bucket.  Storm took up permanent residence immediately.

You can hear Taktur saying “He’s in my bucket” but he is too nice to do anything.  So he just watched and looked pathetic.  Not the big tough stallion at all.

That black trug is Storm’s bucket and still he won’t give up so I refilled the other one for Taktur again.

Eventually Storm did come up for air.

Taktur was less than impressed by his side-kick’s lack of manners. He is not very into food like three starved Shetland ponies.

Feeling generous, I gave the other two a little grub to keep them occupied.  They are very well covered and I have to be careful but there is a weekend of shite weather on its way and, although it is not particularly cold, the ceaseless wind and rain does take it out of everyone.

The other fatties got a smidgen of feed so they didn’t feel left out and some carrots.   They have enough grass to keep them full and don’t need extra but the guilt is always too much for me.

Horses can beg!

Gale force winds and horizontal rain but we knew this was coming, so the herd are in the big field with the most shelter.  As you can see, they are suffering and miserable in this weather so force themselves to eat and eat.  Bless them for trying.  They are such troupers.

I did go outside once.  It was thoroughly over-rated.

So I stood upside down under the piano to find my flash attachment for the posh camera and thought I would do some animal portraits.

It was then I realised I couldn’t remember how the flash worked and it was certainly living up to its name by flashing the LED panel at the back and over-exposing all my photos.

Unimpressed with this, I stood on my head again and found the instructions. I sat down and read them (RTFM in other words).

I was none the wiser as the words it was flashing were not in the manual.  So I surfed about a bit on the inter-super-highway and found others with the same problem.  Apparently the flash was broken.

Rather than give up, I switched it on and off a bit, which made no difference and then had a flash of inspiration (see what I did there, geddit?).  I took the batteries out and put them back.

Ta da! My flash now worked.

So here are some results.

Loki who has improved immensely and is described as “almost good” now.

The aged Jack (et-Potato) – still with us and slightly continent on a good day with the wind behind him going downhill.

Wussumly-Pussumly – he knows where you live.  You are all doomed (so you know).

And, of course, Her Maj, aka BeAnne Duvet Soufflé Princess Chantelle Shaznay du Mezzanine.

The very definition of Perfection (nodding off).

Yesterday looked like this.  Calm, beautiful calm and such a gorgeous autumnal light.

Today, I struggled.  The forecast is grotty so I put the thin blue waterproof rug on Storm.

(Note, Storm and Taktur are sharing a bucket because BeAnne is doing the washing up).

Today was dark so not worth getting a camera out and I apologise for the grott-factor of the photos.  Tomorrow is much worse (gale plus rain) so I gave everyone some remains of hard feed and hay as well as moved them to the good sheltered field.  If I don’t get out tomorrow, the horses will at least have shelter and grass in their bellies.

The three Minions were shown their dry shed with toys and hay.  They can stay around the house.

Little Storm, once in his anorak, was very happy.  He was intrigued by a big bag of sand.

And of course his BeAnne.  They remain great friends.  She never snaps at him, unlike the others but he has learned the rules.  Never nibble.

Silver spends more time with the big boys than his fellow Minions.

Good news – last night, Jack was given reprieve from Death Row by our vet.  After careful thought and consideration, we decided that his quality of life was good.  He is never stressed or in pain, just senile and pottery (Jack, not the vet).  The vet also prescribed a daily anti-inflammatory painkiller.  This has helped immensely and we fairly galloped up the track on his daily walk today – note the blurring of the photo is the speed he went and not my crappy ability (just sayin’).