Another storm is on it’s way – Storm Éowyn, I think – I watch my ten weather apps avidly for one to change and say the storm will miss us or be less fearsome.  I am not hopeful.

So, while I was delivery my breakfast buckets, I decided on my plan for the day.

(You can see just how well Haakon has me trained as he came rushing up for his breakfast!)

I told Pepper that I had decided to go to Lerwick to get supplies for Monster and Vitamin and she would have to stay behind (which she didn’t as apparently she ran off to our neighbours!)

Ted, of course, was A Good Boy.

Lerwick was it’s usual self – I got my tyre sorted out (breathed a sigh of relief when it was a cheap puncture), and rewarded myself with haggis and chips with this view.

After the weight in, I think that Vitamin should have a little more weight or condition on her – she has lost quite a lot of recently and so I bought some micronised linseed for her, and the other oldies and possibly Tiddles as he just seems very “dull” these days.

I also popped into the supermarket and bought every known expensive pile of cat food I could find, including frozen white fish (for hoomans) and lovely little amuse-bouche.  We cancelled Monster’s vet appointment as he is not looking or acting ill but is just eating less.  He may be much older than we really know or helping himself from the outside snack trolley of life.

Interestingly enough, I haven’t seen our neighbours recently!

Monika from Sandness Equine Services came over with her horse/pony weighing scales.  No one has been weighed for 13 months and I need to know accurately what everyone weighs if I am going to consider drug treatment for Waffle and Tiddles for Equine Metabolic Syndrome.  This has been diagnosed by the vet from previous blood results.

Pepper offered her help while Monika set up the weighing scales.

I had got everyone in earlier so they would be easy to catch and the put outside afterwards.

And after weighing each pony, Monika was kind enough to feel each horse to see who had ribs or fat pads or not.

There was a remark about a little woolly mammoth when Newt climbed on.

They all behaved well and it was just a case of walking each pony onto the mat, weight recorded, a quick feel for ribs and then outside into the field.

And the results are in…..

This was 13 months ago and, as you can see, everyone has lost some or a lot of weight, so that’s encouraging.

Now to keep it off for the next year.  That is my next challenge.

Huge thanks to Sandness Equine Services.   Waffle and Tiddles will have blood taken again next week (resting insulin) and then the vet can decide on the drug treatment required knowing their accurate weights.

It’s been a funny old day. I’m not really sure why.

To start with, Haakon now has me well trained.  He said he could never walk up another hill for his breakfast so if I could just bring him his bucket and so I do.

Don’t ask.  I am a mug, I know, but shouting for him takes too much time and it is a battle of wills. I will admit, he has won.

Also, Monster is not his usual self.  He is not eating very much or very enthusiastically, which is not like him. So he is off to the vet on Wednesday with OH.  His job now.  I have delegated, though I will probably end up going just because.

And my morning was spent going through everything in our porch, chucking away gloves with holes, old hats no one wears and various rubbish that we have accrued throughout the year, stuffed in a drawer and not looked at since.

I also fired off a few emails about two photographs that have been in my family’s possession for a very long time – both of Michael Faraday (my 5 x great uncle – his brother, Robert is my 5 x great grandfather).

The one on the left is 5.8cm x 8.7cm – a photo stuck on a card mount.  It says it was from John Watkins Photo, Parliament.  On the reverse is John Watkins’ printed information and faint pencil writing “Professor Faraday”.

The second one on the right is 5.7cm x 9.1cm mounted on card.  Written on the reverse in pencil is “Copied from daguerreotype by J.H. Roller (? – indecipherable) And in pen in possibly my grandmother’s handwriting – “Michael Faraday”.

Anyway I want to find out more as they are part of my family history.

It will be interesting to see if anyone has historical information.

Mud?  You want mud?  We have mud!

Luckily it is not the difficult welly-sucking mud as we live on boulder rock so it is only really about 4″ deep at it’s worst and the ponies know that as they stomp through it everyday.   You can see a small S-shaped track which is where they have worked out is best to walk.

But, still, it’s mud so I climbed over the fence to avoid it as I was taking my Big Camera out to see the little ponies.

Eariler that day, I had opened up a piece of grazing to the side of the gate which surrounds a rocky outcrop.  Waffle insisted on standing on the top. King of his castle.

And the others were eating below him.

Please forgive me that everyone is filthy but there is very little I can do about it and no one cares.  When it rains, the ponies get cleaner and of course, there is all that mud to contend with on a daily basis for everyone, including me!

(I am still feeling pleased with camera – I think I will keep it and actually try and use it more).

Yesterday, on the way out to our Church café for lunch, I discovered that my car had a flat tyre.  Dammit.  So I asked OH if he could change it for me as, although I could possibly eventually achieve this with much reading of the manual plus lots of huffing and puffing, I really didn’t want to and OH loves this kind of thing.

But OH found that one of the nuts on the wheel was different to the rest – a more domed top – and, despite looking everywhere (and I mean everywhere all over the car searching to the extent I even found two storage lockers I never knew about with my Mother’s glasses, a spare pair of tights and a box with inflating the wheel things!) – we couldn’t find the socket end bit that would unscrew this different nut.  All the rest undid fine with the kit supplied.

We phoned a friend who has the identical car.  He offered to come over but in the meantime to try different socket sets on the nut.

So OH went off to his shed to find some more socket sets with different ends.

He was a while…..

And I laughed (inwardly) when I noticed this.

OH was being “stalked”….

Said in your best David Attenborough voice “see how the white panther cat waits silently behind the dry-stone wall, careful not to draw any attention to himself, while he stalks his prey”.

OH found the magic wheel nut remover, got the wheel off and changed the tyre, and “White Panther” stalked his prey back to the kitchen for tea!

Job done.