My mother visited me in Shetland many moons ago (around 1997/8?). I wouldn’t call it a success really as travelling here was her very definition of Hell – the plane was cancelled due to fog and I think she ended up on the floor of the ferry trying to sleep that night.  Not ideal and it rather coloured her view of my new home and visiting me forever.

But, I remember that Mum loved the cotton-grass that grows everywhere.  She was very taken with it and so when it “flowers”, I always think of Mum.  I think she even gathered handfuls to take home in her suitcase, along with stones off the beach for her garden, as you do.

The cotton-grass sort of looks like occasional snow drifts in our Shetland summer.  A wonderful, if strange, sight.

Meanwhile, in other news, Mr Ducky has been looking for one of his many wives and has finally found her.

He has been sitting there all afternoon.

I hope he knows the children are his responsibility.

And in other, other news, the Minions are down minimum grass on their track.

I am holding firm as they all need to lose weight.  Sorry, guys, I am not opening up the other half yet.

I must not give in, I must not give in, I must not give in……..

This is an exceptionally good year for growing things, especially the wild flowers which are truly beautiful.  I shall attempt to name them all but forgive me if I get any wrong, which is probably inevitable.

These photos are all from Leradale which has a lovely diverse range.

Even though there is no one living there, I still like to take the dogs for a good run there.  They love it.

So here goes (reaches for her copy of Shetland Flowers):-

Yarrow

Grass-of-parnassus

Bog Asphodel

Heather

Heather (close-up)

Bell Heather

Bell Heather (close-up)

Cross-leaved Heath

Tormentil

Round-leaved Sundew

Common Bird’s-foot-trefoil

Eyebright

And, lastly, these two flowers!  Iacs (L) and Haakon (R).

The track is a success – well, half the track if I’m being honest.  It is first part – L-shaped – and the Minions love it.

They are allowed on the track for 12 hours a day and can be seen using it for their Minion Grand National race.

Watching them gallop around makes me smile.

Different parts of the track serve different purposes and I am learning  what I want from my track and what will be permanent. For example, there is water main all along here so I can’t dig that part up!

I found the ponies all asleep the other day with Vitamin on tiger duty.

Vitamin and Fivla are living in the middle bit where all the grass is.  I think they are secretly glad not to be in with the others as they are not into galloping madly everywhere.

This is the bedtime area that the Minions are shut into at night – a small paddock with four hay boxes and little else.

Around 9 p.m. they voluntarily put themselves to bed when I go out with their two soaked haynets and obviously Pepper.

So that’s our routine at the moment.  I will open up the second bit of the track one day but not soon.  What they have seems to be enough and everyone seems happy and well, for the time being though I have learned not to count my chickens because every time I say they are fine, laminitis rears its ugly head.

“La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froide” from Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s epistolary novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses, 1782 or “revenge is a dish best served cold” according to our household.

Yup, you guessed it, Pepper’s revenge after yesterday’s totally unprovoked attack by Monster, was to clamber into his beloved and-only-his bed that evening.

This is Pepper’s she-knows-and-I-know face.  Butter wouldn’t melt but she’s feeling very hard done by and wanted revenge.

And so Pepper settled down for the evening so that Monster had to take up position, on OH’s knee.  He did manage a very smug I-don-t-care face at everyone.

You can almost hear the snoring.

And then later, now with a taste for other folk’s beds, I found Pepper happily snoozing in Ted’s sacred, and only his, bed.  The one next to my bed.  Again, she had made herself very comfortable.

And was going nowhere.  Now, I have never seen Pepper sleep in Ted’s bed.  That’s not her place (she sleeps on the people bed while Ted always chooses not to).

So there is politics going on here and I am not sure who is playing one-upmanship with whom but it is definitely going on.  Ted, of course, is oblivious and has no idea what is going on.

I blame Monster. He started it.

It was a lovely day in the late afternoon yesterday.  I had a mad thought – I wanted to brush the ponies and give the dogs a run around too.

So, obviously, Monster wanted to come as well.

Well, he follows us everywhere .

After immense pony mane and tail brushing by Flossie and I, we sat on a rock and admired our hard work and I thought Floss deserved a small rest after all I have made her do this week.

Everyone was around enjoying the scenery too.

Obviously, we had a musical accompaniment.  No need for any radio.

Pepper and Ted were having a lovely mad game of running around and trying to kill each other and I could see Monster watching them closely (look at those fat little paws).

A cat on a mission.

It was a boisterous game, with lots of rough and tumble, and both dogs were having great fun.

And so Monster walked up to where they were playing and beat them both up!  Eh?

So that was the end of the game. The Fun Police had stopped them in their tracks.

The dogs were more than a bit suprised at what had happened so we went back inside.  Floss and I both thought it was a bit mean of Monster to do this but I expect he had his reasons.