Floss and I drove to town this morning as we felt we deserved some lovely things after our strenuous fence building yesterday. I always like a good excuse.

It was a lovely sunny day and we strolled down Commercial Street enjoying the sights.  The place was brimming with people.

And this caught my attention – Jamieson’s Knitwear’s shop side-window.

And, look, look, my sheeple feature.  I am thrilled, so happy.  I have a cheesey grin on my face just seeing them again as I type this.

In fact the whole window was inspired.

More wanderings.

And here is one of the reasons for the crowds.

A mahoosive cruise-ship.

Apparently it was the AidaSol – 253 metres in length and 32 metres in width, a modified Sphinx class (and I have absolutely no idea what that means but there you go).  It can carry 2,174 passengers and they were all possibly in Commercial Street today.

As Napoleon Bonaparte once said (and I did not know this) ….”If you want a thing done well, do it yourself”.

As everyone is busy shearing sheep or building windmills in Shetland, today Floss and I built part of the track-system for the Minions.  Although not ideal, it gives me an idea of what I want permanently.

It was hard work but I had my plans and showed them to Flossie first.

We shifted hurdles for the first bit which will give us some lee-way for moving sheep and ponies through gates without frying.

The Minions’ field was getting beyond disgusting.  They needed a change.

Once the first part of the track was built, we moved them all in…..

Newt followed eventually.

Then we added the old ladies, stepped back and looked at the situation.  Too much grass.

So we swapped Waffle for Vitamin and shut the little ones in the small paddock to eat down.

This will work. The Minions can eat the grass there as well as spending their nights in it – 12 hours on and 12 hours off.

The small paddock is not as great as it looks as it is mostly pineapple weed and docks with a small smattering of grass.

The old ladies were happy to be on the track doing what they do best….. eat!

And the Minions will have this new set-up for the rest of summer.

While Floss is home (6 more days), we can both move everything around so that this all works smoothly and with minimum lugging and effort.  Well, that’s my theory, anyway.

Someone is still in the dog-house – by choice – her’s.  Poor little Patterdale terrier. Nobody luffs her.

Meanwhile, Bibble, or Bobbles (aka Iacs) as he now appears on my phone with auto-correct…..

We have made a plan.

Iacs is booked to go south on the freight boat (passenger ferry fully booked which is the only way I could have accompanied him), to be collected at the other end and driven to the Equine Veterinary Surgery in Aberdeen.  There he will have laser therapy surgery and chemotherapy (one day dose).  And then he will come home. It will hopefully take less than a week.  Apparently there is every chance Iacs will be cured (yes, I cried when the vet said this).

So Iacs is going to have to put his brave pants on at the end of the month for his Big Trip by himself.

I can hear some folk wondering why we would bother with a 27 year old horse but Iacs is family, full of life and we will give him every chance.  We owe him that much.  The cost is irrelevant.  We’ll manage.  This is Iacs we’re talking about, after all.

I thought about sending Haakon with iacs as company but, to be honest, I don’t think Haakon would cope and I don’t want Kolka left on her own.

She certainly wouldn’t manage.

The minions are totally unsuitable travel companions too.  So brave pants it is.  Daisy and I think this is the best plan we can have for Iacs.

This is the face of someone who got told off for wanting to introduce herself to the ducklings.  And when I say “introduce”, it wasn’t in a nice way.  Think gastronomic and I found her in the new duckling run. We have no idea how she got in there.  Friends, not food!

So now we are all watching Pepper, and Monster who are thinking thoughts.

Here is Monster this morning, watching, always watching…..

And there is another Mother Duck (Penty’s mother) nesting in that small henhouse. I told Pepper to get off the roof.  Rude.

Luckily, I can see Mother Duckie (#1+3) from my desk window.  Here they are swimming in the newly acquired cat-litter tray. It is perfect and they adore it, hopping in and out.

And this is Ted who is behaving beautifully about the ducklings.

Pepper and Monster could take a leaf out of Ted’s book on duckling protocol.

But yet…..

Mother Duckie (#2+1) has an adorable duckling who says “me, me, me” all the time especially when I put food or water down. Gorgeous.

But meanwhile Pepper, who is now hopefully supervised 24/7, has her eye on everything.

I like to think that Mother Duckie (#1+3) would put up one helluva fight, though.  I hope we never have to find out.

Floss and I finished our pony/duck/chicken/horse/dog chores and, as a reward, I drove Floss to town and we went on a shopping spree buying lovely things for Flossie (though I gave myself a new frying pan and two cat litter trays to use as duckling swimming-pools).

There was a cruise-ship in, so the town was fairly busy with folk wandering around aimlessly looking slightly bemused like they always do.

Lunch was sitting in the car on the pier eating the best fish and chips in the world, with a seagull standing on my nice clean bonnet.  I was not-so silently thinking “Don’t you dare!” – she didn’t. Phew!

The boats are coming from far and wide now.  Soon it will be time for the Tall Ships race too.  Lerwick is hosting this year.

We obviously bought lots of lovely things, including food, and then home back to our reality which, actually, I think I prefer.

Flossie kindly did some poo-picking while I sorted out the new swimming pools and had a cup of tea.  Ah, home. It’s the best.