We had rather a fraught morning – BeAnne is very off-colour so we made the instant decision to take her to the vet.  We came home knowing Her Maj had lost some weight (we are trying so hard), and laden down with more medicine that might help her.

It is very tough on us all and add the threat of a thunder and lightening storm that never thankfully actually materialised, we have been taking it easy this afternoon all feeling rather frazzled.

To keep my mind occupied, I trawled around the house and my shed looking for all the bits that make up a tripod, my camera, the flash and that essential piece that attaches the camera to said tripod.  FFS.  It took me nearly an hour to locate that particular bit.

I wanted to photograph the flowers, what I have grewed, on my windowsill.

So here goes……  Just remember I grew these.  This is a huge achievement. A gardener, I am not and possibly not a photographer either.

Straws are for grasping, right?

This is the view from my back door, if you hop through the garden first.

Iacs (short for I Am Completely Stupid, aka Mr Bibble) was happily snoozing while the others, that would be Haakon and Klængur, completely ignored him. So much for best friendswatching out for the tigers.

Bibble had a lovely roll (note his blissful face).

Meanwhile, these two could not have been less on-the-ball if they tried.  Aren’t they looking well?  My boys (I am going all gooey-eyed now).

And he’s up.  The frilly is silly and all is right with the world.

Meanwhile, OH is offshore (working) and we have one cat in a box waiting, forever waiting for his Master’s return.  Let’s hope Shifu is back before Monster expires.

And I made a filum to try to explain why I live in Shetland.  I am uploading an HD version and once (if ever) Vimeo says it is complete, I will put the link here to replace this rather unremarkable version.

I saw my first Shetland bumblebee this morning in the resting Minion field we have to walk through to get to the chaps.

You can tell it is a Shetland bumblebee (Bombus muscorum agricolae) because it “is very distinctive, having a thorax that is completely orange, and a yellowish abdomen”.  That would be him then – a little fuzzy-wuzzy chap! ❤️

The seggies are all coming out.  A seggie is a yellow flag iris – they grow wild here and are always beautiful, if brief.  You can see how tall they grow next to Newt (all 28″ worth or something, we haven’t measured him in a while).

Newt has at last morphed from yak to racehorse. His Summer look.  I almost don’t recognise him until he lifts his face to chat.

The field they all live in is big (actually two fields with a stream running down the whole side). Perfect.

The bellies (and the smiles) are bigger!

Albie far away.

Albie close up with sunscreen on his precious nosey (and possibly Flossie who put it there – she has a coat of many colours, predominantly white though).

We talk to everyone and check they are ok.

I love this – and sort of know what Vitamin was saying to Storm who is not her favourite Shetland pony.  I had just rasped Storm’s hooves and surprisingly he behaved beautifully.  Vitamin is probably being told all about it and hiding her disbelief.

Always good to see the Shetland’s.   They make me smile (mostly).

If you are wondering how Her Maj is getting on, well yesterday I would’ve said she is fine.  We are in a routine. It’s not perfect but it works and she’s still here.

BeAnne sort of eats dog food (with muchos cajoling) or cat food (she steals it) and takes herself off to hunt for baby bunny rabbitses when she feels like it (I pretend I don’t know).  Sometimes she even has a wee swim.

She likes water.  Very much.

But we have bad days and today was one of them.  The lunch-time pills were consistently spat out despite the ham parcels they were lovingly wrapped in. This resulted in me going to the not-very-local-shop (20 minute drive away) to get many pounds (money)’s worth of people treats (ham – smoked and honey roasted, hot dogs, meatballs, triangle-shaped cheese) to wrap/disguise her pills in. Instructions on the pill packet it says they must be eaten whole (no crushing or splitting) so we need a vehicle to disguise them in and one Monster wants too as envy greatly inspires.

I have a pill-popper syringe thingy which resulted in her biting me!

Gah!  I am finding this difficult.

And, I think, so is BeAnne.  The pills are a necessity to life but, at the moment,  there are more good days than bad.  I tell myself this because today was a bad one.

But she did eat her supper and the cat’s leftovers and has cheered up immensely.  I have gin so I have cheered up too.

The flowers are wonderful now.  We are bit over-buttercupped but it is not a problem for us.

The boys are looking gorgeous.  All shiny.  Winter coats almost gone.

As Lambie was so distressed by the flies last week, I bought him a horse fly-collar – AB7 Industries Insect Repellent Collar for Horses by Lincoln. I think I got two off Amazon (one for Hetja).  You cut it to size and it comes with fasteners that have a variety of reviews as to whether they stay on or not.  Anywho, the other day, we grabbed Lambie, fitted the collar to size and fastened it.

Of course he went into a complete decline, saying he could’t be That Kind of Sheep (ie one with a collar) and burbled on about being a Free Spirit. I had stopped listening to him by then and told him to get on with it, it would help.

Of course I was right and Lambie is much much happier and relaxed now having got used to the smell of citronella and the total lack of flies around him. From the packet – “protects horses against most parasites including flies, midges, mosquitos and horse-flies.” and now possibly sheep.

(this is Lambie’s happy face, so you know)

While we had Lambie in the metaphorical head-lock, I also replaced his copper magnetic bracelet as he had managed to lose the last one. We have matching bracelets now as I had one made for me too.  Friends forever!

Beautiful smiley faces.

Relaxing in the sun and snoozing.

Edna was happy shovelling food in as fast as she can. What a difference grass makes.

As I wandered about, I was of course followed.

♬♫ “There’s a monster coming over the hill….

(…. and his friend!)” ♬♫

So all is good.