So here we were, up at the crack of sparrows, bright and early, leaving Daisy and Flossie in charge of all the animals as well as any chores they felt like doing.

OH kindly drove as I don’t trust my legs on long distances now.

There was a beautiful sunrise which we commented upon as it kept going.

We drove past the boat (the 14 hour trip overnight ferry from Lerwick to Aberdeen) which had berthed a few hours earlier.

And, quite frankly, if I hadn’t had to have these spinal injections, I would’ve been off with my camera trying to photo the incredible sky and sea.  This is the hospital carpark at 09:00.

There was a bit of waiting in my cubicle. I think they were running late.

After the agony, not enough intravenous gin (there never is these days) and once I was considered compos mentis enough, I was given a bottle of water with some Digestive biscuits.  Proper ones.  McVities ones. Perfect post-injection fodder.

OH drove me home and I went to bed with full nursing staff.

Staff Nurse Soufflé was supportive in every way but mostly because Daisy brought me a chicken sandwich as well as many cups of tea for lunch.  I was starving.

BeAnne is always supportive.  Perhaps overdoing it a bit. The sandwich called to her.

So that is that and I pray the injections work.  F&D held the fort admirably.  Cooking, cleaning and general animal slavery – even Lambie got his biccies!

Every day someone goes and checks the horses and ponies who live 2 miles down the road at Leradale.

The croft consists of an enormous field split into two.

There is a large hill field – perfect for fat little Shetland ponies to winter in.

And a smaller “in-by” field that surrounds the derelict old croft house.  This field has thick green grass and is where the pregnant Icelandic mares and a two year old filly live.

Despite their constant yearnings for more food, the Shetland ponies, aka The Minions, are fat. They all did exceedingly well this summer and the winter weather is what these fat layers are for.

Today, I walked down to the Minion field armed with a bag of vegetable and fruit scraps.  Lyra accompanied me and said she didn’t know what apple pieces were and could she please have the broccoli stalks.  I duly obliged.

I threw the rest of the veg/fruit out for the Shetlands.  It was funny watching them argue over banana peel which they hate but were not going to let anyone else have.  Banana peel is an acquired taste.

I checked everyone was fat and happy, had a quick hug and then climbed back up the hill, through the Icelandic horse field, back to the car.

Obviously I was followed.

I am always followed.

Like mother, like daughter.  Hetja is a veg-bag-half-full kinda girl while Brá was having a hissy fit over the plastic bag that rustled in an alarming way.

As I go through the photos on my camera this evening, I found some beautiful skies.  These I took on my daily walks.

Sunset the day before yesterday’s storm.

and sunrise today.  The weather is winding down again now, thankfully.

Tomorrow I am off early to hospital for steroid anaesthetic injections into my spine.  I am not promising anything but I hope they work.  They must. I am finding life difficult.

The storm is here and, touch-wood, we still have electricity so here we go ….. today’s blog.

I had made preparations for this inclement weather and fed the sheep in their second-best bedroom (no wifi, but a new bale of straw plus renovations last year, ie structurally more stable walls were added) instead of their field.  Lambie hates eating with ‘Ster and ‘Bert as they eat faster and then hassle him.  He hates this, goes into a decline and gives up, rather wetly in my opinion.  So, as his Muzzah, I know this and Lambie and I reverted to Plan B.  I fed him his breakfasty privately in the porch.

Luckily Lambie understands this and happily followed me back to the house.  Like I said, we are prepared.

A favourite – Stauffer’s Animal Crackers sent from America.

A bag of Cheesy Smiles for emergencies (organic, no less).  Only the best for Lambie.

And a healthy option – carrots which they all adore.

The other two Boyzens came a-knocking looking for their “friend” (who you can see ducking – he hates hassle) and I topped them up with carrots and crackers ready to face the storm.

BeAnne has also spent her day in a total decline.  She hates this fierce weather and noise.  I loaned her my Christmas present, a silk bolster, for reclining and declining on.

Meanwhile, I went back to my felting and made this part sheep, possibly pig.

I was trying to make a very small sheep but its head was bigger than I intended.  I learned a lot today.

He is only two inches long.

Next time I will make the head and ears first, then the legs and lastly the body so I can get the scale right.

Live and learn.

We have a Force 10 storm approaching – this time tomorrow we will be in the worst of it.  I cannot guarantee a blog then.  We will see if the electricity lasts.

With this impending doom, we made the executive decision to move everyone to our “storm field” – the one with good shelter and some nice sprigs of green grass.

Daisy decided to lead Taktur, Flossie “boofed” the stragglers and I opened the gate and shouted helpfully.

No one needed asking twice.

The herd set off happily.

They all, to a horse, knew which field we wanted them to go in.

All except one.  Daisy let Taktur go as he told her knew where he was going.  She believed him but watched dismayed as he then managed to miss the huge wide open gate in front of him and head off in the wrong direction down the side of the wrong field.

Then Taktur got into a panic when he realised what he had done but luckily didn’t attempt to jump the fence.  Our Icelandic horses don’t know how to jump and if they do, tend to take whole fences with them.  Always a disaster.

Taktur is not the brightest star in our firmament.

Even if he is the most handsome.

But he was very happy (read relieved) when he found the others.

Taktur and Efstur went off racing around the field.  Goodbye horseshoes.

(I told you they don’t know how to jump)

Efstur showed us what a superb and floaty trot he has, even in a rug.

Haakon looked on with vague interest.  He remembered the days when he used to gallop about like an idiot.

And now we will all wait for the storm to arrive.

The hatches are battened down and maybe the storm will go in another direction at the last minute.  It has been known to happen.

I am trying to walk as much as possible.  The theory is that  I will walk my spinal pain into submission.

So, after going for a very quiet ride on Haakon with Daisy and Iacs, I followed up by a walk. For company, Flossie and Klængur came along too.

And BeAnne, obviously.

We walked along my usual route – the road to the cattle grid and back.

Haakon was with me.

I thought I would see if Klængur liked thistles, or fistles as we call them.  Haakon adores these prickly plants.  They are a delicacy to him and on the way home, he always drags me off to find them on the side of the road.

He eats them right back to the root.

After little encouragement, Klængur found he liked thistles too.

Klængur took huge mouthfuls around the whole plant like it was boiling hot or a whole chilli.

Flossie likened it to eating a pop-tart hot from the toaster (an unknown concept to me).

I am sure thistles are good for the horses. They would’nt ask to eat them if they didn’t want to. It is odd, however, but at no other time of the year do my horses bother to eat them.

After we had stopped for every thistle on the side of the road, we wended our way home.

PS All the thistles at Leradale have been ripped out and eaten too.  Most odd.  Maybe it is an Icelandic horse thing.