Everyone is home for Christmas.  I am now officially happy.

And we have the Christmas decorations up.  This was the first thing to do after lunch.  We had waited for everyone to come home before doing this.

Lots of help from everyone made things much easier.

Apparently (Daisy took this photo).

It is lovely to see the old familiar decorations.  They are part of our family Christmas tradition.

Even Lambie is immortalised on the tree.

And I have half of Mum’s decorations too.

The festive branches are up.  As Flossie said “there is stuff everywhere” with no theme.

I wonder if it will bring out the festive spirit in us all now.

After doing all the ponies, sheep, horses, etc I drove off to Turriefield for the last time this year.

We were weighing, packing and labelling veg ready for Christmas.

My job was carrots. I had “a few” carrots to pack up and distribute.

This the stack of  veg going to a shop in Lerwick tomorrow.

The veg boxes were getting fuller and fuller.

Wonderful.  Worth all the effort in my book.

I got back home around lunch time to find the containers were full of little ponies who were thoroughly bored of the weather.

Every time I see a pony in a container, I think this was definitely the right decision.

So I threw them all some unsellable little swedes which they were very happy to scoff down.

I was surprised to see Vitamin and Fivla even having a go – their teeth are not great but they managed.

This time tomorrow…….

The weather is revolting and descending further into utter nastiness – F10 tonight and tomorrow.  Not nice.  The girls plus visitor have had to postpone their arrival. ETA Friday now.

And I worry about the Icelandics.  They, on the other hoof, are not worried about much.  They are out 24/7 and last night was no fun – I don’t think it stopped raining all night but this morning they all traipsed up the hill for their breakfast buckets.

I looked at Iacs’ coat (and I know I always go on about this) but the Icelandic horses really are well designed for bad weather. Their winter coat is called a “double coat” and the long hairs makes the water drip away, leaving a dry finer undercoat underneath.

So that is why I am very reluctant to wash anyone or rug because they would lose this insulation.  Also add the fact that none of them have ribs (read ** fat **) that I can find or feel. I do try.

The field they are currently living in is perfect for winter.  It has lots of very sheltered areas and a good growth of grass means the horses can get out of the worst of the weather and are safer outside.  If anyone is shaking tomorrow with cold, then obviously I will get them inside but, as they get all panicky and anxious, I think they are better off outside at the moment.

But this is what we call nice weather for ducks.   They can keep it.

After breakfast (none for me, I needed to get on), I drove off to Lerwick to finish all my Christmas shopping.

It was a dreich day but no wind, for a change.  It’s the little things.

I had a list and a limited amount of time to do everything in as daylight is very precious these days – we get 5 1/2 hours to be precise and I like to home before dark so I can get do the ponies in daylight.

And eight days before Christmas, the Street was empty.  Most strange and very sad.  I was shocked. Maybe it is busier at weekends, I told myself.

I wished the Christmas light were switched on.  It would’ve cheered up a grey day and there was not a carol to be heard either.  If I wasn’t feeling particularly Christmassy before, then I certainly wasn’t going to find it here.

Still, the shop windows were very good and innovative.

These felted mince pies were very clever.  I smiled when I saw them.

So that’s me on the shopping front.  No more.  If we don’t have it, we don’t need it – that’s my theory.  I’m done.

I’ve not got much today.  I am sorry.

I spent my morning cleaning, tidying and sorting out beds and bedrooms for Daisy and Flossie (plus a visitor) who all come home for Christmas on Thursday. I cannot tell you just how excited I am about this.

My phone was running out of batteries as I was listening to the radio while I worked, so I totally forgot to pick it up when the vet arrived to take blood from Tiddles and Waffle.  We talked about Storm and what happened which helped a bit but brought everything back all over again, which didn’t.

However, the vet did say Tiddles could have painkillers for as long as he needs them, which was good because Tiddles is really struggling without them (2 weeks on, 1 week off was recommended by previous locum and we are on the week off and he’s back to hobbling around his stall).

Tomorrow I am going to town with my sledge for my last gasp at shopping and then that’s me for the holidays.  All the presents are wrapped (get me, a whole ten days early) and I am trying hard to look forward to Christmas.  Once the girls are home, things should be much, much better as they will all put the tree and decos up.  I will feel far more Christmassy once I have to hoover up bits of tinsel and remove the cat from the upper branches.