Let me introduce Hjalti to you.

Old Norse name and byname
Old Norse hjalti = ‘man from Hjaltland (= Shetland)’
Pronounciation – “h-yah-l-tih”

We all think this is the perfect name for the little dude and at last he has his name.  Phew.  I told you he would find it.

I haven’t seen Hjalti for a week as I don’t have a car (OH has sold the Land Rover and needs the little car to get to Lerwick for work).

Once a week I have a flute lesson so that is my car day (yay!).  I use the rest of the day trying to complete all my outstanding messages including visiting Hjalti and Hetja (means Hero by the way and is pronounced Het-tya) who are not living nearby.

Hjalti has changed so much in one week.

His foal fuzz is going and he turning the same colour as Hetja.

But he is still a little treasure and his silly frilly forelock is quite a statement!  Maybe that is the unknown influence of his Uncle Iacs – they can compare styling and hair problems later!

Hetja is doing very well in her motherhood.  She still won’t let Hjalti talk to his Shetland pony foal friend but he doesn’t mind, follows her everywhere and does everything she says.

This time of transition (colour and growing) is one all foals go through.  Bits of him grow faster than other parts.  After a few years, everything will catch up and he will be in proportion.  At the moment he is still a gangly little boy trying to find out everything about the world, or at least his field, if his mother will let him.

A lovely sunny day – I am going to make the most of this, I thought.

I caught and tacked up Haakon thinking we could go for a quiet short potter together, just like old times.

I reckoned BeAnne would probably come along for the ride, so to speak, but I never thought Lambie would join us too – yes, that is his little woolly backside running up the track!

But once Lambie puts his little mind to something, he is a tenacious beastie.

Both Lambie and BeAnne know about cars but I was still very wary.  Luckily, Lambie got cold feet (or is that hooves?) once we reached the road and, even though we waited for him, he suddenly turned round and galloped home by himself.

I think we were all rather relieved, to be honest and so we continued just BeAnne, Haakon and me.

We went on our usual route up the hill with BeAnne myopically putting up rabbits – they happily skipped away unharmed as she rarely knew she had done it!

The views, as usual, were breathtakingly beautiful.

Haakon was in a very amiable mood and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

BeAnne had her usual skiddoodle through the hill puddles.

I think she wanted to see if she could run along the top of them without getting her feet wet.

Eventually, we wended our way home in the summer sunshine.  Heaven, utter heaven.  For me, it doesn’t get any better than this.

A few chores, and then I treated myself to sitting in a field with my book and the lambs.  They wanted to sit beside me so I took selfies of us!

So like the Kardashians – it is uncanny!

It is a beautiful sunny day and everyone is out and about.

Winter seems a long time ago. It is funny how quickly we forget wondering when, or even if, the grass will ever grow again.

The Minions are turning into fat little pigs and that is fine.

In fact everyone is looking very well, perhaps a bit too “well” in some cases.

I tried to get the tats off Tiddles but, once he had worked out why I wanted him, he was off.

In a huff, never to be caught again!

So I left him to it and reckoned there would be other days to get that fluff off him.

Taktur was being Greta Garbo.

Who was it who said “the grass is always greener on the other side”?

The boys really just wanted to be left to eat so I went off to find someone else to amuse me and my camera.

I think this is a skylark.  It made a beautiful noise and was nearly impossible to photograph – very quick in the sky and didn’t hang about.

Lambie and Lambert are enjoying the Summer too.  Lambie was particularly bouncy on the dogwalk (yes all four of us went!)  He was all Skippety Doo-Dah until he fell over.

Last night I was asked to go over to a friend’s house with my camera(s) in the morning to see if I could photograph a bird that was not meant to be in Shetland.

So I duly popped over with my long lens to sit in the sunshine in their kitchen, being fed homemade cake and coffee – always a chore!

They have a beautiful garden, so the view was perfect and so was the cake.

And so we sat and sat, and chatted and sat, and waited for the rare-bird-to-Shetland to arrive.

Um…… it didn’t.  No rare bird.  It had obviously gone somewhere else.

So I took some photos of a mouse that made an appearance.

And went on enjoying the cake and coffee!

I never got to see the bird,  Ho-hum, probably just as well.

(this photo is to prove that Wu goes outside, by the way!)

Anywho, it is not the rare bird that is important – it is the fact that I almost saw one!

Btw, The Minions are fine, in case anyone is missing Shetland pony input!

I will see what I can do tomorrow on that front.

I met the nicest prettiest little grey mare today.  She was enchanting, like a fairy-tale pony.

A little shy to start with but it didn’t take long.

Once the mare had her headcollar taken off, I found myself sitting on the ground waiting for the next contestant to be photographed.

It was then that the little mare decided to investigate me.

I turned away, avoided direct eye contact and put my hand out to feel her gentle snuffling muzzle sussing me out.

And then we were friends.  If I had a mare field (yes, yes, I know I have the black ones), I would buy this little girl.  There was a connection.  She is such a gentle sweet soul and she desperately wanted to be friends.  Every time there was a gap in my photography, she would sneak back over for a quiet chat.

I love it when you can hear them whisper to you.

Meanwhile, Esja was busy trying to hog all the limelight.

As I was mostly sitting or lying down, my photos had a wonderful nothing background to distract.

Icelandic horses and Shetland ponies make the best of friends.

They are so similar in very many ways and I am sure they speak the same language too.

And if you are wondering about Lamb-Bie and Lamb-Bert, they are both fine and full of life and enthusiasm to follow me everywhere.