Dog and cat | My Shetland

I gave myself the afternoon off from fulfilling my huge overseas order of hand-felted sheep to play flute duets with my friend, Mandy. We haven’t played in a while so it was good to play. Something different. I needed this.

As ever, Pepper came too. She is my shadow, after all.

While I was setting up, I happened to look out of the window to see Monster approaching (I love the way he actually uses the path as if it was made specifically for him).

Mandy and I continued with the setting up, while we were “serenaded” or shouted at, depending on your perspective.

Luckily, Monster was easily distracted and spent some time looking out of the windows.

The perfect bird hide for one very large white cat who is not exactly invisible, except for perhaps when it snows.

And then Monster left, and we had a lovely afternoon playing (but mostly chatting and drinking tea) our flutes sometimes almost in tune and we thought we were quite good, at times.

Afterwards Pepper and I went into the house where war ensued. Notice who expends the most energy in this endeavour and also notice who was expelled from the room.

And yes, Monster got Pepper on her way back in (and he was not sorry either!)

Pepper never learns who is boss. I don’t know why she tries, really.

This is to show you just how light it is at night this time of year – I took this photo from my bedroom window at 11.30 p.m last night. It doesn’t get any darker at the moment but the birds do stop and it is magically silent for a few hours in this long Shetland twilight (“Simmer Dim”).

Anywho, today was lovely. The sun shone and all was good. It was a rather strenuous dog-walk, when Pepper successfully and expertly removed some hill sheep from our field (separating them from my flock, getting them through three gates onto the track) like a well-trained collie, listening to my instruction. I was telling her what I wanted, and miracle of miracle, Pepper understood and made it happen. So I decided we all needed to have a sit down in the garden to recover from such exertion. Ted was no help, of course. It was not his bag.