成人快手

In the excitement of relating the events surrounding the Christmass Eve service on Eday I neglected to mention the Christmass Eve service in Stronsay's kirk. This attracted a large congregation whose singing was lead by an orchestra made up of local Stronsay youngsters, all ably lead by Janice Maxwell, with me on the organ helping out.

We had the first snow of winter on Wed 10 Jan. The distant hills of mainland were white over for a day or so. The next day I had planned to take the car to Kirkwall for its annual MOT test. As Orkney Ferries are now running their "refit" timetable the ferry from Stronsay to Kirkwall also calls at Eday and Sanday and the journey takes over 2.5 hours, an hour longer than normal. However, the weather was so bad that the ferry was two hours late in leaving Stronsay and the harbour master informed us that there was a 50:50 chance that the ferry might not be able to return later in the day. The ferry did not return that day so I was quite glad that I had decided to postpone my trip to Kirkwall until Thursday 18 Jan. This time the trip was uneventful, the sun shone from an almost cloudless sky, there was hardly any wind and the sea was quite calm. Which is more than can be said for the rest of the UK on that day, 10 people were reported killed in accidents caused by the appalling weather. The phone rang on the day that I was originally supposed to go to Kirkwall for the car's MOT. Maureen answered the call and had to rack her brain wondering what the caller, Audrey Ferris, was talking about until Maureen realised that it was a charming young lady, with a lilting Orcadian accent, phoning on behalf of Orkney Ferries about the revised ferry sailings.

Our cat, Surrey, continues to provide hours of entertainment. As a morning treat she gets a dish of water to which Maureen adds a tiny drop of milk. This usually creates some bubbles on the surface of the water/milk mixture. When Maureen puts the dish down for Surrey to drink Surrey inspects the dish with great suspicion; if there are any bubbles on the surface of the milk she backs off, lies down and waits for all the bubbles to burst before drinking the milk. Sometimes this takes quite a while so she becomes impatient and pops all the bubbles with a mighty swipe from her paw. Surrey is quite handy with her paws and it was only Maureen's sharp eyes that prevented Surrey from "killing" a pavlova that was de-frosting on the kitchen worksurface. It is bad enough when Surrey sprays a bit of milk around but a whole, cream-filled pavolva would make a fine mess.

Malcolm and Sue recently sent me a photograph of their six dogs (the "Ha'Breck Hooligans") so I've placed it on my website at http://tinyurl.com/34cfrj. The dogs in the photograph are:

top left - Storm (female, 9 months pup of Brack and Rex)
top right - Brack (female 3-1/2 years)
centre - Rex (male 15 month, Father of Storm and Solo)
bottom left - Solo (6 months pup of Skye and Rex)
bottom right - Skye (female 3 1/2 years)
(Brack and Skye are sisters who were born on Sanday)

Another of Stronsay's well-known characters, Willie Cooper, died this month at the grand age of 82. The kirk was absolutely packed for his funeral and most folk went up to the cemetery afterwards despite the freezing rain and strong wind.

I had just finished editing this edition of the Saga when the power failed thus causing us to search out the torches, candles and matches. Only the other week we had been congratulating ourselves on having avoided power cuts for several months. Fortunately the power was only off for an hour or so.
--
Bruce Fletcher
Stronsay, Orkney
www.stronsay.co.uk/claremont