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  Well that was an interesting day. An #offgrid neighbour has one of Hugh Piggott's wind turbine designs (https://scoraigwind.co.uk/) It's been powering her house pretty reliably for the last 20 years. But that's a long time, so it was time to get it refurbished. Although Hugh is pretty much retired from this aspect of his career, he offered to do the refurbishment, which meant getting the incredibly heavy unit off the pole, and down to the pier at Scoraig (no roads there) 2/...

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  What more proof do you need that aliens move among us than this on the BadgerCam last night? Any ideas what it can be? I've no idea, myself, but I do have a strong urge this morning to indulge in domestic-scale geo-forming with a mashed potato medium.

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  We went for a walk today at Little Assynt, a part of the area owned on behalf of the community by the Culag Woods Trust. It's a lovely walk that we used to do often with the terriers, but haven't done for years, so we took advantage of the wonderful weather today Walk 🧵 coming up...

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  Two-part post. The most important, a young man here in Assynt has been diagnosed with a very unfortunate disease, myelofibrosis. He's fine (he delivered several large gas cylinders to us today), & apparently it's manageable but it's not curable. So he's raising funds for the charity concerned about this disease, the Anthony Nolan Trust. Posting this for information, and in case this is something close to your own heart. https://www.justgiving.com/page/fergus-mackay-2 2/...

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  25 or 6 to 4 Weddings and a Funeral #MashUpRockSongsAndMovies #HashTagGames https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A3HZvGN0qs

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  #TechieStory All this talk of escaped sandboxing reminds me of the late 90s, setting up a SuSE server with dial-up internet. Can't recall the name of the service that did this. Anyway, I set up the process, but hadn't yet put in the ISP credentials, so the modem dialled the example number. Unfortunately, for some reason, the example number started with "999...." Cue QUICK disconnect, then dialling 999 myself to explain. It took a while to convince them of the reason for the uni...

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  Currently enjoying playing ay eye email tennis with a potential electricity supplier. Original Email: We are not an existing customer Their Response: We cannot find your name in the customer database OE: This is my name and address TR: Can you please provide your name and address

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  #MorningWalk and it's this sort of day on #Assynt, widely acknowledged to be the Centre of the (known) Universe.

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  The Great Kitchen Floor Project of 2026. What a stupid thing to start. Well, I didn't just start. I started 4 times. The unevenness of the floor meant I had a terrible time trying to fit the boards in one plane, so I had to try the other. Eventually I found a technique that worked. But do you recall that stuck-on lino problem? It turns out that it was stuck on because there's a raised spot just there. Still quite a bit to do, but the back's broken, in more than one sense. I'm kna...

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  The Great Kitchen Floor Project of 2026 starts. Just the sealing at the windows to complete The Great Kitchen Wall Lining Project of 2026, but I'll leave that for later. Ideally we'd move everything out to do this, but there's no room in the rest of the house, and I'm reluctant to move the kitchen units, but I think I have a cunning plan to deal with that. I'm already knackered this morning, so I'm having to try to do this slowly rather than my usual head down, charge, se...

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  Help! I cleaned up the tasty string from the roast dinner you accidentally dropped, and now I've got an itchy bum. (True story - the yorkie had to have the string removed the same way as starting a lawnmower) #TextsFromDogs #HashtagGames

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  German-speaking Fedi - please confirm that that an inflatable boat is called a gummiboot in your language, because reading that in an unexpected place has made me smile with the joyful aptness of the description, the right way to start a Monday.

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  Apocalypse At Some Point #BetterLateThanNeverAMovie #HashTagGames

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  #MorningWalk and it's this sort of day in #Assynt

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  There is an alternative loop that's known as Ken's Path. Ken is someone local who had a lot to do with the original layout of the paths, which include, in another section of the estate, an all-abilities path, very suitable for wheelchairs. At the top of the loop, there's a small table, and this poignant plaque. Bless you Ken.

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  #TechieNotes Well, that's been fun. I reverted by 40+ years and converted a php script that uses ajax to display live info from our #offgrid power system (outputs, solar in, wind in, summary) to using cgi running a Yabasic program. It's more than 10x faster than the php it replaces and uses a lot fewer resources on the little Pi that monitors the power system. If I knew of a way of reading modbus/rs485 data using yabasic I'd tackle the slow python script that generates the underlyin...

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  We have a small (25-30 I suppose) resident flock of sparrows in the garden over winter, but when spring comes, not only do the incomers swell the numbers, but new sparrows are made too, sometimes twice. So we now have so many they fly in waves rather than altogether. I love the way they act collectively, but also individually, they're sociable, but happily each is its own bird, as it were.

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  Just watching #TOTP from 1979 on BBC Four. I've just pointed out to herself that this is like us, at that time, listening to music from the late 1920s and early 1930s. I said it, but I'm still trying to process it.

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  A little selection for #FensterFreitag as our little holiday in Orkney comes to an end. See you here next time? Hope you've enjoyed accompanying us anyway.

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  Dominico Chachetti carried an small card of the Madonna of Peace and her Child in his wallet, but that was stolen off him by a British squaddie. So he re-created the image from memory for the chapel. They now keep a print of the original, so make clear his skill and his adoration of the image and its meaning.

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  And so today to my favourite place in Orkney, the Italian Chapel in Lamb Holm. Built by Italian prisoners of war who at the time had little hope even of seeing their families again, it's a place where the depths of resilience in humanity was plumbed, and found sufficient. It moves me intensely every time I visit, often to tears, even before I knew more about the fully story. The conversion of a wartime Nissan Hut to a place of beauty suited to offer to one's Deity is a wonder 2/....

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  OK, how's this? We saw this tall ship in Stromness, and thought she looked familiar. She's the Dutch "Thelassa", and a year ago, while visiting friends in Ardnamurchan, she crept in when the weather turned, and we snapped her safely tucked up in a bay.

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  Stromness, and we have never noticed the horses hooves supporting the memorial fountain

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  Maintaining the Orcadian tradition of a Blackening of a couple soon to be married, in Stromness today, complete with noise, being tied to a pole and covered in gunk (probably can't get coal soot any more!). Our own Fiona @fionaorkneynews wrote about this tradition some time back https://theorkneynews.scot/2020/03/02/an-orkney-blackening/ Pic of the bridal couple taken with their happy permission. Best wishes to them for their July wedding.

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  The wonderful The Pier Art Gallery in Stromness, with more Hepworths than you can shake a stick at. But I can never resist snapping them against the background of working boats.

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  Of possible interest to Canadian Fedi, part of The Pier Art Gallery in Stromness is the building from which Hudson's Bay company personnel were recruited. Couldn't resist this snap, with Thelassa's masts looking as though it's 200 years ago and a ship is about to head west

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  The striking paintwork on the Hamnavoe ferry, as she arrives in Stromness, earlier today.

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  I'd say this is my snap of the day, and the colours of the day. Forgive me for its second posting. #Orkney

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  #Lambing Time, a thread 🧵 Herself noticed this ewe from her dyeshed window this morning, looking as though she was getting ready to bring a new woolly soul into the world 2/...

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  Lamb rescue. this morning. We saw this lamb all alone in the sheep fank, crying and looking for Mumsie. Mumsie was nowhere to be seen. Lambie came right up to us, so I picked it up, before phoning Davie the Crofter. 2/..... #Lambing