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  • Chick-chick-chick-chick-chicken…

    It’s bizarre, but in the nature of blogging, to move from the macro to the micro, the painful implications of strike action and inaction to, well (sorry, I can’t resist this) chickens coming home to roost. Only our nameless hen wasn’t roosting, she was brooding over a clutch of eggs. Alas, they began hatching yesterday…

  • Off for the moment…

    Thank goodness…no strike next week while the unions consider what to do next. Check outhttp://www.bectu.org.uk/news/bbc/nb0261.html for all the details.

  • Strike(s)

    NOTE: this personal posting is copyright Tom Morton, 2005. All rights reserved. No quoting or reproduction without express permission of the author. The Aberdeen Journals strike of 1989-90 was a nasty, brutal, long dispute, and the results were all bad: diminished, compromised newspapers; bitter divisions between re-employed strikers and those who had worked throughout the…

  • The legendary Unst bus shelter

    Unst is the most northerly island in Shetland, and indeed Britain. Two ferry rides away from Mainland, on which we live and breathe and have our being. Just north of Baltasound, the biggest township, you will find this fully-furnished bus shelter, maintained by local lad Bobby Macaulay, who has his own website at http://www.unstbusshelter.shetland.co.uk/ I…

  • Cold spring harbour

    The weather has turned really nasty all of a sudden, and for the past four days we’ve had hail, snow and all kinds of meteorological mayhem.This has wreaked havoc on the lambing, which happens later in Shetland than anywhere else in the UK. Baby sheep have been dying all over the place this weekend, and…

  • How to make an anchor: it’s been an amazing weekend in the People’s Republic of Hillswick: My neighbour, blacksmith Bruce Wilcock, has masterminded the hand-forging of a full-size naval anchor, using Victorian technology. The local Amenity Trust paid for three top Yorkshire blacksmiths to come to Shetland, and with Bruce and a local Shetland smith,…

  • Mountains in Shetland…and politics for pets

    This is the current Nippy Sweetie, for some reason(!) unavailable on the Shetland Times website… I know the Labour candidate likes dogs, because he was in our house the other day, and gave Quoyle the (now rather stinky) black Labrador a cuddle. And the cat. I did not allow him to cuddle me. The Great…

  • The glory that is Center Parcs…or at least, the food.We went to the Lake District for our (late) Easter holidays, and I rediscovered the wonders of Keswick and Derwentwater (every childhood Easter holiday, I was taken there). We stayed at the Oasis Center Parcs complex near Penrith, which is, on the whole, excellent in a…

  • Meet Lunch, Dinner and Omelette. One goose and two ganders. Not that we knew they were ganders when they arrived. Lunch and Dinner have only been joined by Omelette recently, and seem a bit bamboozled by female company, to be honest, preferring to strut and posture, intimidate the hens and screech at every passing car.…

  • Back fae Grangemouth

    Grangemouth is a wee bit like a neat, cleaned-up, early-seventies version of the steeltown that forms the backdrop to the first half of The Deerhunter. The (formerly) BP chemical plant and refinery doesn’t so much overhang the place as occupy a great chunk of it. And at night it is truly spectacular. I’m astonished it…