Our "house guest" (18-year old, 3-legged, toothless cat named Growl Myrtle) has now returned home after a 3 week stay. She was the purrfect houseguest. Maureen became quite fond of her and was sad when her owners came to collect her after their holidays.

Bob Tateson, our neighbour, is still grimly determined to avoid buying a lawnmower. His grass had grown after the sheep left so he has now "borrowed" a Shetland pony (Jack) and another full-sized pony (Dale) that have been busy champing Bob's long grass for the last two weeks. The two horses are inseparable, whenever one horse is taken out for exercise the remaining horse neighs and whinnies until his friend returns. But you might think differently after seeing Jack deliberately nipping Dale's rear-end then dashing off to avoid Dale's retaliation.

Malcolm, owner of Matilda, is now the proud owner of six ducklings. The ducklings were very perverse, refusing to use the shelter Malcolm had provided for them and staying out in the rain thus forcing Malcolm bring six cold, drenched ducklings into the kitchen and dry them off in front of the Aga. Then the original owner of the ducklings phoned to say that their young son had become attached to one of the ducklings and was very upset when he found they had all gone. So Malcolm had to take one of the ducklings back in order to placate the child.

Two Jehovah's Witnesses called this month. They were very polite, even when I sent them on their way after explaining that we attended the Kirk quite regularly.

We are going to Kirkwall this weekend. Maureen is anxious but has decided to bite the bullet and go on the ferry after considering the "carrots" of a visits to the hairdresser, a visit to the 3 charity shops, some nice pub meals, a stay at Ferry Inn in Stromness and the Sunday morning Eucharist at St Olaf's in Kirkwall. I just hope that we have a relatively smooth crossing both going on Saturday and returning on Sunday.

Stronsay got broadband this month, albeit at the relatively low rate of 512K. I waited until other people had ordered it and got it work then ordered it myself. The process was quite simple and after setting everything up I managed to download a lot of updates to all my software packages in next to no time instead of the usual interminable wait when using dial-up.

Earlier this month the Stronsay volunteer fire unit was called out to fire in a barn on Stronsay. It was quite a serious fire so they called for backup from the Kirkwall Fire Station, who sent an appliance out on a ferry. The fire destroyed the barn and its contents but nobody was injured.

When Dr Buchan retired and left the island earlier this year he left an electronic organ in the house attached to the surgery. When Dr MacKay asked me if I could make use of the organ because it was cluttering up the place I said, "Yes, please!" and arranged a working party - "Messrs Erdmann, Wilcox & Withers (Est. 2005)" - to help move the organ from the surgery to Claremont. Unfortunately the organ is so large and heavy that although four of us could just about lift it we could not get it out of the room without first taking the door off its hinges. And a little quick measuring (something that I should have done in the first place) showed that I could get the organ into Claremont if I took the front door off its hinges but I would not be able to get it into the lounge without taking half the wall down. So I shall be spending the next week or two dismantling the organ, first taking copious photographs of the innards and how they all fit together, and storing it in our garage before spending the winter months cleaning it & re-assembling it again in the lounge. However, I will have to get a move on because Maureen is none too pleased at the prospect of the lounge becoming a construction site over the winter months!

Last updated 22 September 2005