Norq From Ork

It’s been a productive day today thanks to decent weather, time off and motivation finally all colliding on the same day. These days are frustratingly rare as I usually only manage two of the three. Also we narrowly avoided a near miss on this one due to a wee emergency last night but more about that later.

Orkney Beef turned his attentions to cutting the grass while I planted tatties, did some weeding and general clearing of the garden ready for this years growing attempts.  I’m an amateur, amateur,  I’m so amateur, but I enjoy it. I spent the day in old clothes and my beloved wellies and cleared a lot  of last years debris away.   It was all loaded into the trailer and Orkney Beef agreed to drive me to the tip for the ceremonial throwing away in the big skip. *Note* I don’t drive cars with trailers as  I tried reversing one once, it didn’t end well.   Read here.

A couple of years ago Orkney Beef and a fisherman friend (not the cough sweet) appeared at the house with a boat.  I forget the logistics of it but I do remember being called to admire the vessel. I remember saying how I would love an old boat in the garden to grow plants out of.  Fisherman Friend feigned a heart attack and said I was never to say such a thing to a fisherman.  Boats belong in the sea;  and so the banter began.

I never missed an opportunity to send pictures of boats being re worked into shelves, furniture, ornamental seats etc and Fisherman Friend never missed a chance to tell me they were in the wrong place.

Skip forward to our wedding anniversary and we went for a meal at one of our favourite restaurants.  Nothing unusual about that until the next morning, when I got up and opened the curtains. There sitting in the garden was an old boat with a little pot of pansies sat on top. My first thought was that it was Orkney Beef had acquired it as an anniversary present. “THAT’S why you didn’t buy me flowers!”  I exclaimed.  Judging by the confused expression on his face, evidently not. OB had no idea why or how the boat got there but it didn’t take us long to work out who had created the master plan.  It turns out for all his protesting, Fisherman Friend had actually been planning this for months and when he knew we were going out he and his wife had delivered it to the garden.

I was over the moon and painted it a few days later.  Now it is set up and hopefully will be blooming with flowers later this summer. She’ll never see water again apart from the horizontal rain kind but Orkney Beef, also a former fisherman, can’t resist having a try at grass sailing her every now and then.

In other news Miss Lashes unfortunately had another anaphylaxis again just six weeks after the last time.  It wasn’t due to nuts on this occasion but probably due to strawberries.  She was at home and used one of her epi pens stored carefully in her emergency bag and I dialed 999.  I bought this at Christmas and thought it was hilarious. Little did I know how true it would be.

Thankfully her attack wasn’t as severe as her first one so she was home a few hours later and is now feeling much better. Another opportunity for us to be continually thankful for the NHS and everyone who works so hard to help us.

Boat photo taken by the very Miss Lashes herself, Katie Brookfield.  You’ll find her on Instagram.