Annie Beag

hELLO. i AM WRITING THIS FROM aNNIE b'S COMPUTER.


i'M LOOKING AFTER HER WHILE SHE STILL HAS A POORLY HAND AND ARM.


wE GOT A GRANT FOR MEDICAL EXPENSES FROM nISEACHS IN nEED.


i'VE PUT THE MONEY IN THE SUN-RAY TIPS TEA CADDY THOUGH AND CARRIED ON USING MY FIRST AID SKILLS.


aNNIE IS FINE AND DOING WELL UNDER MY CARE AS YOU CAN SEE.



fAITHFULLY,

c.m. MORRISON (mISS)

Ah such happy memories that Calum revived in his blog about mice guarding goods in local shops.

Here's a snap of one of the fighting mice from Lionel to counter the stereotype of mice as victims.



The next snap is a bit risque so I don't know whether Anne will allow it, but, by popular request, here is a topless mouse:

The Sabbath is such a good time to pause for thought that Chrissie Mary and I are thinking of publishing a self-help book under the snappy title of “Leave the laundry for a day - don’t peg out too soon”. As usual we tried to concentrate on the meaning of life this Sunday but, given recent events, our thoughts of higher things strayed to seabirds and flying pets.

Locally, there is great joy among the Ness cognoscenti as the guga were brought safely ashore on Thursday. Calum and Donald were wanting more than their fair share as usual and we saw straight through the ruse of trying to keep other people indoors with warnings about smells. Tch.

Within the IB community, tws’s allegations about One of Our Own have divided opinion. The apparent evidence that Flying Cat murdered and mutilated a frog but left its legs intact suggests a possible export link to France. Is FC is in league with Carol from France or is he just continuing an age-old tradition of cats going out to hunt small, defenceless creatures? This has gone on for centuries, etc. etc. - just see annual press coverage on the guga hunt for the general idea....

Whether it's Calum's warning about the guga's arrival or the rise of moggophobia, it's clear that cats in Ness are very nervous and are going into hiding.



Meanwhile FC has now achieved Aunty-hero status in Mainland Orkney thanks to the BBC publicity. He's up there with Ned Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde and other legendary outlaws. A global industry of character-inspired duvet covers, lunchboxes and stationery is cranking up. The Blue Rinse Cruise Company is ahead of the game. It's even diverting some vessels from the recently-hyped Hairdressing in the Hebrides holidays to cash in on the rising demand for Flying Cat Tours to Orkney. After a great deal of emergency planning, the company chef has come up with a secret recipe for a Cat-a-Meringue dessert to be served in their restaurants and the vessels' gift shops are well-stocked to meet demands for tacky souvenirs.



I hope that Anne at IBHQ can intervene to stop this media frenzy and to restore order soon.

We can't go on together with suspussious minds.

Today is International Blog Day and tws has told us to tidy up our blogs and get ready for visitors.

So welcome to a Ness blog. Here’s a strubag to start with. I’ve got the biscuits, oatmeal scones, Paris buns and jam all waiting.



mjc has suggested that some bloggers are especially interested in navel gazing so here’s a picture of some that you can study till your heart's content - although I can't see the fascination myself. Still each to their own. Many thanks to my friends Chrissie Mary and Murdo John for their help with providing the subject matter for the snap.

I’ve covered the navels up so that no-one is made to look at them unless they want to.



P.S. Happy birthday to Gordon from Stornoway.

Well excitement is mounting in Ness as Dods Macfarlane’s plucky lads are on Sula Sgeir just now, braving the elements for a couple of weeks to get this year’s supply of the guga.

The queues for buying the birds will be the Ness equivalent of Waterstones in London when the last Harry Potter book came out. I don’t want to whip up further hysteria in case there aren’t enough birds to go round, but I thought that it might be useful for inexperienced buyers to have a recipe.

Boil.

Hope that helps.

Poor Chrissie Mary had a terrible shock when she wanted to buy a kettle online. The seller was far too keen on promoting its steamy properties. Fortunately the website has placed a warning to protect future bargain hunters.

Chrissie Mary and I have always had a bit of a soft spot for our blogging chum Arnish Lighthouse, so we were upset that he might have felt slurred by the title of a recent Gazette article.

The offending headline said, Arnish starts to earn its keep - outrageously depersonalising our hero by using the term ‘its’ rather than ‘his’.
As far as we’re concerned Mr Lighthouse has ALWAYS been value for money, providing commentary, opinion and an informative online gazetteer. He has also distinguished himself in the role of honorary transport marshall for the fank, so he’s been earning his keep for ages.

Rest assured Arnish, there are two women in Ness ready to spring to your defence if you’re subject to further misrepresentation the media.

We hope the rest of the blogging community will join us in protecting one of our own.

Seemingly thirteen sheep stopped Stornoway’s traffic last Friday when they decided to have a bit of a wander round the town centre. They were probably heading for Norman S Morrison’s on Bayhead to get some flock wallpaper or maybe they were off to Woolies for some baagains.

Whatever their plans were, staff from the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar were having none of it and they were soon on the case rounding up the sheep and counting them.

No Council staff fell asleep on the job and there were no reports of ram raiding on Cromwell Street. Some drivers tooted their horns but none of the sheep did.

Well there's ructions on round here just now as all the members of the Ness Coastguard have resigned in support of their sacked leader. There's more on that in the Gazette.

I turned to my professional studies to take my mind off this and found some very disturbing evidence that there's many a slip between kilt and hip. No wonder there are drive-by shoutings. Not that kilts are general day wear in these parts, but we do have quite a few weddings when the bodachs flash their legs so any slips in standards could be seen by vulnerable members of the community.

Flying Cat's descriptions of kilt-wearing bodachs with skinny legs conjoured up images that I for one would rather not dwell on, but I should warn you not to look at the contents of this gallery (by clicking on next) if you are easily shocked as the snaps below will shock any right thinking Scot.



Tch.

Calum might need to revise his ideas for a skean dhu (or sgian dubh, if you prefer) sharpening business following recent developments in Scottish politics. It’s a good job that he’s so adaptable.

Seemingly Rhoda Grant, the Highlands and Islands MSP, has been asking questions in Parliament about knives. She has found that government campaigns to combat knife crime have had no impact on the numbers of people carrying offensive weapons in the Highlands and Islands. Bet most of the offenders wear kilts and are carrying the weapons in their socks – or are called Hermit and live on Sanday.

Mrs Grant, urged young people who are considering carrying a knife to bear in mind that “defiance and bravado can be dangerous – particularly when combined with alcohol”.

Hebridean weddings are perfect settings for combining defiance, bravado and alcohol - usually at the end of the session where the photographer is taking a humorous snap of all the kilt-wearers carrying bouquets or wearing women's hats - so if we need to have licensing for sporrans, then surely the law should be beefed up to deal with the risks posed by boisterous bodachs with sharp blades in their socks.

Maybe I should go into partnership with Calum on a wider rage of services for weddings? As well as inspecting sporrans we could have a knife amnesty and offer the menfolk a plastic knife each in exchange for the more conventional sgian dubh. Indeed, we could start a new trend with a contemporary twist on a traditional idea. We could give plastic forks and spoons away with the matching knives so that wedding guests have a disposable cutlery set in their socks ready to tuck in to the celebratory spread.




We'd all sleep safer in our beds and save on washing up.