It is Wednesday and I have remembered to put the cardboard recycling out at 6 am this morning. Wish I had never started this catching cats business. My cat so delicate and sharp has mastered the art of standing on part of the trap that has to set off the door closing and it does not shut! The rest pad around it in frustration because of the food inside but dare not enter. The only cat I have caught I had to let go because she was probably feeding kittens.
Yesterday had another Morrison delivery, unfortunately the substitutes did not have the same appeal but it was only some cheese. The lad stood at the door unmasked, so I hastily donned mine. The shopping was heavy basically because I have ordered double of everything for the animals and yet I look forward to a point in my life when I shall be free of them - how strange.
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| Traditional blackhouse now probably holiday let |
Reading Madeline Bunting's book - Love of Country (A Hebridean Journey). A history of Scotland as she moves from small island to island, Rum, Lewis, Eriskay, Staffa and St. Kilda. This was a family holiday place, a small black house next to water where the children roamed freely. Must get 'I crossed the Minch' by Louis Macneice. The further you delve into Scottish and island history, the more fraught it becomes. Note we may call ourselves the British Isles, but actually the count is 6289 according to the article below! islands of different sizes around our shores, and mostly up North. The only thing I have not spied in her book yet is the famous Callanish stones, truly the prehistoric temple of the North.
Our 1:625,000 scale database shows Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) has a total 6,289 islands, mostly in Scotland. Of these, 803 are large enough to have been 'digitised' with a coastline by our map-makers. The rest are recorded as point features.
6289! I wonder how many people have set out to visit them all.
ReplyDeleteWell they are all not big islands, large areas of rock also. Each morning the coastal weather forecast goes round the British Isles with that wondrous list of names. Not sure I would want to visit them all but of course the Scottish Islands are very tantalising, I would just get very seasick though crossing the Minch.
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DeleteHave you seen the old footage of the evacuation of St Kilda?
ReplyDeleteYes it was very sad, as it is with all indigenous people in the world. They have, or are building a small military site on the island now, though blended in.
ReplyDeleteTom - I was always fascinated by St Kilda and would love to somehow go there - one of my Uni lecturers had been several times (archaeoalogy lecturer = Dig) and he said that the Mozzies were something else!!
ReplyDeleteThelma - I never knew there were THAT many islands - but if you changed the remit to habitable ones it would be much lower.
The Madeline Bunting book sounds enticing . . .
Due to the weather it is not easy to get to the island Jennie, there are actually four under the name of St.Kilda, Hiort is the one on which the settlement was. Apparently a lot of people visit when they can but the landing place now sports the radar military buildings (tastefully blended in) a helipad and even a shop.
DeleteI think it was ever thus Thelma, and you can't blame the remaining islanders for saying enough is enough. The population had of course shrunk and shrunk, not helped by the almost ritual annointing of umbilical stumps with putrid Fulmar oil which caused neonatal tetanus. They knew no better of course.
DeleteI love that housere Thelma - would suit me fine now I am alone - only thing i would miss is my garden.
ReplyDeleteThe books sound interesting.
Trees are not to be found on many of the islands. Lord Levershulme, planted a few acres of trees round his home on Stornway, but then he had bought the whole island of Lewis/Harris his supposed philanthropic work was obviously for his own benefit.
DeleteThe house is wonderful. Do you have to pay for cats to be neutered or is it part of an animal population control program?
DeleteI think originally these houses would have animals in as well, like the long houses down in the West of Britain. The whole point of them was to keep the weather and storms out, that is why you see the weighted stones over the thatch held on by rope. He (sex now known;) went in under the Cat's Protection name, therefore I did not have to pay for him. There are several other feral cats around, and I feel that it will rest on my shoulders to catch them unfortunately.
DeleteI rather think the Manx cottages which were homes to Keith's folk on the Isle of Man would have been like this. Looks nice now but back in the day lungs would have been black with soot.
DeleteA local charity round here pays for cats to be spayed or neutered. We tried to get Squeaker there but he managed, in his panic, to knock the catch on the shower room window and escaped.
Yes Jennie looking back on history, we forget the drudgery and hunger also there, and though the Scottish islands are beautiful, the people are still subject to terrible weather and their supplies from the mainland.
DeleteMy little cat, though I did not get him chipped, as I doubt he will move with me, is very talkative and does respond to my voice but he is still wild.
Good job on cornering your cat.
ReplyDeleteFunnily enough I was just attaching a long piece of string to pull the trap shut when he went in, and boom!
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