Bacon Butties

It's a Sunday morning so I decided to have a treat for breakfast: a bacon buttie. After all my usual muesli or porridge or toast with Marmite and peanut butter can become a little samey after 60 years. Not that I'm a creature of habit, you understand. There was some bacon left over from making broth and I had fresh home baked bread so...

Even when I was a quite committed vegetarian (I'm still a vegetarian by inclination if not by practice) I always wanted (and had) a bacon roll as soon as I got on the morning ferry to the Mainland. I still do.

Bacon rolls are made with white rolls. Making a bacon buttie with home baked multigrain brown bread is just not the same. Ah well. Back to muesli tomorrow.

Problems With Pests

Last year I got a bit obsessed with the pigeons which deposit so much poo all over my roof and dominate the garden. This year the number is about 30 and it's becoming a serious problem. Last night when I went up the ladder to clear the Study roof (not having done so for about 2 weeks) I was astonished, not just at the amount of poo there was up there but also by the difficulty I had removing it. There are two sorts. That which is like small pellets and rolls around in the wind just causing considerable irritation. Then there is the sort that sticks like cement to the polycarbonate. I couldn't reach it all with a broom so I will have to go up onto the roof and attack it from that angle. Of course the stuff which is stuck to the polycarbonate will only come off with the power washer so I'll have to lug that up the ladder and and across the roof. What a chore.

I decided this morning that something would have to be done. So I Googled the problem. The first site I looked at looked promising: Jones and Son, Pigeon Spike Manufacturers. So I'm obviously not the only one with the problem!

What I just loved about their website - and that which prompted this posting - was the statement that "You can ask us a bird spike question here, we will get back to you within two hours, test us. If we fail we will send you a large bar of chocolate."

Well It Didn't Work For Me

A few days ago I mentioned that I had the two items shown in this picture. They are for making pasties. I wondered if anyone had ever used one. Presumably no one had. Very wise. Don't bother. I decided that they could be used to make individual Russian Fish Pies or apple and Wensleydale pies or whatever. Anyway I tried them out. Despite a fair amount of perseverance, time and cost I was not successful. In fact failure would be putting a gloss on the results. So they are now consigned to my past.

We Have No Time To Stand and Stare

I went to Town this morning and after hurtling round trying to get things I met Ann and had a coffee at The Woodlands. I'd already been conscious of the fact that the Lewis Maritime Festival was taking place and had managed a few photos of the yachts in the harbour earlier in the morning. As I came out of The Woodlands I decided to drive round to Cuddy Point and get some more photos but the yachts were, by that time, out of the Harbour and into The Minch.

It was then that I realised that, since CJ had gone home, I hadn't once, in the words of Wm. Henry Davies (1871-1940) in his poem Leisure, stood and stared. So I got out of the car and walked around and took some photos of some of the 'sculptures' on the road into Stornoway. I thought that CJ had already done a blog on them when he was here but, of course, the flowers have all changed since then. However I can't find the posting if there was one. Anyway I made time to Stand and Stare and felt all the better for having so done.

Sails in the Harbour on a drab Thursday morning.

A boat out of water. I really love this.

A yacht in the Outer Harbour (photographed from The Braigh)