Frances144

I think I would prefer the human element and hopefully I have found someone's au pair who has been volunteered! Thanks Fx

Chicken in White Sauce Voe pie. Perfection! Hmmmm.

I need to put an advert in The Danish Shetland Pony Stud-Book. I think it might be best in Danish. Can anyone on here translate my advert into Danish for me? Please pm me if you can. Thanks Frances x

Are you building a telly tubby house? If so, can I have rabbits?

Are they usually fairly accurate? The only reason I ask this is because I am not sure if the BBC actually know where Shetland is? I am rather hoping this website don't either coz it looks like we are in for some fairly feisty stuff!

Oh the poor loves! That is deprivation by any other name.

Well, I have to disagree. I was in GBH A&E t'other day. Doc made me Nil By Mouth for 4 hours while they pondered. Then decided I could go home, and nurses kindly offered me some grub. They came back with a decent egg mayo on granary roll, lovely yoghurty/jammy/muesli thing with no sugar and I thought it was very edible. Compared with the garbage I have eaten in London hospitals over the years, that is not bad. At KCH in South London I pretended to be Muslim so I could at least have a decent curry! The Jewish food at the Middlesex was great too!

Answer £32 per child per trip.

Flybe's website is rubbish. If you phone them up it costs £1/minute. I need to know how much they charge to accompany an unaccompanied minor, or at least to put her on the right plane at Edinburgh and to meet her on the return journey to hand her over to the right person. Anyone know. I asked via their email system but it said it would take 28 days to get back to me!!!! FFS. Thanks Frances

That is so depressing! Why is Tavish not jumping and screaming from the highest rooftops on our behalf? Why is this being allowed to happen to us? We can't exactly go and get ourselves a tanker (just popping out for a while, dear!) and so our hands are securely tied behind our backs. Surely this is what some organisation is set up to deal with (not sure who?)? We have no choice so they are shafting us.

I suppose, because Co-Op have now lost their storage space to the new shopping experience, all stock to go on the shelves will literally come out "of the back of a lorry" or container waiting around the back! In fact I like the new look. Perhaps the staff could smile now!

Mine came from a petting zoo in Inverness. They have the run of 50 acres of enclosed pasture (hill apportionment and grass). They also have a lovely brand new shed that they can come and go into with rubber matting and paper shredded bedding. In the winter, I shut them in, but mostly they can make their own choices. They can also get into the open hill if they feel the need to mix with (ugh!) sheep! Actually, as they can jump any fence, I can't contain them and don't bother tethering as they just hang around the property either eating or cudding. In winter I feed them hard feed (not much) with mostly chaff and a slice of hay as they are very very prone to laminitis in the spring. In the spring, I cut back gradually and they just do their own thing for the rest of the year. This week I have just started to give them a bit of hay which they tend to ignore! It takes rain to get them into their shed. Wind doesn't bother them much, as there is always a wall to shelter behind with grass or somewhere to sit. The old Toggenburg prefers to be outside as much as possible. She is rarely in and complains bitterly when I lock them in during a storm. Once laminitis gets them, it does incredible ever-lasting damage so you just have to juggle their feed, watch them carefully and know what added minerals/vitamins they need - mine get cobalt/copper and wormed regularly. Also do their feet. Laminitic feet are miserable for every more too. I lost one to lammi this year. Very sad. You are very welcome to visit my goats. They are very friendly and have been de-horned. There is no malice in them and they like a good game of shove!

I have goats - not an expert particularly, but I have two - 1 Anglo-nubian neutered male and a Toggenburg (maiden milker in the summer). they are getting on a bit. The A-N has spent most of his life here (9 years) and the Toggenburg has reached the grand old age of 15. What do you want to know?

I know! The thing is I think it is quite good, really! Now that is scary

Oh, what the hell, I'm off my head on prescribed morphine/valium for my back (slipped disc awaiting surgery)! I ADMIT IT, I AM LISTENING TO THIS YEAR'S SELECTION OF EUROVISION HITS!!!

Huge thanks to everyone who pm'd me with information - much appreciated. It just brought it home to me, in a weepy (analgesic-induced) moment how lovely it is to be able to ask for information/help on this forum and to receive replies in such an easy way. Thanks, guys.

Is there anyone anywhere on Shetland mainland that teaches Yoga either privately or in a group? This is an emergency situation!! Thanks Francesx

oi, jaydee, you got my dog?

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e302/Frances144/4Oct08-00430720Sept08-004011.jpg Did snow get a mention anywhere? I don't remember hearing about it on any weather forecast.

"Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth, And spotted the perils beneath, All the toffees I chewed, And the sweet sticky food, Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth. I wish I'd been that much more willin' When I had more tooth there than fillin' To pass up gobstoppers, From respect to me choppers And to buy something else with me shillin'. When I think of the lollies I licked, And the liquorice allsorts I picked, Sherbet dabs, big and little, All that hard peanut brittle, My conscience gets horribly pricked. My Mother, she told me no end, "If you got a tooth, you got a friend" I was young then, and careless, My toothbrush was hairless, I never had much time to spend. Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right, I flashed it about late at night, But up-and-down brushin' And pokin' and fussin' Didn't seem worth the time... I could bite! If I'd known I was paving the way, To cavities, caps and decay, The murder of fiIlin's Injections and drillin's I'd have thrown all me sherbet away. So I lay in the old dentist's chair, And I gaze up his nose in despair, And his drill it do whine, In these molars of mine, "Two amalgum," he'll say, "for in there." How I laughed at my Mother's false teeth, As they foamed in the waters beneath, But now comes the reckonin' It's me they are beckonin' Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth." Pam Ayres - thank you! Anyway, that poem is not aimed at you or your child but it does make me smile. Go on ask me how many fillings I've got aged 45! Go on.... I dare you!

I drove past the other day. The place (from the outside) looks like a turd-hole!

Apparently puff-balls are very nice (the younger, the better), sliced and fried in butter. But I might be wrong. Fx

I must go out for a wander. We usually find tons of mushrooms in our fields but this year I was just thinking it has been very sparse pickings. Hmm.... off for a wander tomorrow evening - I will report back.

What would a puppy do? Kill the hens first before the polecat could get them? Anyway, don't you keep a puppy indoors during the night-time? QED this would leave the polecats to roam amongst the poultry with no predator to stop them. Apparently, and I am not sure whether it is just an urban myth, our beloved Council in their infinite wisdom introduced the polecat to Shetland because of there was an abundance of bunnies on the golf-courses! If that is actually true, then thanks, guys!

A hen with chicks will not roost and leave her chicks to fend for themselves on the ground. The polecats (now recently deceased) manage to kill two of my hens (5 months old and doing very well - one even laid an egg!). I don't think they had got to the roosting stage and the polecats managed to get them.