THE MAYS’ 2002 

Well, another year nearly done and I am still wishing they would shift Christmas on a month and I might manage to get ready for it by then!

January was fairly peaceable- no mishaps over the New Year. The weather was also generous with a lovely settled spell when truly there is not a more beautiful place to be. It was all to change… In February it took up raining and blowing. It then blew and rained some more and guess what just for a change it rained and blew and then it did it all over again. In case you think that I am just being a whinging southerner, there were several locals who said that they had never seen the ground so wet. By the middle of March the taps had run dry and the fans had burnt out, the weather took up being civilised again and we had a wonderful spring and summer. Yes, you read it right a wonderful spring and summer and it carried on through to the middle of October when winter began overnight since when, guess what, it has rained and blown…

It has been quite a busy year socially. It began with the Folk Festival in May. This is an annual event, which takes place primarily on mainland Orkney but a number of events are performed out on the islands with Shapinsay hosting a function on the Saturday night. It was tremendous fun and the calibre of the artistes was very high. The highlight was a group of manic fiddlers from Shetland called Fiddlers Bid. The sheer energy of their playing was amazing –how come music was never that much fun when I was young! Next came the Jubilee weekend. Along with many communities, it would seem, when celebrations were first mentioned little enthusiasm was forthcoming. Luckily the half-dozen who decided that we would have a do and we would enjoy it persisted and enjoy it we did! The highlight was the rounders match in fancy dress. The winners of the “dress” competition were the community council dressed as mods and rockers with the eldest member-in his mid 70s-taking the individual prize looking very fetching in his fluorescent yellow wig…. The fancy dress stayed in place for the dance in the evening, which made the dance look somewhat different to usual!

The island picnic and sports were held in glorious sunshine on 21 June – for once we could have the tea actually outside. Again there was a dance in the evening. Next night it was the fortieth wedding anniversary of a couple who have lived on the island for most of, if not all their lives and there was a hell of a party in their shed. Next on the agenda was Willie and Katie’s wedding which was in the middle of July. The Vintage Rally took place at the end of July. The vintage club restores and looks after machinery, which has been in use on the farms on Shapinsay. We had an exhibit -no, it wasn’t Stewart- as Stew had restored a little generator which had been used for charging batteries. To finish the social season there was the show dance in early August.

Farm wise it has been one hell of a busy year. Lambing went well with ten strong lambs from the six ewes. Calving had its challenges, notably Gilda. The hormones went a bit ballistic to put it mildly. Stewart was away but Billy- who comes and helps us on a Saturday- was in attendance. The calf was slow to get up and we needed to ensure that he suckled. As Gilda knows me best I tried to get to the calf to pick him up so that we could again get them in. Despite very patient and considerate approaches Gilda let it be known in no uncertain terms that this was not acceptable. New plan of attack was drawn up with me driving the land rover and Billy in the back to snatch the calf up and in to the back of the vehicle which then hopefully Gilda would follow. We got the calf in while she was eating the afterbirth, she spotted where he was and continued, quite unconcerned to eat the afterbirth. Reverse back, snatch afterbirth as well and the calf shouted a bit so Gilda twigged that she was to follow the car. Stopped outside the cow shed and I shooed the cattle in. We were then able to put the calf into the calving pen and after a bit dextrous manoeuvring with the gates let Gilda in with him. Phew! Halfway there. Next Billy lassoed Gilda and fastened her to a post so that he could help the calf to the udder without Gilda being able to hurt him. The calf had definite ideas about what he wanted to do with his head but we got there in the end, some four hours after the calf was born.

Next to calve was Maggie and this was a completely different story. Bruce practically walked out of the womb, had his first drink of milk in about thirty minutes and has not looked back since! I thought that one of the other heifers was in calf but she chose the morning after the show dance to convince me that she wasn’t and that she really must get to that bull right now. Talk about “wham bam, thank you mam” when she did! Two further additions arrived after a cracking trip up to Shetland at the beginning of September when, once again, the sun shone! It was a terrific couple of days going round farms looking for a couple of Shetland heifer calves. Amazing scenery-quite, quite different from Orkney- great company and wonderful welcomes and now we have two very pretty heifer calves out in the byre.

The major occupation revolved around The Midden and Effluent Tank. Creating the midden involved constructing a 20 metres long, 6ft high, 12inch thick concrete wall. Break up the concrete pad along the line of the wall, excavate out to a foot deep, four feet wide for the footings. Assemble steel reinforcing and tie into place- yet another skill added to the list-erect shuttering, assemble concrete mixing team, mix concrete and pour! I can honestly say that I will never look at a concrete structure in quite the same light again. That took care of July.

 Work on the effluent tank took place in October. First dig a bloody big hole- 9 metres long 3 metres deep and wide. A JCB, a Hymac with a breaker and 38 hours later…. the rock broke off as dust! The tank came from south on its own lorry all the way to sunny Orkney and arrived bang on time- a week later roads between England and Scotland were closed due to flooding. Problem was it is made of fibreglass so would not take kindly to being dropped. Having sweet-talked the best JCB drivers on the island into lifting this off the lorry I went and hid in the stables. Needn’t have worried, went without any problems and then I was sorry to have missed it. Next came another great load of concrete mixing. My job was putting the cement into the mixer –Miss Universe competition here I come- and generally organising the job. We had a great team and were able to mix about 3 cubic metres an hour. It took a fortnight from digging the hole to having it all filled back in again.

As you can imagine I have not had a lot of time to do much with the horses but they are all still here and are well. Several of the local girls are coming up to help with the ponies and do a little riding. The dogs are grand –formally on the books as the non-chemical pest control team, certified by the Soil Association. There has been an addition to the ranks- Jester –a Shetland sheepdog or Shetland collie depending which side of the border you are on.

Well I am at the bottom of the page so enough is enough. Remember if you want to visit bring wellies!