chicken sitting by the sea

Would you just look at that view!

I'd say that's worth the two and a half days we spent travelling, wouldn't you?

(yep, it really did take us two and a half days to get here. Enough time to get to the other side of the world and back!)

Well, we're not on the other side of the world, although it feels so far away from normal life here that we might as well be. We're actually in Orkney, just off the north coast of Scotland, 600 miles away from home, and house sitting for a friend. I'm seriously considering refusing to leave when she gets back.

We're also chicken sitting - a heavy responsibility for folk like us not used to looking after animals, and one we were a bit worried about.

But, it turns out, they mostly look after themselves, and don't need entertaining at all (did I really think they'd get bored??).



In fact, they're providing us with rather a lot of entertainment, with one escapee hen determined to hide in the most unlikely places, and a cockerel leading a breakaway faction of hens on little mini adventures to the furthest reaches of the garden. There he goes, with the hills of Hoy (the next island) in the background, and the sun lighting up his feathers.

I must say I'm enjoying the whole-lot-of-not-very-much that's going on here right now...