Lodgers

The wind was in the north yesterday, a bitter wind blowing half a gale.  It brought showers which varied from rain through sleet to hail and snow and back again.  The mixture settled on the hills and thawed quickly down by the sea.  Miserable weather, the sort that makes one pleased to have an open fire in front of which to toast ones toes....

....an idea which also appealed to the local mice.  We woke the night before last to hear them dancing in the roof space over our heads, so the traps went out next morning, baited by best quality, organic, sun-dried Californian raisins, which had entirely the right effect.

We don't mind mice too much, we know when they're around and they're easily trapped in a machine appropriately called a 'Little Nipper'.  Our only worry is that we might now need a snaring licence to catch them: perhaps The Diary should sign up for the snaring course Pat Glenday is planning at the Kilchoan Learning Centre - details here.

The weather didn't start too special this morning, but the sun broke through and we've had a day of snowy hail and sleety rain showers mixed with long periods of bright sunshine.  This sort of weather is a photographer's paradise, the air crystal clear and the colours vibrant in the sunlight.

The structure in the foreground is difficult to interpret.  It's in the a field of a neighbouring croft and consists of some large, square boulders with a neatly built wall along one side.  The wall doesn't enclose any space, and the boulders are natural, so it isn't a historic monument; yet the wall took someone a great deal of time to build.

Understandably, the sun brought out the house sparrows, who took up where the mice had left off, banging and scratching and chirruping around the gutters and quarreling over the bird seed.  A year or two ago they seemed to be hovering on the brink of extinction; now they're back in fine form being a nuisance to everyone.  It's good to have them back - just as long as they sleep through the night.