Mid Summer

[Kevin Milkins]

Anyone off down to Reiss beach for a mid night skinny dip to celebrate the onset of winter?:Razz

[crayola]

I am sitting in my garden alone with a large G&T. The neighbours two doors along are having a noisy party in the garden. One is a good guitarist and singer. I wish he would sing all the time because he has such an awful accent when he speaks. As does his wife. His daughters speak delightfully. It must be their private school education.

[Kevin Milkins]

I just went outside and it's drizzling with rain and very still. Its a good night to be eaten alive by midges. I think I may leave it till next year.

[crayola]

There's a slight breeze here and there are no midges. The neighbours have stopped singing and they are now speaking. They are so uncouth. And drunk. Ha ha they will have such hangovers when winter starts tomorrow. :p

[orkneycadian]

They were probably experiencing a flight over the sahara desert on a broomstick at the time.

[crayola]

The neighbours or the midges?

[Fran]

You've totally depressed me now, don't mention that awful word......winter.

[Big Gaz]

Scotland officially has only two seasons in a year.....June and winter....so at the end of June, we wrap up and turn up the thermostat!

[orkneycadian]

The neighbours or the midges?

The neighbours I think. Not sure if midges have discovered fine, white, hallucinogenic wine yet.

[Moira]

Anyone off down to Reiss beach for a mid night skinny dip to celebrate the onset of winter?:Razz

Wish I'd seen this post last weekend Kevin, I would have been tempted to offer to meet you & Mrs M at Reiss beach for a dip of some sort ....

One week on from the Summer Solstice we are still enjoying long, light nights although tonight is overcast with the occasional drizzle.

Never mind, winter in Wick doesn't officially start until after Gala Week and that's a few weeks away. ;)

[Kevin Milkins]

Its a pleasant night tonight, Moira. A bit late for an impromptu dip?;)

[orkneycadian]

Sounds like you should get yourself down to Reiss beach Crayola. Seems like thats where its all happening! Will get you away from your noisy neighbours, and who knows, you may have the most fun you have had since that time when you found your legs, along with someone elses face, on a tube station wall!

[crayola]

My posts about my neighbours were intended to be sarcastic but on re-reading them I couldn't appreciate my own sarcasm. I blame too much sliced lemon in the gin. My neighbour is a privately educated former Scotland rugby player. They speak rubbish in posh accents! :D

[joxville]

There many a posh accent speaks rubbish, the Tory party for starters. :-/

[crayola]

Maybe but they are at least well educated. Having a private school education followed by a career as a professional rugby player and property dealer evidently isn't an adequate replacement for an Oxbridge education.

[orkneycadian]

I still think that "the dip of some sort" on Reiss beach, between 3 consenting adults, sounds a lot more entertaining than an Oxbridge education! ;)

[crayola]

A sherbet dip?

[Tangerine-Dream]

You mean that was it??! That was "summer"? I thought we were still in winter considering the temperature hasn't even hit 20 celcius yet...... It has been impossible to go out into the garden without either being swarmed by harvest flies or eaten alive by midges and the constant drizzle / overcast conditions has made it nigh on impossible to my new petrol lawn mower through it's paces. Did someone here mention swimming "naked" in the sea? I would only do that if I wanted to top myself as you would surely die from hypothermia within seconds of launching your naked butt into that freezing cold water?

I really do like Caithness but the summers are absolutely DIRE and, any good days we do get, you spend half your time waving your arms about like a demented riverdance dancer shooing off the flies and midges..... I was out today mowing the lawn and there were HUNDREDS of these annoying flies following me about..... I ran indoors to get my mosquito hat and when I came back outside I noticed that they were swarming around the lawnmower, they must have thought the mower was a cow or something. Anyhoo.... fired the mower up again and resumed cutting the grass BUT I couldn't see where I was going through the mesh of the mosquito hat (what a stupid damned concept that is! A screen that will prevent the flies from eating your face but will render you partially blind into the bargain) so the mosquito hat was on and off my head in under a minute.

Can anyone identify these flies? They generally swarm onto cows and other types of steaming hot beasts..... they are quite fast and even if you whack the mower up to "hare" pace and do a gentle trot behind it they STILL manage to keep up with you. I've race tuned my mower with the reasoning that if I can run faster than the flies then I will avoid them AND get the grass cut a lot faster..... it hasn't worked! This black cloud of whirling flies kept up with me for the entire 1/4 acre of lawn and I must have slapped the top of my head a good 500 times in the process (I'm bald on top)..... my friend said to me this afternoon "you've caught the sun on your head Mike"..... erm, nope...... it was head slapping induced redness.

I stopped the mower at one point as I saw a funny thing up one of my pine trees..... I was like "WTF is that?"...... on closer inspection it was a dead rabbit about 20 foot up the tree. At the bottom the tree was a birds egg (hatched) so I am either assuming the rabbit climbed up the tree to eat the chicks OR a bird of prey caught the rabbit and took it up into the tree to eat it? I have seen a lot of strange / random animal goings on in the garden but this is a new one on me! A dead rabbit in a tree? I'll get my camera out and take a few shots of it tomorrow, it's really weird (the rabbit in the tree, not my camera) the last thing you expect to see in one of your trees is a dead rabbit.

On the subject of dead rabbits I also spotted a stoat dragging a baby rabbit into a hedge the other week.... by the time I'd got my slippers on and went out to shoo it off the baby rabbit it was well gone (along with the rabbit).... oh well, I did my best.

Nice calm evening tonight I may let of one of my Chinese lanterns..... I got 100 of them off ebay last year....... let three of them off last year and the third one drifted into a pine tree and set the top of it on fire..... taught me a valuable lesson, only let these things off when it is dead calm!

[orkneycadian]

....I am either assuming the rabbit climbed up the tree to eat the chicks...

I have seen a lot of strange / random animal goings on in the garden but this is a new one on me!

With assumptions like that, I think you might "see" a lot more strange / random goings on in your life yet!

A tree climbing carnivorous rabbit..... :roll:[lol]

[joxville]

You really can't beat a bit if skinny dipping but I don't fancy trying it in the freezing seas off of Caithness; however I've found many places here in sunny Hampshire where I can walk 'au naturale' without seeing anyone else.