Noss
Noss is an island off the island of Bressay, which is a short ferry journey across the water from Lerwick. It is a nature reserve and is world famous for its seabird colonies.
I took Cristina there to have a look at the bird-covered cliffs. We drove to the end of Bressay and then waved across at the ranger, who jumped into an inflatable boat and sped across the water to pick us up. We were then issued with instructions about where the birds are and set off armed with binoculars.
There are colonies of 45,000 guillemots, 18,000 gannets and shags and puffins, among others. We saw a couple of puffins and thousands of guillemots and gannets clinging to ledges on the cliffs at the Neep of Noss. Totally spectacular.
Feeding lambs
Until now I had seen a lamb being born in the field above Martin’s house in Voe – a tiny black bundle being licked clean by its white woolly mother.
I had also been to visit Vaila’s lambs and she fed one aged 3 days old from a bottle. Now animal-mad Cristina is here, so I arranged to go back to my prior landlords in Gletness and inspect their Shetland breed of new borns. When we arrived, we discovered that there are two lambs being fed from a bottle and their afternoon feed had been delayed for our arrival so that we could feed one each. The Cri got both of them. I’ve never seen her so happy!
Vementry
It is lambing time, as previously mentioned. It is also foaling time for Shetland ponies, and as luck would have it I chanced upon Shetland Pony Breeders in Vementry, a spectacular place on a promontory up the voe from Aith.
Vementry is an incredible place, surrounded by inlets and islands and hills and lochs. There is one farmhouse here and a cottage for holiday rentals, although I had a look inside and it is very basic indeed!
I took Cristina to see the Shetland foals and in a week three more had been born on top of the one I saw last week, so this picture shows a foal only a few days old.
Casting foundations
After deciding on the exact positioning of the five structures, I spray painted circles on to the grass.
Martin the builder came one evening to dig out the holes in preparation for the concrete.
They inserted tubes into the holes to cast the concrete directly into the ground. Martin’s team has a great philosophy on recycling. They used found objects to cast the bases into, including mussel floats and used barrels. They also use recycled grass aggregate for the cement and cooking oil as a release agent.
Reinforcements (found metal components) were placed inside the forms to help strengthen the concrete once cast.
The tops of the toadstools were cast in their workshop, and they left the bases to cure for several weeks before fixing the tops to them.
Health and safety
The health and safety team from Shetland Islands Council came to inspect the project to make sure that all is in order and that our plans do not infringe upon the stringent requirements by HSE.
The structures will be built on to a grassy surface, so there are no problems about children falling off and hurting themselves. I already knew that the maximum height a structure in a playground can be is 500mm. The only thing we were not sure about, that even the health and safety team did not know, is the distance the structures should be from each other if the children are jumping from one to the next.
In the meantime I conducted my own field test by pulling a couple of kids from class and laying out hula hoops in the rough position of the toadstools. I then asked the children to jump from one to the next, to see how far they could actually reach, and based the layout on these results.
The health and safety team found out the answer and I now know that the maximum distance two such structures can be from each other is 500mm.
