Teaching an old dog....

I have been up a ladder for quite a large part of my life. I love to transform a room. I am always planning the next make over. I sometimes wonder whether a bit like Edward Scissorhands I should have been given paint brushes instead of hands. I have tried paint rollers before but ended up with far more paint on me, the floor, everywhere but than on the walls. Today I discovered 'they' have vastly improved the paint roller. Rather than take off the radiator in our bedroom which Mike was not comfortable with even though I had found a web site with telling you how easy it was, we bought a paint roller so I could paint without removing the radiator.

Not a drop went anywhere else but on the wall and it covered perfectly and left a fantastic finish. No brush marks, no bits that had been overbrushed leading to a second coat..... This old dog has definitely learnt a new trick.

A bit of a blurry photo, but what do you do? Suddenly realised what I had seen so grabbed the camera. Sparrowhawk with a kill in the middle of the lawn. It was off before I could focus.

A chaffinch. Il mort.

Fraserburgh Harbour, not a nasty oil spill, but a reflection of a fishing boat, a red fishing boat.

With Cormorant waiting for a fish.

Although we live in the middle of beautiful countryside with sea five minutes away we also are near to St. Fergus Gas Terminal, well near enough to see it in the night sky. Last night there was a red sky not down to nature but down to there being a big flare. They burn off the gas sometimes, and you see huge flames coming from the top of the terminals. Its usually in the day. This time it was at night.

Bit scary. But if there is a problem or there is to be a very big flame they usually warn you.

It is quite an interesting fact that we are, here in the North East, so close to where the gas comes in from the North Sea. And yet very few villages signed up to having gas installed as it was so expensive so to do. No discounts were offered. So we are all electric/ oil fired (which yes also does come from the North Sea)(but isnt any cheaper) and so many of us are in fuel poverty.

Our Sea has many oil platforms. Many people around here work offshore in the oil industry. No discounts. No wonder the Scottish National Party would like to have its hands on the revenue this country could claim.

But then many of us have a chimney and could return to wood burning which is still cheap and sustainable. Perhaps the old dog should be teaching the new dogs.

At the moment we are swamped by planning applications for wind turbines. Rather like the Martians in the film, War of the Worlds, H.G.Wells, they are marching across our countryside.

We should, perhaps, listen more to the old dogs. Unless its using a paint brush.