Been awhile.... but 'least said, soonest mended'. So onwards and upwards.

Thought it about time I tried sketching some of all this snow that we are getting. We took the dogs out for a walk, but without our thermals, and quickly realized the magnitude of our mistake!

Living here on Orkney we do not seem to get extremes of temp (well certainly not highs anyway). At 59 degrees North we're only about 50 miles further South than Greenland is, but due to the sea and the 'gulf stream' its not as cold as it really should be otherwise. In winter we often do get freezing temp's but the last couple of days at -4 or -5 C daytime temp, without windchill, and nearly a foot of snow have been a bit testing.

So I went on Flickr and found a nice picture to use from the comfort of my home. Near where we live are two large lochs seperated at one point by a thin finger of land called the "Ness of Brodgar". At the end of the Ness is a short causeway seperating the two lochs. All shown here with salt water Stennes Loch on the left and the fresh water Harray Loch on the right.

The whole area shown is part of a World Heritage Site, all of which is stuffed full of Neolithic (stone age farmers) archaeology. The standing stone shown here (the Watchstone, 5.6 m high) stands between two stone circles. As ever undertaken in my constant favorite the drafting pen.

The original can be seen on Flickr, from a very active Orkney photographer, Orquil (cannot seem to be able to post the address -sorry)