Day 2 and 3

12 April

Rain starts early this morning, but it turns much brighter later. The wind is still very strong. We get visitors from Australia, Israel, and Russia, and my linguistic powers are challenged a bit by a French couple.  We are a bit understaffed, but can manage all the visitors quite well as the boat is still on the winter schedule.

Still no puffins to be viewed from the platform, but they have been seen at sea. 3 oystercatchers come by. After our working day, which includes cleaning up after the centre closes, Wendy and I go back to the cottage and rest a bit. As the weather remains lovely, we go out on the trail behind the cottage, which takes us across several fields. Violets, primroses, celandines already in flower, and a beautiful sloe in blossom. We meet some cows which look quite harmless and don’t bother us as we continue up hill and then down again, to the cliffs above the sea. Wonderful views to the mainland. 

Coming back across fields we notice a wheatear (either female or winter plumage). 

We cook a nice meal of potatoes and veggies and vegetarian sausages in the oven and enjoy a pleasant restful evening!

13 April

Some sun and some rain in the morning. Practised kata tensho in the frontyard but got back in when the rain came. I decided this was an excellent day to clean the kitchen floor ;-) 

We then pack for another day at the centre, to which I cycle up & down hill on my folding bike. It turns out a very busy day! We have a couple from Gouda (NL), a big group of young people, some families, and some police officers headed by their sergeant who is new to the area and has come to view his patch. The police officers are interested in getting to know more about the island and the birds. I don’t think I ever spent so much time in pleasant conversation with a copper before! It gets very busy at the beginning of the afternoon, as the ferry is now on summer schedule and the buses bring in visitors coming off the ferry. Some people come walking all the way, as it is quite a pleasant sunny day. One lady from Norfolk wants to see puffins desperately and she and her husband stay on a long time to maybe catch sight of them. At the end, Una fetches the head from the puffin costume so she can at least ‘be a puffin’. It is a very busy day and we hardly get time to take a break. But we’re a good team and the place is so wonderful that it is not bad at all to be out there all the time.  

Unfortunately, I have forgotten to bring the cord to transfer photos from camera to laptop. So those will have to wait till tomorrow morning.