On Christams Eve it was looking like we were going to have to execute 'plan B' for Christmas dinner this year. The weather had been pretty rough up to then meaning we couldn't get across to pick up our turkey. However a break in the weather on 24th meant that Derek was able to whizz across the Sound and deliver it just in time! Conditions still weren't great so there was no time for him to stop and enjoy a mince pie and a cheeky sherry with us. He literally threw the turkey at us and shot back before the flood tide came on. Derek does a fantastic job for us all year round and we are very grateful to him.

Santa and Rudolph?

Christmas day dawned cold and bright so after getting said turkey in the oven we headed off to check on the ponies and sheep. There is a good amount of grass about at the moment as its been so mild of late with, so far, no severe storms to scorch the grass. In start contrast to recent winters they currently have plenty to eat - long may it last!

We did a bit of birding on the way to the summit of Carn Ysgubor where we enjoyed some stunning views. Our Christmas day bird list (not that we put a huge amount of effort into it!) stood at 20 species. They were blackbird, fulmar (on ledges), shag (at sea), great tit, blue tit, dunnock, rock pipit, chough, peregrine, robin, carrion crow, herring gull, GBB gull, gannet, kittiwake, guillemot (the last 3 all offshore), raven, black-headed gull, wren and jackdaw. With a bit more effort we could probably have added buzzard, snipe, song thrush, skylark, lapwing and reed bunting with redwing, fieldfare and a variety of finches possible on cold days. Not a bad haul for mid winter.

Enjoying the views from top of Carn Ysgubor


Did Santa leave a few behind last night?!

So it was back to the house to tackle the Christmas lunch and see what Santa had left us....

The weather continued fine all afternoon - there haven't been many Christmas days we've been able to open presents in the garden wearing sunglasses! The dog seemed to enjoy his day too. I'm sure he would rather have been working sheep but opening presents (both his and ours!) seemed to come a close second.

And today we opened the curtains to this...that's more like it!

We hope all the readers of this blog had a lovely Christmas and we would like to wish you a happy new year and hope to see some of you out on Ramsey in 2015