Whiteouts & wind

Talking about the weather again

I’m quickly beginning to realise that last winter was in fact quite a mild one. Yes, it snowed 6 times, which is unusual and it seemed to last forever, literally FOREVER, but it wasn’t like this.

I’m sitting here in my little office, thermals on, fingerless gloves, 2 jumpers, a scarf & a duvet wrapped around me listening to the low level drip, drip of the leak that won’t go away & the raging wind in the background. Don’t get me wrong, last winter was cold & windy, but like I say, not like this!

Two weeks ago I was supposed to be on mainland starting a business support programme, but snow stopped play. This week, it’s likely wind will. We have 3 trees down from storm Isha that I haven’t had a chance to rescue & now we seem to be staring into the face of ‘isolated tornadoes’ with the Troll from Trondheim following behind.

It wouldn’t be so bad if we’d made the decision to do a food shop in between the terrible weather but as it stands we haven’t been for a top up since the pre-Christmas shop. The freezer is looking pretty bare, the wine cupboard is empty & I really want some chocolate!

Still I wouldn’t change it for a second. I’m not always a fan of the weather, but I do weirdly enjoy how inconvenient island life can be!

As you can see the snow we had was AMAZING. It was a light fluffy snow, so as soon as the wind picked up it created drifts, in some places around 2 foot deep - over the knees! Poor Kiki was dragged out every hour so I could go and play making snow angels with her standing on top of me keeping her toes warm.

So there we are a brief update from Orkney.

In other news…

I’ve been reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari, borrowed from the excellent mobile library, Booky McBookface. I kid you not. I highly recommend following the library on Instagram or formerly Twitter (X), their account is excellent.

Stolen Focus isn’t a self-development book full of hints, tips and hacks, it’s more a series of essays & reflections on what is stealing our focus and how. It’ll come as no surprise it’s the tech companies & their exceptionally clever algorithms.

And while I know this isn’t a fix, I have decided to take a break form Instagram for February. In the last 2 weeks I’ve spent 22 hours on the app. 22 hours, that’s nearly one whole day. It’s a mix of messaging folk, scrolling & engaging with my feed & watching dog videos.

The biggest drain?

Checking my business account for likes & follows. Sad I know, but I justify it as it comes under the business banner. For some reason though I am not nearly as fussed about my metrics on LinkedIn and so I’ve decided that is where I am going to concentrate my business efforts for now.

You know what? As soon as I made the decision I felt better, it was an instant relief. Let’s just hope my focus doesn’t end up falling down a different rabbit hole 🐇