NO MORE! NO MORE!

No longer do the Border Collies vanish in a cloud of steam when they go out for their morning widdle. No longer do their hobnailed boots tick-tack on the grass. No longer does Kali Kolsson skid into the wall when he tries to chase his brother into a corner. No longer is it possible to scoop frozen poo off the lawn.

No, it’s not because the dogs have gone – it’s because Spring has come to the Twilight Zone! The sun has crawled above the horizon at last, and the bulbs have started to come up just in time to be stamped flat by two black-and-white toerags, who can’t tell the difference between Narcissus triandrus and Festuca rubra.

For those who contemplate the Wheel of Life, this is the start of the JCB breeding season here in the Twilight Zone. The population of this large yellow species begins to burgeon and the quiet is broken by their noisy calls (a booming “vroooooom!” interspersed with cries of “Hard doon a bittie, Magnus!”) as they make their characteristic open tunnels down the sides of roads.

The local farmers are gearing up to perform mighty feats of tractoring, as a multitude of very strange implements, weird and wonderful, clog the forecourts. A trip to Kirkwall may be slowed now, as the non-agricultural motorist has to negotiate clanking queues of whunka-whunka machines travelling at 16 mph (although Willie-fae-Cletts has just been fined at the TZ Sheriff Court for speeding on his Massey-Ferguson, a whole 22 mph, quite a feat on that aged wreck).

This is the season when the kitchen tap in Snorri’s Kennel produces not water, but a “blug-blug-WHUNK!” noise – some over-enthusiastic laddie has ploughed up the water main. There ensues an extended period of arm-waving and dialectic semaphore, indicating an argument about who is responsible for fixing it. The water authority (we have those still, in Scotland) denies responsibility, as does the tractorman. In the meantime, a new stream is birthing and washing away half the field. The casual observer might think that it was in the tractorman’s interest to stop this, but hey, this is the Twilight Zone, and the argument is much more important. Future impact on wallet is less of a consideration than immediate impact on beer money. Four hours later, it’s fixed. I don’t know who fixed it, and I don’t care. La commedia Ë finita and I can make a cup of tea at last.

We have an unusual plant up here, which erupts all over the TZ at this time of year. In the Kennel, it’s known as Bagga plastica super cordam metallicam. Rumours that this is expended silage wrap are purely scurrilous. If nobody has let it loose, it must be natural, right? Whatever its origin, it blossoms and then gets exported to Sweden (air mail). This answers the perennial question, “Is it a bird? Is it a plane?”

Ooops! I haven’t mentioned the birds, have I? The TZ is home to one of the most variegated bird populations in the UK. Lots of species, and all of them SHOUT. Early in the morning. Pass the shotgun, I’m going to shoot something rare!

Spring has come to the Twilight Zone.

© Snorri the Priest 2003

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