Prologue - hen-food kindling coal oil - all low or non-existent. Snowy roads not conducive for trip to usual corn mill. Local feed shop and hardware store instead.
Had been thinking of rigging up some sort of pallet to get the stuff down the hill from the car. Wouldn't have been surprised if I actually had a pallet lying around somewhere. Remember the 'has own drain rods' business?
Standing yakking at the hardware counter, my eye fell on the bright blue plastic sledges. Oh, yes. Very yes.
Eleven quid. OK. Needs must. Think 'Investment'. Might eventually pass it on to a convenient child if there's one handy.
Into the boot with it and away home.
When the car was safely back in its snowy noost (Shetland word for slightly hollowed out piece of ground where you lay up your little boat, right way up with the drain hole open) up in the top field, I loaded up the sledge with the sack of hen food and a huge heavily-loaded fibreglass-type shopping bag, and started dragging it down the hikers' track.
Gravity and slidey frozen snow being the perfect combination to set it slamming into the back of my boots, I thought I'd let it lead me, like a large dog. Then I noticed that the channel stomped into the snow by the dell-dwellers next door was the perfect width for the sled. And I let go.
Away it went, only grinding to a halt once, all the way down the track. Brilliant. Double brilliant because it made me burst out laughing and I really needed some silliness.
At the bottom, it stopped and I caught up in leisurely fashion.
Placed nicely for the final run down the lower part of the access drive, off it went again. It even took the curve on to the bridge over the river like a real bobsleigh. Triple brilliant.
The flat bit to the house was as effortless as a stone skipping across water.
I was still laughing when we both got home and, needless to say, the hens were absolutely delighted.
My hero
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