The Gig Championships came and went, along with hundreds, if not thousands, of people. No-one seemed to go far from the Rachabite Slip where the food and drink tents were - unless they were rowing of course. A good time was had by all. We went to St Martin's where, as you can see, it was lovely and quiet!

Would you believe, our flights were grounded this weekend because of the volcanic activity in Iceland! One benefit, we had some strange sunsets because of it! The setting sun looked more like the rising moon before it disappeared into the haze of the volcanic dust. Fortunately, the following morning dawned beautiful as ever.

After a lot of frantic activity to get the house in order, we have now been open for two weeks and it's as if we had never been closed. The weather for the past two weeks has been wonderful. We had our first trip to the Abbey Gardens today and, as you can see, there is plenty of colour. I wish I could have captured the scents and sounds to go with the pictures. We had a doze in the sunshine until a pheasant came and pecked Phil's toe - it must thought it was a worm!

We have had some beautiful weather so far this month - let's hope it is a forerunner of the rest of the summer. The lifeboat is looking quite lonely in the harbour but the tripper boats will all be back there to join it soon. All the emergency services seemed to be around the harbour this particular morning. I'm sure the sea ambulance wasn't trying to get into the road ambulance, but that is how it looked! No doubt they were having a meeting to discuss new strategies.

The Jacob sheep are the new inhabitants of the fields along King Edward Road on Peninnis. We are expecting to see lots of lambs soon which will be a delight - a real sign of Spring.

The weather has been very mixed this month but our residents on the Garrison don't seem to mind. Phil spent a long time trying to get a photo of the very unusual blackbird that is always around Morning Point as he hid as soon as the camera came out, but his unremarkable little friend was determined not to be left out of the picture! The ponies and the cattle were completely unfazed by the strong winds that were howling around us - we hightailed it back to town for a warming cup of tea.

As you can see, I need to improve my blogging technique - watch this space!!!

Happy New Year to you all. Phil and I wish you everything you wish yourselves for 2010.

As the country is gripped by freezing temperatures and treacherous ice and snow, you are probably wishing you were here! Although it felt freezing yesterday, it actually wasn't and today feels positively balmy. These little chaps were certainly feeling happy in their field! I hope the sight of their cheery faces puts a smile on yours.

Welcome to our new blog

Welcome to our blog! This is a new venture for us – just to show we are not entirely living in a techie black hole.

One thing that will never change – our enjoyment of running our guesthouse and our endeavour to help our visitors to enjoy our beautiful islands as much as we do ourselves.

Scilly is not looking quite as you saw it back in the summer (even such a summer as we had at times this year). We, like you, have had enough rain for the islands to float to America, but fortunately our granite rocks have kept us securely anchored to the sea bed and have once again withstood the gale force winds - so we’ll be here waiting for you next year.

The Christmas lights will be going up this weekend and will brighten up the gloomy nights that we have been having lately. For such a small community, there are a lot of festive functions to attend, and they are made more enjoyable by the fact that everyone knows everyone, so we will be making the most of the opportunities to meet up with friends and neighbours and celebrating to the full – and we will probably be very full most of the time!

Hope you all have a very special Christmas and a wonderful New Year, with a happy and healthy 2010 to follow.

No picnicking on Holgates Green this afternoon

No tripper boats going anywhere today!

The Rachabite slip was redundant - you could sail your boat onto the Strand

A few casualties on Town Beach

George has found a warm spot!