One for the organic meat eaters

Tours of the organic poultry unit are available down at Ardersier on Sunday (12th) from 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. There will be a minbus service from the Community Market at the Ardersier football pitches.

Making the most out of the Open

There's some free workshops for businesses coming up in Nairn on the 21st of this month. More details here.

Nairnshire Challenge 2011 - Images

25 pages of pictures now on the Gurn Flickr pages. More to come over the next few days.

Flickr tip, once browsing an image you have selected, click actions, then view all sizes to see larger versions of that image.

Parking enforcement

As seen on the brae yesterday by Iain. Watch where you park Gurnites, the free-for-all is over now.

Jobs at Nairn Academy

Highland Council are looking for a cook, a maths teacher and a temporary PE teacher. Type in Nairn on this page for further details.

Keep smiling

This recent picture taken at the harbour in from one of the regular Gurnites. The Union Flag is upside down it seems. We checked this out and indeed it is:

"The flag does not have reflection symmetry, due to the slight pinwheeling of St Patrick's cross, which is technically called the counterchange of saltires. Thus, it has a right side and a wrong side up. To fly the flag the correct way up, the broad portion of the white cross of St Andrew should be above the red band of St Patrick (and the thin white portion below) in the upper hoist canton (the corner at the top nearest to the flag-pole), giving the Scottish symbol precedence over the Irish symbol. This is expressed by the phrases wide white top and broad side up. Traditionally, flying a flag upside down is understood as a distress signal. In the case of the Union Flag, the difference is so subtle as to be easily missed by many. Indeed, some people have displayed it upside down inadvertently." More here on Wikipedia

Storm Trooper on Nairn beach

An image from Steven Bunn of Highland Campervans who encountered this holidaying Storm Trooper on Nairn's West Beach on Saturday. Thanks Steven.

Crayfish patrol on the Geddes Burn

Up close with one of the North American invaders.

Nairn Anglers were up as usual checking the traps in the Geddes Burn this weekend for the North American Signal Crayfish Invaders. Above you can see two of the regulars (as not seen on TV) holding one of the beasties. These creatures that like feasting on salmon eggs and other indigenious elements of the local ecology are also partial to catfood. Some more pictures on the Gurn Flickr pages.

Well made nest

This nest was lying underneath the young pines at the Maggot car-park yesterday. Those pines are pretty sparse trees and the nest would have been quite noticeable in there, this observer thinks the it might have come from somewhere else. Does anyone know what sort of bird will have built it? It is about a foot across with an outer ring of Silver Birch. Inside long grass, moss and what looks like wool or animal hair has been used to create a snug lining.

Wesminster Constituencies - Boundary changes to come in the Highlands?

The ConDem government is set to change a lot of boundaries for Westminster Constituencies. It is going to be a major shake-up and it seems that the LibDems might suffer as a consequence. Here's what the Guardian has to see about a couple of local heroes:

"Charles Kennedy v Danny Alexander: Charles Kennedy's Ross, Skye & Lochaber seat could gain a large part of the votes from Danny Alexander's Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey seat, creating a conflict between the two, often seen as opposite ends of the Lib Dem spectrum. Labour believes a Lib Dem amendment limiting the geographical size of a constituency to match the current largest, which happens to be Kennedy's, was put in as a fix to prevent such a standoff. But now it is known any seat can be affected, there could be crucial changes at the margins nonetheless". More here on the Guardian.

This observer might suggest that whatever the boundaries of Danny's seat it might fall to one of the Westminster opposition parties in the Highlands, probably the SNP if their Holyrood results translate into Westminster numbers next time round, if not there could still be a comeback by Labour to take the seat. Charles Kennedy would probably survive any anti LibDem surge as the voters won't see him as such a toxic asset.