SID10 Spring

For two days now (today isn't sure yet) the sun has shone out of a predominantly blue sky with no accompanying wind.  Today the sun is winning the battle against the clouds but the wind is from the North, is strong and is bitterly cold. The atmospheric pressure is bumping against the stop at the top of the scale (this photos was taken before it quite got there). 

I worked outside most of the time for two days but today it's indoors things. 

This morning I made a list in six sections: outdoor jobs; indoor jobs; garden; garage; paperwork; and today. It should keep me going for 12 weeks. Hopefully by then it will be almost empty and one job after another finds its way onto the "Today" list.

The birds are now attacking the provisions on the bird feeder which is a sure sign of Spring. I have absolutely no idea why 'my' birds eat hardly anything from my feeder in the winter (but flock to a neighbour's). Well over a decade ago I fixed a bird nesting box to my garage wall about 15 feet from the ground. Unfortunately I fixed in on a North facing wall which is where the cold winds come from. It's been used occasionally (I have opened it up in the winter sometimes to have a look). However I have never actually seen a bird taking nesting material into it. This year it's definitely being used. I will definitely have to give it an overhaul when the autumn comes.

Meanwhile I heard the melodious call of a Stonechat from the top of one of my trees. I nipped inside, grabbed a camera and from 25 metres or more through the kitchen window managed to get a recored if hardly a good photo. 

On Thursday morning (the first sunny day of the week) I decided to go for my allocated daily exercise by walking the long way round by road to the pier below my house, along the shore and then up the croft back home: around 2 miles with plenty of gradient to exercise the heart and lungs. The view from the beach looking into the sun was one I could look at for ever.

Looking up from the bottom of the croft my house seemed a long haul up. Unfortunately now that the land isn't grazed it's virtually impossible to walk straight up the croft because of the huge tussocks of thick grass interspersed with deep ditches which are partly covered up now. A broken leg was not what I needed at this stage of the game. So I walked along the shoreline and up the track.

Portrait of a Place

Andrea, a fellow Islander and blogger with a thousand old film cameras, a penchant for black and white (and various photographic techniques I'd not heard of until I started reading her blog), and a wonderfully eccentric style doesn't 'do' landscapes.  So when she produced one a few days ago she called it a 'Portrait of a Place'.  I'm never ashamed publicly to admit it when ideas are not my own so strictly speaking I never plagiarise I simply use other peoples' ideas.  Of course having now given Andrea credit for the words I will continue to use them and at some time in the future someone will read them and not realise they are not mine.  Honour and morality are satisfied and I will still get some residual credit in the future.  

This doesn't just apply to today's heading.  There will be many more which, over the years, even I have come to believe are my own original thoughts.  Of course people who know me well know that, competent though I may be in writing up an adversarial case for, for example, a ministerial meeting or  a planning inquiry, any original thoughts contained therein will always have been gleaned from others who have the required talents.

This is a rather different portrait of a place that my readers see all the time but from a very different perspective.  This was taken from across the valley by Dave (Spesh's hubby) on his mobile phone.  My house is indicated by the arrow.

Summer Flowers

This year many of the flowers and bushes here are blossoming in greater profusion that I can ever recall.  On the way back from Pat and Dave's on the other side of the valley yesterday I stopped to take this view.  I can't seen the Island from my house but I can see the sweeping croft of Meadow Buttercups.  

August Gales: At Force 8

Late yesterday afternoon the gale struck with full force and the sun shone and it was warm! How bizarre was that?  The Stornoway to Ullapool ferry made two crossings and then returned to Ullapool where it weathered out the storm leaving.  That meant that a lot of people were stranded on the ‘wrong’ side of the Minch.  In the middle of winter we are used to that (well those of us who winter on the Island!) but in August it’s rather dire.  In any case fewer people travel in the winter.  I was over the other side of the valley at Pat and Dave’s for dinner during the storm.  This is the view from in front of their house at the height of the storm.  I actually had considerable difficulty standing whilst taking these photos.

To The Shore

I sometimes find it hard to believe that I live 100 metres from the shore and yet I seem rarely to go down to it these days.  I suppose the fact that I can see it all the time and that I can go down to it whenever I want puts it into the category of the over-familiar.  After all how many of us when we have lived in a place for any length of time actually carry on exploring?  Until, of course, we become bloggers looking for the next posting.  

Wendy (of my New Zealand ‘family’) arrived back here yesterday on the midday flight for a short visit before she and the children return to NZ on Friday.  Her luggage did not.  So, as the afternoon yesterday was sunny (having cleared up after the torrential morning rain) and having kitted Wendy out in a spare warm, if unflattering and slightly large, jacket and a pair of my shoes we set off in the strong cold wind down to the shore:

After a few yards I took some photos from the same spot to give you an idea of the house is in relation to the shore

Looking back up the hill at the house (the nearest building is my garage and workshop)

To the South East at Bayble Island in The Minch

A slightly different perspective to that which you are used to seeing from my house of the view of Bayble Bay

The ‘secret’ beach below my house but invisible from it

and again looking the other way

negotiating the burn at the bottom of the croft (the house is just visible at the top of the picture)

A rather pointless gate now

It’s cold and windy!  Facing into the wind Wendy reckoned that she was getting a facelift and a chemical scrub (from the windblown sand) for free

The House from Bayble Pier using the full telephoto – mine is the nearest house and the study is the white plastic bit stuck on the corner nearest the camera

Once we had arrived at the pier we decided to carry on up the cliffs on the other side of the Bay.  After a while the clouds looked very threatening so we headed up the croft to Pat and Dave’s where hospitality was offered and accepted and Dave drove us home as the heavens opened.  What would one do without friends!

PS Wendy’s luggage didn’t arrive this morning so the first task was buying essentials.  Then we had a day out being tourists before returning home to a G & T and dinner.  The luggage arrived with the G & T!

The Coastguard Helicopter

Just outside the view from my house is Bayble Island.  It can, however, be seen from Pat and Dave’s house on the other side of the Valley.  When I was there a few days ago the Coastguard helicopter was practising its rescue functions using the Island as it often does.  It’s particularly good for the purpose because the wind (and it was windy that day) means that there is a lot of air turbulence testing the pilot’s skill to the limits.