Visitors

After my October visit to my brother and sister-in-law (blog posts still to come) my God-daughter, partner and their 4-year old came up to see me from the other side of darkest Manchester. I apologise for mentioning the name of That Place which is at the other end of the Lancashire Road to the fair city of my birth.

It really was great to see them even though, for various reasons including the English schools half-term only being a week long, their visit was short.

They were fortunate with the ferries and young Joshua even enjoyed the ferry journeys. 

The weather wasn't too bad either (for Lewis) and we got to see beaches and the Arnol Blackhouse and the Garenin Blackhouse village. Everyone was disappointed, though, to find that we couldn't go inside the blackhouses at either place because they were closed. 

However the beaches and the Callanish Standing Stones were open! So was the Callanish Visitor Centre where we had a very enjoyable lunch.

I thoroughly enjoyed the visit and so, I think did my visitors. 

Haste ye back!

At Garry Sands - Traigh Ghearradha - Stacs and pools (full of little fish)

Sand is interesting

Chasing a ball is even more interesting

Traigh Mhor

Safari Day 3: Lewis

True to her reputation Pauline brought lovely weather to Lewis with her - during the day anyway which is what mattered. So we drove across the Island to the West Side to explore.

The hills of South Lewis from The Peatland Road

Looking South and West 

The Garenin Black House Village (Pauline in red).

Old and new thatch. Weighted fishing net was thrown over to help keep the thatch in place in storms.

Pauline capturing a thatcher at work. I think she got some cracking photos.

Just another village black house.

The village street 

The Broch at Dun Carloway

I'll do a proper post on the Broch one day

From New Zealand to The Standing Stones of Callanish

The interior of the Black House at Arnol 

and the Church at Eoropie

Plans

Spike Milligan said "We haven't got a plan so nothing can go wrong!" He probably wasn't the first and he certainly won't be the last to say that because Marcel and I use it all the time.

A week ago my visitors left. It had been an enjoyable and busy week. I had no more visitors or commitments untilI I was to go away on 1 April.  By Tuesday evening, however, everything had changed: a friend of four decades came to stay at two day's notice and other visitors came to the Island for the eclipse. So after a wonderfully enjoyable five days I am now visitorless and, as rain is forecast for much of this week, I should be able to catch up indoors and in Blogland before I go away to the Big City next week.

Two visitors (who were not actually staying with me) came to see the eclipse at the Callanish Standing Stones. They thoroughly enjoyed the experience and I showed them some of our other sights as well which were as spectacular as ever despite the fact that it is still more like winter than spring most days.

Dalmore 

More Dalmore

Carol Kirkwood was at Callanish for the eclipse. She was as delightful in person as she is on the television.

When the crowds had left we had The Stones to ourselves

Reef Sands

Callanish Stones in Winter

Pat sent me some photos the a few days ago demonstrating the wonderful weather I was missing.  I think it happened to be the day the sun disappeared for a morning here in Napier.  I was going to ask if anyone could tell the difference between this photo of the Callanish Stones in winter and one taken in summer.  Then I realised, of course, that the sun is shining in this one.  But then I think the sun shone for a few days last May too.

At moments like this I could feel very, very homesick!

A Face?

When we were visiting the Callanish Standing Stones one of the stones struck me as having a ‘face’.  Can you?

The Standing Stones of Callanish

The Standing Stones of Callanish, which are estimated to be about 5000 years old, are on the West side of the Isle of Lewis at (as the name not unsurprisingly suggests) the township of Callanish.  They form one of the most outstanding stone circles in Britain ranking with Stonehenge and the Ring of Brodgar in Orkney.  Despite the paucity of information on the Wikipedia entry for the Callanish Stones (some of which appears fanciful to me) a considerable amount of research has been undertaken and published including the book New Light on The Stones of Callanish (ISBN 0 9505998 4 0).  They are a must see for every visitor to the Island and we were fortunate in having a sunny, if cold, day for our visit.  Quite how impressed the children were I’m not sure but I’m sure that they will remember them – who could not?

The Callanish Stones

A closer look

Fraser and Catriona providing scale

  Next time I’ll organise a better shot!

A Lonely Ruin

When Wendy and the children and I were at Callanish last week I took stock and saw things I’d not seen before.  We were there long enough for the sky to have some very different moods: