It's a Good Day

Firstly I apologise for the paucity of my posts. Some friends have become concerned and, despite emailing me, appear not to have had a response and have taken to communicating with one of my close Island friends. Many apologies to all to whom I have caused concern.

I woke up this morning. Therefore it is a Good Day. One day I won't and I will be really pissed off (Apologies for the vulgarity: translation "very upset".). I usually wake up and get up within a few minutes once I have confirmed that it is 'getting up time'. If it's not I turn over and return (or attempt to return) to the Land of Nod. By that I do not mean a biblical location where Cain was exiled after killing Abel, but my metaphorical term for sleep or dreamland.

Going back to the phrase "or attempt to return" I should say that there was a time when that was not only a certainty but it was also instant. Unfortunately I have discovered (and I know I'm not alone in this) that now I'm in my 80s sleep is nowhere near as automatic if one wakes up in the night. In theory the body must need just as much sleep as ever IF one expends as much energy during the day as ever. I am very fortunate in still being very active.

Sometimes I wake either in the morning or at random times during the night and I spent a good while thinking about Life, The Universe and Everything before possibly returning to sleep.

Today was a fairly typical day in that I went into town this morning and did odds and ends and met a friend for coffee. This afternoon I, and another friend, went to visit a mutual friend. I have known her since November 1974 when we both arrived on Lewis. 

I came to work with Comhairle nan Eilean (the local authority for the Western Isles) and Mutual Friend was married to a very close colleague. He has long since left the Island but Mutual Friend stayed and we are close and firm friends of over half a century. 

Dinner: Eating and Providing

I used to do a great deal of entertaining. Most of it involved food. Usually it involved providing dinner for up to 12 (the number in my 'dinner party circle'). However I prefered 10 which was the number that would fit very comfortably around my dinner table.  As it was not uncommon for a couple not to be able to come there was rarely a full complement anyway. That was all so long ago. Now unless I have visitors staying I rarely cater for more than three or four.

I was wondering to myself the other day whether this was because giving dinner parties has gone out of fashion or because of changing social intercourse.  On consideration there are various factors.  

Many of the social crowd that I was part of have died or left the Island. Most of my friends are of a similar age to me and, frankly, much as we all love getting together and even sharing food together, none of us wants to spend two days preparing and cooking a meal for a dozen  people.  So life is much simpler. 

The reason this subject popped into my mind was that, despite getting rid of most of my cookery books, the remnants still account for 18" of bookshelf. 

I last gave friends dinner last weekend and I am just about coming to terms with the fact that we  thoroughly enjoyed the meal (you can tell when people are just being polite!) and that the wonderful "home made" beef steak pie was 'home made' by one of the local butchers. The three local butchers that I and my friends shop at all vie for which can make the biggest variety and the best beef and steak and kidney pies. Not only that they all make their own lasagnes and all manner of things. It's one of the advantages of having local butchers one of whom at least still has a farm with it's own livestock. 

Friends

I woke up this morning. This is something I've been doing for over eight decades and something I hope that I will be doing for some years to come providing that my mental faculties remain reasonably able to steer me through the day without too much trouble. 

Someone asked me recently if I had any male friends. I thought it was a very strange question and said so and asked why such an assumption should be made. Apparently it was very simple. I have coffee in The Woodlands several times a week at least. All the people with whom I have coffee are friends I have known for many many years (at least two I have known for over half a century). However all my 'coffee mates' are female. Why? Because their husbands are no longer with us.  I do have one male friend and former colleague I've known for 51 years with whom I have lunch in The Woodlands every Friday. His wife died a couple of years ago after many years of illness. 

On a Saturday morning I used to meet my son, Gaz, for coffee in An Lanntair (the local arts centre) whilst my grandson went to his drama class.  About half way through a friend (whom I've met for coffee on a Saturday morning for many years) would come and join us and then Gaz would take Brodie swimming.  Some say that routine is boring. I find it quite comforting.

However that routine came to a sudden end a few weeks ago when Gaz very suddenly decided to go back to sea. He received a phone call on a Thursday offering him a Chief Engineer's job on a superyacht. A job he has done for many years before he 'retired' several years ago. So one Saturday we were coffeeing and a few days later he was afloat at the other end of the Mediterranean. Now he is 'languishing' in Monaco.  It can be a hard life!

Friendships and Safaris

I have been one of the luckiest people on this planet in so many ways. Today I was reminded of one of the things which makes that true for me. My life in New Zealand and the wonderful friendships I made there: many of which endure today albeit, for most of them, at a distance.

I started a New Zealand blog because my UK friends and family kept wanting to know what I was up to. The blog was more a diary than anything else. Which, in many ways was how this blog started off.

One day (I can't remember the details) because I had never been up to Northland a fellow blogger suggested that if I went up there she would show me around. It sounded like an opportunity far too good to miss. So on 11 December 2009 I pitched up at Whangerei Airport having made absolutely no arrangements apart from a return flight. I was sure that my fellow blogger would know the most appropriate hotel etc where I could stay. 

The person concerned turned out to be both a superb tour guide and real 'people person' so my natural shyness which can manifest itself in so many different ways completely evaporated. 

We drove out to the Whangerei Heads and I saw a New Zealand that I'd never seen before. It is a country of many many different geographical, geophysical and human personas. I was loving the new sights and the commentary and the company.

By the time we got back to Whangerei it was getting on a bit and I wondered about accommodation. But my hostess just kept on driving....and driving... into the wilds of Northland.  Until we reached her home. Just as it had never occurred to me that someone I had never met except via our mutual blog comments was going to house me for the stay it had obviously never occurred to her that she wouldn't be offering hospitality. 

And so started a truly wonderful friendship with a number of safaris in Northland, Hawkes Bay, Lewis and Harris and the Scottish Highlands. 

What made me think of this today? Pauline's post here.

My first view from the plane of the 'Uppity Downities' although I didn't know that at the time

Whangerei Heads

My first Northland Coffee at Reva's in Whangerei

Reva's Café, Whangerei

The Vodafone Mast on The Uppity Downities - the locator beacon so I knew where I was.

Blogland and "Real Life"

It had been my intention this month to spend a lot more time in Blogland. Unfortunately my "other" life has been dominant. I was going to say my "real" life but in truth Blogland has been a very important part of my life, real or otherwise, since 2007 right through my New Zealand life and through the thick and thin. I have also made some of my most important friends through Blogland and despite the fact that I don't see many of my New Zealand friends in person now we are still in touch frequently. Indeed during these awful times for New Zealand we have all been in touch a lot.

Other friends I've met through Blogland but whom I've never met in person have become a significant part of my life too - you know who you are and I thank you for that friendship. It's one of the things that keeps me in Blogland even though a few of us are in contact outside of Blogland and Monica and I still play Words With Friends (Scrabble) every day which we have done now for, I think, 10 years. Kate and I communicate daily too and have been in touch since a day (which I remember well) lost in the mists of time but which I could go back to in my New Zealand blog.  Gosh, tempus fugit. 

My Blogs are also my memories. 

This was actually going to be a post about New Zealand but that will have to wait because there are far too many other things on the agenda today and I want to do it justice.

Blogging and Fun

As my older readers know I started blogging here and in New Zealand as a diary for my friends and family largely to save me dozens of repetitive emails. Over the years it's gradually morphed into what it is today: a vehicle for keeping up with blogfriends and for reading interesting bits about people's lives and where they live. Over the years I have made some really valued friendships through blogging and some of those have remained when they have long since stopped blogging.

Most of the people I follow have quite different blogs falling into various different categories. Some, like YP or Cro, make no bones about their political leanings but leave everyone to get on with their own views whilst having an occasional spat and then getting on with life.  Some avoid politics altogether .  Some, like David,  concentrate largely on one topic (in this case birds). Some like Tasker can blog on anything and, heaven alone knows what Bob will blog on next. Monica and Meike and the New Zealand blogs that I follow all eschew controversy. Adrian is Adrian. He and I have agreed to disagree about many things for about 15 years and we're unlike to change now. As most of his blog is devoted to stuff which is stratospherically beyond my ken that's rarely an issue.

So, in a nutshell, my Blogland is a tolerant one. It is going to stay that way. I, too, am going to stay that way. I have learned my lesson in entering into a discussion with someone on that person's blog  in the full knowledge that there is only one point of view allowed on the blog - that bloggers. I'll stay in my usual Blogland. After all, for me, blogging is about enjoying comfortable companionship.

Oddly yesterday the above Peanuts appeared on my Facebook page. It must have been serendipity.

I've just looked out of the kitchen window to see a couple of hooded crows seeing off a sparrowhawk. There isn't much that will take on a corvidae: even eagles beat a retreat when sense tells them to.

Re-United

This morning I received a Messenger message.  Right out of the blue.

It was someone from whom I've not heard for a long time. Last Christmas I didn't send a card.

Having said that, the person and her family were very important to me at one time having been part of my New Zealand life and having stayed with me here on Lewis. It seemed a shame to have lost contact. They have always remained in my thoughts. I have a natural tendency to keep in touch with people who have been important in my life even if it is only sporadically. I hate losing contact even with people on the other side of the world living in a world I inhabit in spirit but no longer inhabit in body.

By the time we'd caught up it was as if there had been no time lost. We were totally at ease notwithstanding  the hiatus. 

I've learned a lesson today. 

Do you naturally keep in touch with people in your past life?

A Friend

I have been away from the Island since last weekend.

Yesterday I lost a friend:  a friend with a capital F.

We had been friends for over four decades.

We had also been colleagues. John had professional and personal integrity of the highest order. He was a man with a disorganised desk and an organised mind.

He had a sense of humour which was sometimes a little macabre, sometimes a little offbeat, sometimes downright obscure but always cleverly thought out and considered. He was also a master of anagrams (Western Isles = Wetness riles).

John was a man with considerable generosity of spirit.

John was a family man: his family were everything to him and his life revolved around his family. John and his wife formed a partnership without which John would not have been complete.

John has now escaped the cruel cancer that consumed him.

My heart goes out to those he has left behind.

I may not be visiting Blogland much for a little while.

Last Man Standing

In July I wrote a post entitled Mo about a very old friendship and Mo's demise in June.

In late summer 2012 I drove Mo and her sister-in-law by marriage, Di, from Di's home near Liverpool to a villa in the small village of Belforte in Tuscany via France, Switzerland and the Italian Lakes. It was Mo's 70th and she had treated us, her daughters and son-in-law to a holiday in a villa there. I blogged about it at the time.

Di had gone to Canada for the celebration of Mo's life and her son, Ben, had stood in for me to read the eulogy that I had written. Just over a week ago Di, a robust lady if ever there was one, died suddenly. 

Mo's daughters,  for whom Auntie Di was very special, came over from Canada. I am, coincidentally, on The Wirral less than 20 miles away.

Today I attended the celebration service for Di's life. The church was packed. I don't think that I have seen as many people at a funeral service outside of Lewis.

I've been acquainted with Di for nearly 60 years. She was a lady who was proud to be an 'old-fashioned' wife and mother for whom family was everything. However, today I learned so much about her from the eulogy that I did not know. She was, indeed, a special lady.

The comment that disturbed me, though, was that, of the trio, I was the 'last man standing'.

Di, Fiona, Mo, Heather, Jefferey at Belforte. I'm taking the photo!

 

Mo

One of the wonderful things that comes with age can be the longevity of friendships.

During a life one has friendships that can last a lifetime or be brief but deep during the brevity. Sometimes siblings can be friends as well as relations.  Friendships come in all shapes and sizes.

My longest friendship dates from when we were four years old. My second longest would be with my brother who was born when I was 5 but, obviously, the friendship would have come later than that. My third longest started when I was 16 and Mo was 17. This is about that friendship.

How do you condense nearly 60 years of friendship into a few paragraphs?

Our extensive correspondence goes back only half a century to Mo’s first letter of January 8th, 1968 but our friendship goes back to 1961 when we joined Liverpool Corporation’s Town Clerk’s Department as Junior Clerks.

We formed an immediate alliance and became inseparable work-friends.

We went to University together to read Public Administration. We had day release from the Corporation. Whilst other students went off carousing and doing what students do we went back to work. I had acquired ‘The Hypogryph’ (a Vespa scooter) and we went up to Uni on it and travelled between lectures on it. I think it was the first time I’d ever had a girl put her hands around me and hug me so tightly (even if it was simply to stop her falling off!).

Mo would have become the first senior female officer in the Department - of that there is no doubt.

However The Fates decided otherwise and she gave up a very promising career for love and Canada (and left the promotion door wide open for me).

We were never boyfriend/girlfriend (as relationships were referred to then) but even so it came as a jolt when she married in 1965.

However our friendship survived and, in a strange way, when I married 5 years later, our friendship grew stronger despite the fact that we were living on different continents.

Mo had two passions: her daughters and travel.

Over the last 30 years years Mo and I have shared some of Mo’s passion for travel. Mo was the perfect travelling companion. She showed me a lot of Ontario including Tobermory (we never did get to Scotland’s Tobermory) with skirmishes into the US. We toured in Europe and the UK.

For a decade until recently I lived half the year in New Zealand and Mo and her elder daughter, Fiona, who lives in Australia visited me on several occasions and I visited them in Australia.

However, I think that the two most outstanding recent family occasions in my memory were her 60th and 70th birthdays. The former was at the Little Inn in Bayfield in Ontario and Mo had no idea that Fiona and I would be there. 

Mo’s 70th celebration was a small and absolutely wonderful occasion. Mo rented a villa in Tuscany. Mo, Diane and I set off in The Nighthawk from Diane’s in England and drove through France, Switzerland and Northern Italy until we arrived in what was to be a couple of weeks in heaven with Fiona, Heather and Jefferey (Mo's younger daughter and her husband).  I blogged about the trip starting in August 2012 here.

Mo’s last visit to me was last December. The last trip we made together was to Harris. I think that we had arrived at a time in our lives and relationship when two people are completely comfortable with each other.

Just over 5 weeks ago Mo had a massive stroke leaving her with her cognitive functions but little ability to move any part of her body. Thanks to modern technology and her daughters I was able to talk to her several times by video link before she died peacefully. One of my greatest sadnesses is that, for medical reasons, I couldn't be there in person.

The celebration of her life was held today. I added my thanks for her life.

Mo, you have provided me with a lifetime of friendship and memories.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Wherever you are, be happy.

Travelling: The Scottish Borders

I have so many things to blog about I don't know where to start. I wish that I was organised like YP or Cro who manage to blog almost every day regardless of distractions. So far, since I left home, I've spent 4 nights near Glasgow, 3 nights in the Scottish Borders and this will be my fourth night on The Wirral before my brother (CJ) and I go to Exeter for three nights. Then we embark on a long journey back to Lewis where we should arrive five days later. 

I have gathered enough material for dozens of blogs but I'll try and get a few posted before I get home.

After a few days with a pal near Glasgow, I spent some time in the Scottish Borders with friends whom I was surprised to realise that I've known for 35 years (where do the years go?).

We set out to walk round the paddock and ended up starting to walk to England (which, I was assured, was just half a mile along the line of the old Waverley railway). Well after a mile and half I decided to check the map on my iPhone. Hmmm. England was still a good distance away so we turned around and walked back. An enjoyable walk it was too (but very cloudy, wet and green).  

Sue striding forth  (Brian and I following but you can't see us!):

Not far now!

I did meet some Blue Grey Cattle. The first I'd ever seen. They have a reputation for being unfriendly. I got that impression just from looking at them looking at me.

It's All My Fault and I've Fallen in Love

It's Friday. Good Friday. Not good weatherwise. It's been blowing a gale. It's Heather's birthday today. Sorry Heather. In all my travels I forgot to send a card. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. (I may be atheist but I did the spot of Latin and went to a few Roman Catholic services in my time). In my defence life has been very full on and very full of people since I arrived back in Scotland and even more so since I arrived home to visiting friends ensconced in Tigh na Mara. Not that I haven't enjoyed it all. I have. But it's been a challenge trying to find time to do 'things' in between eating bacon rolls at Café Torino and The Woodlands and eating Anna's and Sue's meals. I haven't cooked a meal since I left Napier.

I still haven't even begun to think about my remaining New Zealand  blog posts. New Zealand seems so long ago and so far away. Well, of course, it is far away. And before I know it it will be long ago. I miss The Family and my friends there dreadfully. I miss the heat and the sun.

It's cold and wet and very windy here and I can feel everyone looking at me and saying "It's your fault. We were having a lovely spell of weather until you set foot on the tarmac."

I now have two weeks to get myself straight and fit before I go into hospital for a knee replacement. I never cease to be amazed at what can be done to keep us alive and kicking.

Oh and when I was in NZ I fell in love - again. This time, however, it was a much safer sort of love from some of my past encounters. A friend was working in Australia whilst I was in New Zealand and lent me her car. I had never driven one before. I hope that I drive one again.

And as if one kindness wasn't enough when I reluctantly gave it back a couple of days before I returned, another friend lent me his. People can be very kind.

With Friends

I spent Friday night with friends in Callander.  It's a lovely little town which holds some very happy memories for me.  In fact, outside of Lewis, it's a place I could settle and feel at home.

There are several 'traditions' associated with my visits.  One is an evening visit to The Waverley on the main street for a wee libation with friends and acquaintances.  The other is the tradition that the same friends have of meeting for breakfast each day.  On Saturday it is usually at Dun Whinny's: which is where it was on Saturday.

The beautiful little Dun Whinny's Café  

It's very welcoming but hard to photograph because there is usually a car parked in front.

Phew!

One of the great things for me about Blogland is the friends and acquaintances I've made:  friends who are not just people who read and comment on my blog but people with whom I communicate in a meaningful (don't you just dislike that word) manner.  Some of those people have become friends in my 'real' life as well as in Blogland.  Some, though really good friends, I may never meet.  Some will pass though my life and I through their like ships through mist.

Yesterday a long-time fellow blogger whom I have met several times this year on my travels through Scotland came for a visit.  It can be truly astonishing what one finds out about people that one never even thought about.

Adrian and I share quite a lot of beliefs although our approach to those beliefs is quite different (I have never been given to the robust - not exactly extremist - approach that Adrian adopts).  I have never courted danger in sports and pastimes nor in my life in general.  Adrian, on the other hand, has led a life that I would find truly terrifying and he has the physical and mental scars scars as testimony of that life.

We had a long and very interesting evening yesterday.  I am writing this so that Adrian can read it and know that is the case (from my viewpoint anyway).  I doubt very much whether he can recall any of it because, like everything he does, from his obsession with photographic image manipulation and the seeking after perfection to writing provocative posts, he consumed in one evening more fine wine than I would be able to consume in a fortnight.

Enjoy the Island Adrian.  Enjoy life.  Until we meet again.

Thankful Thursday

Well, as CJ has pointed out, it's Thursday again and that in itself is something for which to be thankful. He has a point in that any of us who are reading this have managed to survive since last Thursday.  In fact as at today I've managed to survive for 24,876 days so far.  That's quite a lot of days really.  I though that I might start working out things like the amount of time I've been asleep or on the loo or whatever but I decided that that would be altogether too much work considering that no one - not even I - would be interested in it.  I'm still a little short of the biblical three score years and ten which would take me to 25,606 days.  In fact I've still got 730 allotted days to go.  Not many in the greater scheme of things. The Bank was trying to get me to place some of my savings in long-term investments yesterday. I don't think so!

Last night we were invited to a BBQ with friends of many years' standing who often stay in the house here.  They're over in their camper van at the moment though and parked just by the shore below the house.  It was a very cold evening and quite breezy.  Not perfect BBQ weather.  However it kept the midges away and it didn't rain and the sun was out too.  We had the cheese and biscuits in the warmth after the beautiful steaks and eventually got home somewhere before midnight - hence the lateness of this post.

Pat is going to slay me for posting a photo with her in it but I'm feeling brave this morning.

So today I'm thankful for time with friends.

From my kitchen window

Sue and Pat posing - I love having a long focus lens on the camera!

Not a bad view for a BBQ!

Whatever Happened to Pat Stapleton? or 'We Do Not Know Each Other Yet'

"We do not know each other yet for we have not dared to be silent together.".  I wrote that quote down when I was a teenager and still have it but I cannot find its source.  I wonder if I made it up.

How often do you wonder what has happened to someone from your past?  I suppose for me the answer is ‘Not very often.’.

I would, however, dearly love to know what happened to Dorothy Speakman for whom I held a constant and faithful candle from the age of about 6 until 11 or 12.  Our constant companionship ended when our ways parted as we left prep school for our respective Grammar Schools and soon after her parents died and she was whisked off to Canada to live with her (much) older married sister.  It was Dorothy who, with one casual sentence, stopped me biting my nails at the age of 11.

The relationship between Pat Stapleton and I was a completely different one.  I had reached the ripe old age of 16 when we first met and 21 when we went out together.  Pat was one of the most fun-loving , caring, kindest, wonderful people I ever met.  She was also the youngest Ward Sister appointed at the time in the Hospital in which I was born and, for a while, worked. 

So why am I thinking of her now and why am I telling you?

Why Pat?  The answer is that Pat was the first girl I knew with whom I could be completely comfortable.  We were driving back to Liverpool from a short stay in the Lake District when I first realised how well we knew each other:  it was when we had travelled in perfect peace and contentment for many miles without a word passing between us.

Why now?  When I was asked recently if I was happy living alone I re-affirmed my happiness with the situation.  I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t live with anyone and I am even more certain that no one could live with me.  However I would hate to be alone.  And I’m not.  But as Friend Who Knows Too Much put it recently ‘you know lots of people to talk to but you have no one special person with whom to be silent.’  And I suppose that’s true.  It’s not that I don’t have friends with whom companionable silence feels natural but there’s a subtle difference.

Why am I telling you all this?  I’m really not sure that that I know.  How silly is that?

Thankful Thursday (on Friday)

I went to a wedding yesterday.  The wedding of a special person.  OK, I know that everyone is special in one way or another but for today I'm going to concentrate on why Marsha is special.  I've known Marsha for quite a long time.  Before she became the beautiful young lady she is now.  When she was a beautiful pre-teen/teen.  For the record I don't use the word beautiful simply or only as a physical attribute but to include beauty of spirit and personality.    Marsha has stayed with me in New Zealand and has been one of the most delightful of visitors.  She even played croquet!  Big plus!

So today I am thankful for the new life that Marsha and Moe are making for themselves.  May it be a long and happy marriage.  If the rest of their lives is half as good as the wedding was then it should be a pretty good life!  

The deed is done

Dad ponders over his speech

Overkill!

Thankful Thursday

My phone was singing away in the kitchen.  I wondered why.  It's Thursday.  Already?  It can't possibly be a week since I was at my God-daughter's. Surely not.  Yet it is!  A week, a wedding and well over a thousand miles ago.

So this morning as I look out over The Minch and take stock I am thankful for the fact that I am able to travel and see my friends and relatives and share their lives.

But, and I'm sorry 'cos I shouldn't really be saying this, I'm not thankful for the Rock Pigeons which hoover the seed out of my bird feeders:

Thankful Thursday

Where do I start today?

Nearly a couple of hours ago I received an email from an old friend (that is to say we've known each other for more years than either of us would care to count and she bears goes by the sobriquet of She To Whom I'd Entrust My Life) asking if I was ok because I hadn't blogged for several days.  That was notwithstanding that she's at their house in France and we'd spoken yesterday!   Leastways I think it was yesterday.  I wasn't wearing a watch this afternoon and eventually realised that I'd had my afternoon coffee at what I though was mid afternoon but must have been about 5 o'clock and nearly wine time!

I'm certainly not thankful for this week's weather!  But I am thankful that it showed my beloved Island in a Good Light to my visitor last week.

What else am I thankful for today?  I'm thinking hard.  It's not that I don't have things about which I'm thankful but it's not so easy to enunciate them each week.

I've been trying to sort out my summer: visits and visitors;  me to friends' and friends here to me.  It's really hard trying to organise a whole summer with so much happening.  

When I see that in print in front of my eyes I realise just how much I have to be thankful for when my biggest problem is how to organise my summer.

Thankful Thursday

This week I've had Viv, a friend from France, staying.  Viv has not been to the Outer Hebrides before so, of course, we've been doing touristy things; that is going to all the touristy places.  However, in addition to having a biologist's interest in flora and fauna, Viv is also an artist.  So to some extent I've been seeing some of the things that I take for granted in a new light.  I've also been wandering off the beaten track and have discovered a few roads and places I didn't know existed and have re-discovered places which I have not visited for over 30 years: places that I went to when I was first exploring the Island but have rarely or not been to since. 

Rather coincidentally Viv had links via acquaintanceship and art to Willie Fulton, a well-known Harris artist and campaigner.  I like his art but have not always sen eye to eye with his views.  Viv decided to call upon him and his wife, Moira.  I tagged along.  Interestingly Willie and I managed to see eye to eye on things upon which I had judged him ill.

The weather, which was wonderfully warm and sunny for a couple of weeks before Viv came, has been rather cold and very showery except for the day we went to Harris when the sun had the majority vote and the rain was banished to the sidelines.  This does not, however, seem to have dimmed Viv's enthusiasm.

So today I am thankful for personal indifference laid to rest and for a re-awakening of my vision of the Island upon which I have lived for coming up to 40 years and which I love so much.