A Walk in the Woods

The Islands are not known for their deciduous trees but the magnificent 270 hectare Stornoway woods were created in the 1850’s by Sir James Matheson and have been in community ownership since 1923.  Being adjacent to the town centre they are very popular with walkers, cyclist and a dog lovers. Anna and I went for a reasonably brisk 2¼ mile walk on Monday afternoon ending up, of course, at The Woodlands for coffee. So this is a little bit of Stornoway for you.

Stornoway's Marina and Cromwell Street

Ness Sgoths

The Lews Castle

Stornoway Harbour

There are lots of donated seats throughout the grounds

The mouth of the River Creed

A walk up The Creed

Smiths Shoe Shop - a legend in Stornoway - donated this rest place.

The walk continues

A place of rest at the far reach of the walk

The Lews Castle Grounds

Yesterday morning on my way into town I could see smoke rising over Stornoway. It emanated from smouldering areas in the Lews Castle Grounds.   No one seemed to be taking much notice.  Parts of it were still smoking this morning.  Oh well.  I'm sure that someone's keeping an eye on it.

Last weekend was the Hebridean Celtic Festival with it's colourful array of marquees:

Just below which is the jetty from which youngsters were getting sailing tuition:

All in all Stornoway is really buzzing at the moment.

A Spring Morning

I rarely see much of Spring anywhere because of my flitting however that doesn't mean that I miss everything completely because I see photos on other people's blogs and sometimes Pat sends me photos of what I'm missing just to remind me.  In this case the photos are of our beautiful Lews Castle grounds:

Thanks Pat.

Look What I'm Missing

An email was waiting for me this morning from Spesh1 aka Pat telling me about the snow and forwarding some photos that Dave had taken on his mobile phone:

From the back of Pat and Dave's house

Briagha in The Lews Castle Grounds

A footpath in the Castle Grounds - so why the tyre tracks?

Frightful Friday

OK so the whole day wasn't frightful but it sure came pretty close in parts.  The Good Bits were that in the morning Viv, Pat, Briagha and I went for a walk round the Lews Castle Grounds followed by coffee at The Woodlands Centre.  Well actually they did most of the walking 'cos I met a friend and chatted for ages before meeting them coming back. In the afternoon Viv and I went up to Traigh Mhor.  The weather permitted both in between the showers so I suppose that was a Good Thing too.

Lews Castle and Stornoway Inner Harbour

Braigha at the mouth of the River Creed

Panorama of Stornoway across the Outer Harbour from the Castle Grounds

A tree feller with a sense of humour

Traigh Mhor, Tolsta

Meanwhile Blogger was down and I didn't see the comments that had been made on the last two posts and couldn't comment on anyone else's.  I shall go back and do that.  What was irritating was that the information on Blogger's own blog was very sparse.  Blogger had been down when I tried late Thursday evening so I assume that it was down for nearly 20 hours.

More of my emails have ended up in intended recipients spam folders.

My £500 HTC Desire S phone newly acquired when I returned to Scotland decided to give up the ghost on Monday and on Tuesday Vodafone agreed to replace it on Wednesday.  I didn't expect it on Wednesday 'cos of where I live but Thursday would have been reasonable.  Yesterday (Friday) evening there was no phone and a call to Vodafone elicited the information that they hadn't sent one and wouldn't be sending one either.  They hadn't bothered to tell me.  The saga is so bizarre that I shall have to do a separate post but needless to say the situation has not been resolved.

Viv went home to France.

Needless to say there were other irritations which prompted my outburst of Frightful Friday but overall and looking back from the serenity (who am I kidding in this weather?) of Saturday morning I should have just reiterated my mantra "Don't sweat the small stuff; and it's all small stuff!"  It wasn't such a bad day.  No, it really wasn't.  There.  I've convinced myself.

More Pictures of Winter on Lewis

These pictures taken by Pat tell me just a little of what I've been missing:

 Lews Castle

 Stornoway  from Lews Castle Grounds

 Lews Castle Grounds on harbour front

 Kate and Briagha in Lews Castle Grounds

 Kate beautiful as ever

 Creed River

Creed River

A Day Out With Gaz

Today Gaz and I had coffee at the Woodlands Centre and then set off for a walk to the River Creed in the Lews Castle Grounds where the Centre is situated.   Gaz had an idea for a photograph and he needed a dull day.  Now whilst I sympathise with him (and sympathised a lot more by the end of the walk) I was rather glad that the early morning heavy showers (which returned late afternoon) kept away and I didn't get wet and the sun shone which compensated for the almost gale-force wind.  

 On the way into Stornoway as I was about to cross the Braighe I tried to capture the turbulent sea and the rainbow but almost missed the latter.

 The Lews Castle makes a splendid background to the harbour - note the Wicker Lady in the bottom right of the picture.

 Gaz on a mission

 The path alongside the River Creed

 Dedicated - and wet!

A 'proper' camera

Yesterday my niece Helen in a comment on her blog posting which included some more dragonfly photos pondered whether she showed too many.  My view was in the negative.  You can never have too many photos of dragonflies.  Which is just as well.  I think that this is a male Hawker.  It looks to me like the Migrant Hawker in Helen's photo but then it also looks like the Common Hawker in my post a few weeks ago. (Helen will doubtless put me right).

Gaz taking his photo of the dragonfly (he had thought that he wouldn't need a macro lens today).

 He was very sluggish and I suspect not long for this world.

 In Memory of that Stornoway institution recently departed,  Smiths Shoe Shop and the Stornoway coves who worked and met there.

 And on the way back looking the other way along The Braighe the waves were still rolling in

Anyone who has read Johnathon Livingston Seagull will appreciate these gulls who were just riding the airwaves as they came over the waves and rose over the seawall.

Tree Chair

Chair, Castle Grounds, Stornoway.

A Walk in the Castle Grounds

Yesterday David and I set off on a cool, very windy and rather wet morning round the Castle Grounds. This is hardly 'The Great Adventure' and I know that Pat and Briagha do it frequently and, at one time, I would have thought nothing of it. However I've probably had the least active summer ever in terms of walking to try and rest my knee, so I was a little trepidatious yesterday. Half way around I was a tad concerned but my knee was no worse by the end of the walk. There's life in the old knee yet! The last time I was in the Castle Grounds was in May with CJ and there are lots of new things now:

David on the path at a very full River Creed (they are not new!)

Why a boot?

Why a last?

The answer: It's all to do with The Stornoway Coves.

How beautiful is that?

And one for CJ