Bountiful Summer

Everywhere there is evidence of the bountiful fruits of summer.  The Rowan Trees (Mountain Ash to some people) are particularly beautiful this year:

It's Been a Long Time

I wondered.  Why had I put the bread maker on over night when I had made a loaf yesterday?  I woke to the aroma of freshly baked bread.  Not unusual.  Except when the bread maker hasn't been on.  The brain can play very odd tricks.  I could smell freshly baked bread that didn't exist.  Hmm.

Lewis has been in the grip of a relative heatwave for May.  It was in the mid 20s and absolutely wonderful.  On Saturday I managed to get all the fences painted and a deal of other garden and outside tasks completed. Unfortunately even the rare treat of a spa bath (I do sometimes wonder why I don't have them more often) afterwards didn't manage completely to allay the stiff muscles in my painting arm shoulder the next morning.

In the evening after school the children jump off the pier into water which at best could be described as less than warm or in most of our minds downright freezing.  I'm sure that had I jumped in I would have suffered heart arrest.

All this was taking place a good way from my house and I can only marvel at the ability of modern long-focus lenses (this is the equivalent of about 800mm) to perform hand-held.

On Saturday the sun brought people onto the beach below the house in numbers I can rarely recall seeing before.

Yesterday the sun shone but the wind blew - long, strong and very cold.  Apart from a few hardened dog walkers the beach was empty again.

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.

Long Days and Light Nights

A little while ago Katherine commented on my posting From Stornoway to Ullapool in relation to the fact that nights didn’t get truly dark on Lewis in the middle of the night at this time of year.  I’ve been waiting for the right moment (and the time given all the visitors I’m having).  Tonight seems to be that moment.

It’s a half cloudy and half clear night as the following panorama to the North shows:

 

The sky really is as light as that and this is the time the photo was taken: