Contemplation

Wendy deep in thought overlooking Ness Harbour on Lewis

Lady in Doorway

Actually this is a little more than that.  You may recall that Wendy arrived but her case didn’t.  Wendy had chosen to travel in slightly more formal clothes than she would wear when relaxing at home so the question was what could she wear for the evening?  Well,  thanks to Peter and Chris (I suspect it was Chris’s idea but I may be wrong) I happened to have a very expensive pair of tailored pyjamas in a lovely candy-stripe pink that I’d never worn.  In fact I have never ever seen the point in dressing to go to bed but that’s another matter.   The story goes that when I was in hospital years ago in Glasgow after having been helicpoptered down from Inverness by air ambulance in order to undergo a heart procedure, I didn’t have any pjs.  So Chris volunteered a pair of Peter’s (they live in Glasgow).  They were pink and beautifully tailored.  I didn’t know that people actually wore tailored pjs!  Anyway these pjs got me quite a few amusing comments in the hospital.  So some time later for a birthday or Christmas Peter and Chris gave me these pink pjs.  They turned out to be the perfect lounging attire for Wendy that evening.  Wendy decided that she looked as though she was wearing hospital scrubs and should have a name tag and possibly a stethoscope as adornment.

At Garry Sands

Wendy and I went to Garry Beach earlier in the week before I came down to the Wirral.  It was cold, wet and windy.  That didn’t stop us enjoying ourselves and having a good walk although I would have preferred it to have been warm and sunny so that I could have walked barefoot through the sand and sea.  It didn’t stop the photography and Wendy went one step further to ensure that she had just the shots that she wanted:

We met some enthusiastic holidaymakers and their children were searching for crabs and anything else they could find in the pools oblivious to the weather:

And here’s a couple of photos of Garry Beach, North Tolsta in the rain.  This beach is about 7 miles from the house where our children were brought up and they spent many hours playing here.  But that’ll be a blog for another day.

  Furry friends wreaking havoc with the machair

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!