Harris Township and Old House

My last two postings have been devoid of photographs so I thought that I would redress the balance and post two photos that I took a few weeks ago when I went to the Isle of Harris. The first one gives an idea of the remote and sparse nature of the rural settlements in the Islands of the Outer Hebrides.  It is the township of Maaruig.

Isn't the Body Amazing?

Today I read in Les Chaussettes de l'Archiduchesse that our brain turns off our butt neurons so that we don't constantly think about them when we are sitting (that is why your backside may be numb when you get up after a long sit).  That is by no means all that I have learned from L'Archiduchesse I might add.  Isn't the body amazing?

However as so often it is the simple things that amaze me.  Not, I hasten to add, that I'm suggesting that the human body is simple - far from it.  Some days ago I was mending the kitchen sink outlet when I cut my finger badly on a stainless steel sharp edge.  There was a loose flap of skin and flesh and lots of blood.  One of those silly moments which should have been avoided.  Normally when things like this happen I call Friend Who Knows Too Much who used to be a nurse and is really good at things like this.  I know.  I have the scars to remind me and make me grateful. Unfortunately she is hundreds of miles away so I was left to my own devices.  Using Steristrips (tricky when it is one's right index finger that is affected and one is right-handed) I managed to get it put back together and covered in Melolin and Micropore.  I have renewed the dressing several times and it looked as though I was going to have a small hole in my finger for a while.  Last night before going to bed I took the dressing off but didn't really look at the wound.  This morning there is a tiny bit of dead skin and everything else has just healed itself.  I never would have thought it.  Isn't the body amazing?

Then Three Come Along All At Once

Life can be frustrating.  We all know that of course.  So what is frustrating me at the moment?  Well, to be honest, lots of things but they all boil down to one thing which afflicts us all.  Too many things we want to do and too little time in which to do it.  Well this week has been particularly bad from that point of view and my blogging has suffered.  The problem is that when I do have ideas instead of spreading them over a number of days I tend to write and post immediately.  So I have three days when I have no posting and then three come along all on the same day.  OK so I'm exaggerating a bit but that's how it feels.

Anyway today was not going to be a problem.  I had a number of postings in my head and a free day in which to get lots of things, including the postings, done.  I even found the negatives for the photos from 1986 I wanted to use for one of the posts. 

That's when things started to go pear shaped.  My scanner suddenly refuse to work with it's host computer - Henry, my PC.  Eh?!  It was working perfectly a week ago.  Every time I powered it up the computer froze as soon as I opened Picasa.  (Why does Blogger run by Google mark 'blog' 'Blogger' 'Picasa' and 'Google' as incorrectly spelt or is it Firefox? - whatever it's an irritation).  Then Henry went on strike and wouldn't start up.  This is not the first time these have caused me angst.  In fact I posted about Frustration only a few months ago.

Then Palin (Laptop running Vista) decided on a major go slow again.  He's only just had an extra Gig of RAM inserted so it wasn't that.

The long and short of it is that instead of a nice quiet day blogging and scanning photos and so on I've been sorting computers.  That was NOT the best way to spend the day.  At least I had the Grand Prix to watch whilst I did the ironing for some relaxation!

Riding With Pat

My car has been having all the stone chips in the paintwork treated.  It's amazing how many stones are thrown up by vehicles (usually large lorries travelling towards one) and just how much damage they do.  One particularly large one which I actually saw as it bounced up onto the bonnet (hood) of the car then hit the windscreen and cracked it.  Anyway the car was in hospital for four days.  During that time Pat and Dave were good friends and neighbours and ferried me around.  One day after the Doc's Pat and I went for a coffee.  It was Wednesday - the first of our recent sunny mornings.

 

At The Woodlands where we had coffee the sunflowers and begonias which were already ageing had been all but destroyed by the storm on Tuesday. 

  

One or two had survived relatively unscathed

  

Back seat driver - actually Briagha's impeccably  behaved in the car.

 

Who says that Lewis is barren and treeless?  The road through the Castle Grounds to the Woodlands Centre