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

Winter on Lewis

I know that it's a few years - 2005 to be exact - since I spent any of the winter months on Lewis however this year I'm really missing something - snow.  Pat's been keeping me supplied with photographic reminders and I've realised that I do sort of feel that I'm missing out on something.  Snow is unusual on Lewis.  Even more unusual is the bitter sub zero temperatures the Island has been experiencing.  Here's some idea of what it's like.  The first photo of the back of my house from Carol's at the other end of the township and the rest by Pat alias Spesh.

Panic Set In

I arrived in a wet and miserable Glasgow after the first leg of my journey late yesterday afternoon.  I made up for that with a lovely evening being fed and watered by Anna and having a good catch-up.  However I realised just how dependent upon Broadband I am when I realised that Anna's Broadband provider had been changed and that I couldn't log on to the router:  the password on the router didn't work.  In fact after  dinner Anna discovered from her son who had set it up that the password had changed it and after a few hours I was connected again.  However it did make me think quite hard.  I actually got quite agitated by the inability to attach myself to my cyberworld via my own laptop. 

A few days ago our news had reported upon the effect that having a day completely removed from all electronic media had had on some students who took part in an experiment.  I have to say that I thought that they over-reacted.  Now I'm not so sure that I wouldn't have reacted in the same way.  To some extent I think my reaction was due to the unexpected nature of the withdrawal.  Even so I think I'll trty and avoid it again.

This will be my last post for a couple of days unless I have a few minutes to spare in Heathrow Airport and can log on.  In a couple of hours I shall be setting off for Glasgow airport and the main leg of the journey.  I shall hopefully arrive in Napier at 0930 on Saturday NZ time which will be about 2130 on Friday UK time.  Of course the time difference will alter again in a couple of days when the UK daylight saving/British Summertime ends.

I'll post about the journey on this blog and then I shall be back on A Hebridean in New Zealand. I hope that you will follow me.

That Time Again

It's just after 11pm or, in my parlance, 2300 hrs on Tuesday 26th as I start this post.  I'm sitting in bed with some Alkan piano music playing.   I don't quite know where this sudden going to bed 'early' and  reading a book or reading blogs has suddenly come from.   I've had a great day and, have shared a bottle of red with a friend this evening (perhaps, given the proportion that I guzzled as compared with her, 'shared' is not quite the correct word).  Tomorrow I shall wake up (this is a prediction based upon the experience of the last 23,500 or so mornings) and by lunchtime the bed will be re-made and the kitchen cleaned and the house will be ready for me to say farewell to it for the next six months.

I would like to think that the plans I had for posting a very brief pictorial review of the last six months will come to fruition but somehow I think that's not going to happen.

Tomorrow afternoon I will start my journey South.  I feel rather like a Godwit or a Swallow in search of constant warmth.