CALLANISH 111 STONE CIRCLE, CALLANISH, LEWIS



I'm a bit of a stone hugger on the quiet and every now and then I like to go and sit in one of the numerous circles here and commune with who knows what, to clear my head a bit. For reasons that you will understand, I don't do this very often and when I do, it's usually early in the morning or late in the evening, when there are no other souls about to look at me sideways. Callanish 111, shown above, is a wonderful small circle, situated on a little hill and surrounded by big hills. The views are sensational on a clear day and I often wonder what the prehistoric folk who raised it there were intending to achieve in placing the stones in that position. These stones are about half a mile or so from the main Callanish site and by no means inferior. No one really knows why standing stones were erected and there are many theories. One local legend says that giants living here on the island refused to be converted to Christianity by Saint Kieran and were then turned into stone as a punishment. I think that is probably as good an explanation as any.

Technology Rules ok. The Royal Mail have announced that the first post vans in Europe to be fuelled by Hydrogen will be based at the sorting office in Stornoway and used to deliver mail all over Lewis. Two Ford Transits are being adapted to burn Hydrogen and will be delivered this Summer. We have a recently built multi million pound high tech waste disposal site here which has a bio digester to process rubbish without it having to be buried or taken off the island by boat. Organic waste collected from wheelie bins is decomposed in the digester to produce Methane. The Methane then powers a gas engine, to create electricity which is used to electrolyse water to produce hydrogen, which will fuel the vans. As always with tecky subjects, I haven't a clue what I'm talking about and have gathered this fascinating story from a newspaper.

Now for geese and cockles. During the time I've been writing this blog, I've regularly mentioned the war of attrition that exists between crofters and the rapidly increasing Greylag Goose population here. The geese are considered a major nuisance because of the amount of good grazing grass they eat and the damage and mess caused by their droppings. In some quarters, they are considered to be public enemy number one, well in front of the poor hedgehogs and the vicious mink, both of which are being progressively eradicated throughout these islands by trapping.
A variety of methods, including scaring and shooting, have been tried to reduce the geese numbers, but still they breed and multiply. With obsessive desperation, Scottish Natural Heritage are about to start an ingenious sounding pilot scheme to control the breeding productivity of the geese by oiling their eggs. The plan is for SNH staff to locate goose nests and then coat all eggs found with liquid paraffin. This will seal the shell and sterilise the egg. The theory goes that until the egg deteriorates over a period of weeks, the birds are fooled into believing they are sitting on viable eggs. Eventually, they may lay a second clutch of eggs, which are then also oiled. If the experiment works, the oiling project will become widespread all over the isles.
I don't for one moment think this will be the end of the Nation v Greylag Goose battle and I look forward to boring you rigid with further updates in future blogs.

The plane to Barra lands on the beach runway on Traigh Mhor. The sands there are home to huge amounts of cockles which have been collected for hundreds of years by local people for food and more recently by professional collectors to sell. There are a few people who earn a living by harvesting the cockles. A new study has just discovered that the number of cockles present has dropped dramatically in recent years and that current levels of harvesting are not sustainable. Earlier studies, between 1964 and 1993, found a total of about 1000 tonnes of cockles on the beaches. The mass of cockles found in the new study is the lowest ever recorded at about 200 tonnes and no one is quite sure why.
The Western Isles Council and Scottish Natural Heritage, who funded the latest survey, are now going to ponder the implications of these findings and come up with a management plan.

In my blog of 1 November last year, I told the tale of how the lifeboat and coastguard on Skye were called out to investigate some red and white flashing lights which had been seen offshore and were thought to be from a boat in distress. The lights turned out to be attached to a model boat which had been launched and which carried a banner bearing the legend 'Happy 42nd Birthday Ollie'. The rescue services were not pleased to have their limited resources used in this manner.
Well, a similar event has happened again, this time in Orkney. An air and sea search involving 50 people was called off yesterday morning after what were believed to be distress flares turned out to be paper Chinese lanterns launched from Kirkwall. Members of the public had contacted the coastguard to say they had seen multiple red lights in the sky. Two lifeboats and a helicopter from Orkney searched the area for seven hours, assisted by a Northlink ferry. Kirkwall airport had to be opened so that the helicopter could refuel twice during the overnight search. The police also lent a hand, but nothing was found. Later, the coastguard discovered that a group of people in Kirkwall had launched some glowing red paper lanterns into the sky. The lanterns apparently have candles inside and work like miniature hot air balloons.
A spokesman for the coastguard is reported to have said, ' I don't yet know how much this major operation cost, but I wish people wouldn't do this sort of thing'.
Not a happy chap.

WHALEBONE ARCH, BRAGAR, LEWIS.


When I started visiting Lewis years ago, one of the first sights I came across, which intrigued me, was this 19 foot high whalebone arch stood outside of a house in Bragar, on the Westside. The arch has an interesting history, which I've only discovered more recently. It's from an 80 foot Blue Whale, which was washed up on a nearby beach in 1920. At the time it was discovered, the poor creature still had the harpoon which killed it embedded in its back. The whale lay rotting and falling apart on the beach for many months until the local Postmaster decided to remove the lower jaw bones and take them to his home as a permanent memento.
Some time in the Autumn of 1921, the men and boys of the village manhandled the two halves of the jawbone onto a sledge pulled by two horses and the procession wound its way to the Postmaster's house, where it was eventually proudly erected. The harpoon, which forms the centrepiece of the arch, was taken to a garage, where it was being cleaned and painted, when the harpoon head exploded and drove a huge hole into the garage wall. Mercifully and amazingly, no one was injured.
The arch has remained in the same place ever since and is now on the circuit of tourist attractions which the coach parties come to photograph.
By 2000 though, the arch had deteriorated to the point where restoration was required and consent to repair was given by the Western Isles Council and Historic Scotland. The arch was dismantled and taken to Stornoway, where a local company filled the cracks and other weather damage with Isopon car filler and then encased it in 12mm of fibreglass. From a distance, the arch looks ok, but this was a deeply unsympathetic travesty of a restoration and at close quarters it looks like a cheap plastic replica. It might have been better left to decay at its own pace, like the whale it came from.

Spent the last week with family in the South and had a lovely time, but am always pleased to be back in my own home. One of the things that struck me while I was away was how early the flowers were down there, compared to here. Other than a few daffodils, I've no cultivated or wild flowers in bloom yet, but Sussex is covered in Rhododendrons, Bluebells, Wood Anemones and Primroses just now.
The most absurd sighting during my trip , pointed out by my eagle eyed sister, were mobile telephone masts, disguised as trees, complete with artificial branches and a little aerial sticking out of the top. They look ridiculous but I suppose they're better than having ugly metal masts everywhere.

I have a tendency to be a lazy slob during the week after getting home from work, but tonight has been different for some reason. I've made a clootie dumpling to take to work for colleagues tomorrow and the breadmaker has just produced a freshly baked loaf. Plants have been potted on and I've had a wander round the village looking at lambs and taking in a gloriously warm, light and clear evening. I can feel an attack of smug self satisfaction coming on, which I'm going to try hard to suppress.

Did my second stretch serving coffee and cakes at the gallery on Saturday. There's something very satisfying about dispensing espressos and lemon drizzle cake to the public for a few hours, but not sure if I would want to do it all day, every day, for a living. Still it will keep me off the streets for a few months.

SHEILING ON THE PENTLAND ROAD NEAR ACHMOR, LEWIS.




Until the 1950's, Sheilings ( Gaelic 'An Airigh ') were in regular use throughout the islands. The one in the picture is a a modern version, probably replacing an older stone and turf building on the same site. Between May and August each year, the cattle were taken to the summer grazings on the moors and would be looked after by the women and children of the family, often while the menfolk were away fishing. The women would live with their children in these huts, which would have had home made chairs and tables and beds of heather.
The tradition of living in the sheilings during the summer died out about fifty years ago and many of them have fallen down and been absorbed into the landscape. Now, lonely gable ends with chimneys intact are often the only signs that a sheiling was there. There are a few left standing and still used, particularly on the Pentland Road and at Cuishader, Ness. Some families have maintained or restored their own sheilings as peaceful places to visit and spend time away from the everyday world.

Now the clocks have gone forward, the island is lighter, seems warmer and Spring is almost here. One of my neighbours has just started to cut his peats for next Winter and the rest of us will follow during the next few weeks. The first lambs have been born and are gambolling about happily, blissfully unaware of what the future holds for them. There are grey lag geese all over the croft and nearby grazings and I heard the first drumming snipe of the year circling the house after dark on Wednesday evening. The corncrakes will arrive in the next few weeks, although this village does not really have the right habitat for them. They are much more common a few miles up the road, where they can find plenty of cover in reeds, iris and butterbur.

I seem to have found a new career for myself. A friend has an art gallery and coffee shop some distance from here and has asked me to help out on occasional Saturdays throughout the Summer. After being closed for the Winter, the gallery opened again today with an exhibition of new paintings and I have spent all of this afternoon happily making coffee and serving cake to dozens of visitors. Have started to learn the fine art of making espressos and cappucinos with one of those great gurgling chrome Italian coffee machines and have thoroughly enjoyed myself. My weekends can be quite unstructured, so this new occupation helps me use my spare time usefully.

The funeral of the young South Uist man who went missing on Boxing Day was held today. Many people on Uist searched every day for weeks until his body was found in a loch a couple of weeks ago. There is a sense of sadness throughout the islands at his loss and buses were provided to meet ferries so that people from far and wide could attend the funeral and pay their last respects.

FORMER CARINISH INN, NORTH UIST

Originally built in 1703, the Carinish Inn was a hostelry from then until late last year. The owners, a local building firm, put it on the market and after a few false starts, it was sold to the Free Church of Scotland. With one gigantic bound, the pub metamorphosed into a church on November 18. Services are now being held there regularly and one end of the building is about to be converted into a Manse, to house the new Minister. Two small long established churches on Uist have been sold to help fund this project. One of the brains behind this pub to church transformation has been a Minister on Benbecula, who I have regular contact with through my own work. Over the years, my views on the Church and religion in general have been fairly lukewarm, but this particular Minister, a good man by any measure, has helped to restore my faith. He is particularly interested in addictions and his church has set up a variety of non judgemental support services and self help groups for people with drug and alcohol problems, of whom there are many on these islands. They have a full time paid alcohol worker and whenever I have needed to get someone into rehab urgently, he has obtained funding and a place at their residential addiction rehabilitation centre in Northern Ireland quickly and without fuss. An application for a state managed rehab would involve vast amounts of form filling, problems over funding and a wait of many months and sometimes longer.

The issue of the Sabbath and Sunday ferry sailings to and from Lewis continues to generate great passion on both sides of the argument. Last week, the Islands Member for the Scottish Parliament raised the subject with the Government. The response was - "We recognise that there are very different and irreconcilable views about the potential introduction of Sunday sailings on the Ullapool to Stornoway ferry service." The Government spokesperson went on to say that "Calmac ( the ferry operator) is best placed to consider this issue". Calmac have indicated that they will take no action on Sunday sailings until the new reduced ferry fare structure is reviewed in three years time. So that's it then. No prospect of change for at least three years. Pro Sunday ferry campaigners are dismayed at this news whilst the Lord's Day Observance Society are dead chuffed.

During the last few years, electronic tagging has become commonplace for some released prisoners and as a sentence at court. Well, the idea has caught on and the EU currently have an intention to introduce compulsory electronic tagging and individual recording for every single sheep in the land. There are hundreds of thousands of sheep wandering around Lewis and Harris and the notion that they all be tagged to keep track of them sounds like bureaucratic lunacy. At present, a company called SERCO has the contract to monitor tagged offenders here and I suppose they could moonlight by keeping an electronic eye on sheep who are not complying with their curfews on Saturday nights. You may think that I'm spinning you a yarn and making this up, but not so. It's a genuine proposal from the politicians. Understandably, the National Farmers Union and Crofters Union are not best pleased and are making urgent representations to Brussels to stop this nonsense before it starts.

I've just started to feel that I'm emerging from hibernation after a long harsh Winter. The days are lengthening, it's warmer and it's raining less. My daffodils have still not burst into flower yet, but after months of dark evenings of self imposed confinement in front of a warm radiator with an improving book, I'm beginning to get out a bit more. Last night, I went into Stornoway to see an Island Book Trust slide show and presentation on the the history of migration between Lewis and Patagonia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rivetting.
Tomorrow night, it's a trip to the cinema to see Frost/Nixon and Friday evening, it's a concert by a brilliant group of female Gaelic singers called Lewis Women.
Hell, It's becoming one endless educational and social whirl. If I can find time in between engagements, I'll blog again.

UIG, LEWIS - TOWARDS HARRIS.


Have been spared for another week, but only just. Returning from Benbecula on Thursday afternoon, the pilot was about to land the plane on the runway at Stornoway when we were caught by a fierce gust of wind. The plane hit the ground with a bang, tipped onto one side and narrowly avoided flipping over on one wing. The Captain, my hero, regained control and immediately took off again. We circled for about ten minutes before the pilot approached the runway from a different direction and landed us safely. We get used to flying in difficult conditions here, but this experience left me silent and sucking my lips for an hour or two.
The plane is not tiny. It's a BAe Jetstream nineteen seat twin prop aircraft and there were fifteen passengers and crew on it at the time of this little adventure.
I'm beginning to think seriously about taking my car and driving to the Southern Isles via the ferries in future. As well as laying bets about the chances of my returning safely from the plane, colleagues are also checking to see if I'm travelling before booking flights themselves. They seem worried that I'm cursed and unlucky.

Uist and Barra are carpeted with cheerful daffodils now, but mine have still not burst into flower yet. Barra is about a hundred miles South of here, so maybe my daffodils will emerge in the next week or two. The round blobs in the frog spawn are beginning to take on the shape of tadpoles and the lambing season is about to start.
The poor weather continues though and while it's reasonably warm and high winds have subsided, apart from at the airport, I can't remember the last day it didn't rain heavily on the croft.

Since my first and last trip to St Kilda over twenty years ago, with son and a friend, I've wanted to return and explore the main island, Hirta, and see all the places I've often read about, but never visited. Until recently, the journey there was difficult and expensive, but there are now regular reasonably priced charter trips in the summer tourist season. Well, I've got myself booked on a boat to St Kilda with an organised group in mid July and I'm quite looking forward to that. The organisation is called the Island Book Trust, which manages written historical archives about the Outer Hebrides and arranges regular talks about places and people of local interest. Of most interest to me though, throughout the Summer, they hire boats and take members to normally inaccessible small islands, like St Kilda, The Shiants, The Monarch Isles and the Flannans. I love visiting remote islands, especially if they have a past history of permanent occupation and hope to go on some of the other trips in future years.

Very sadly, Hebrides News has just reported that a body, believed to be that of a young man who went missing on Boxing day, was found in a Loch in South Uist this morning. He disappeared after a dance and there have been daily searches for him since then.

A CORNER OF STORNOWAY HARBOUR




The flu worsened last week and I ended up spending three days off work. Although I do enjoy curling up on the sofa in front of a warm fire with a cup of cocoa and watching rubbish on TV, I much prefer to do it when I'm feeling well. This dose of flu has hit me hard and made me feel quite old. Can't cope with even minor illnesses now as well as I did just five or six years ago. I'm left with a permanent headache and catarrh, but went back to work a few days ago because it was more interesting there than here.

Signs of Spring abound. The weather here has been vile for the last month or so and I'm getting mighty fed up of it. This is not the place to come for tropical sunshine and banana trees growing in the street, but the weather has been seriously crap this Winter and It's time for an improvement. The daffodil stalks are up in the garden, though no flowers yet, and the rock doves are cavorting with each other in the most outrageous and wanton manner, usually in full view on top of my bird table. Having led a reclusive, modest and sheltered life so far, I've been quite thrown by their shameless antics.

For the last two or three years, the frogs have spawned in deep ruts in the access road to the house. Now that the road has been levelled and improved beyond recognition and a proper drainage dyke opened at the side of it, the frogs have adapted well. Sauntering down there this morning, I came across almost continual masses of spawn for about 100 yards along the dyke, so it looks like being a good year for amphibians. Whilst the Winter has been rubbish with almost daily rain, it's not been too cold and I've been surprised to note that the frogspawn is about two weeks later this year than last, which was much colder.

Pleasingly, I've been adopted for the last week or so by a trio of beautiful greenfinches, who are feeding from the bird table for all they are worth and look very healthy and colourful. A couple of hooded crows have also started to feed from the birdtable every day and they scare off all the other birds while they're here. They are quite handsome creatures though and I'm grateful that a variety of birds are now visiting the garden on a regular basis.

Over in Sin City, Stornoway, the Co-Op have announced that they are going to open a franchise of Peacocks the clothing shop, within the store, but more importantly, they're also going to open a Fairtrade coffee bar. That's a very good thing and I'll be pleased to give them my business. Tesco are also expanding and I think that's got the Co-op a bit rattled.

Off to work in Uist and Barra for a few days from tomorrow, so see you soon.

STRANDED RESCUE HELICOPTER ON BARRA





Tripping the light fantastic down the West side beaches of Barra a week or two ago, I came across this Royal Navy chopper parked on the grazings. It had arrived the day before to take a seriously ill person to hospital in Glasgow, but developed mechanical problems and had to return to Barra. A second helicopter was summoned to take the patient to hospital, where he made a full recovery. At the time I took this photo, the crew were getting bored waiting for an engineer and spare parts to arrive from the mainland.

Life is a little empty and quiet now that son and grandaughter have returned home. I had completely forgotten what a high energy job looking after young children is. GD is a happy smiling two year old bundle of joy who was making her first visit here. She didn't like the wind very much, but chugged around like an express train and seemed to enjoy herself. There is a fantastic award winning playground for children at Ness and an indoor soft play area at the Sports Centre in Stornoway, both of which we visited and which she loved. When the weather was poor, much time was spent grovelling around on the sitting room floor with a variety of toys. I can proudly tell you that I have now fully re-aquainted myself with the goings on of Noddy and Big Ears and the rest of the population of Toytown.

Whilst driving to the beautiful beach at Bosta on Great Bernera last weekend, we were lucky enough to see a pair of white tailed sea eagles at close quarters, hunting across the ridges to the side of us. This was a first sighting of these birds for son and was a great thrill for both of us. The eagles continued to soar nearby for quite a while, giving us wonderful clear views of them. They are gigantic, with a wing span of about two and a half metres and are often referred to as looking like flying barn doors.

Bad news for Kittiwakes, but possible good news for Harris. The population of Kittiwakes and Puffins, here and in Shetland, have decreased dramatically in recent years. Both of these birds feed largely on sandeels, which seem to be disappearing, probably because of warming seas. When the birds can't find sandeels, they try to eat snake pipefish, which have little nutritional value and which they can't digest. Unless a solution is found soon, the pretty Kittiwakes and colourful Puffins may become rare sights.

Down in Harris, the residents have voted this week to make the entire island a National Park. With a turnout of 71%, 732 people voted in favour of the proposal, with 311 against. The pro Park steering group will now approach the Scottish Government to begin consultations, which they hope will lead to the creation of Scotland's third National Park. The hope is that Park status will preserve the landscape, help develop the local economy and breathe new life into the Gaelic language and heritage.
This might just be the right time to raid your piggy bank and buy that cottage in Harris you've always wanted, before prices rocket.

In the last blog, I was exercised about the proposed closures of first and second year secondary schools and care units in the community for elderly people. The penny pinching continues. The council have now agreed to increase home help charges by 30%. They are also raising the charge that pensioners in care homes pay for their cups of tea by 300%, from 20p to 60p. Residents of care homes are also going to have to pay double the current rate for their meals.
All is not lost though for the rest of us because Western Isles council have announced that they have frozen the council tax for the third year running. Why? I don't suppose they have one eye on re-election.

Have to go now 'cos I've got a serious and possibly terminal dose of man flu that's getting worse and I need to put my jim jams on, get some cocoa and go to bed.

See you next time, probably.

DESERTED CHURCH, ISLE OF SCARP

DESERTED CHURCH, ISLE OF SCARP.



Last summer, I managed to get a lift on a boat to the Island of Scarp, a short distance offshore from the village of Hushinish in North Harris. Like many other Scottish islands, Scarp has a sad history of having had a reducing population for many years, leading to eventual abandonment. In 1881, there were 213 people living on the island, but by the 1940's, there were only 100 folk left. The Hydro Electric Board persistently refused to provide an electricity supply to Scarp and in 1966, the Church of Scotland decided not to replace the lay preacher. The school closed in 1967, followed by the post office two years later, which led to a complete cessation of mail deliveries to the island. The telephone cable was damaged in a storm and the General Post Office refused to repair it. Life became so intolerable for the few remaining islanders that they finally abandoned their homes in 1971 and left to live elsewhere. One book I have says that there were twelve people living on Scarp at the very end, whilst another says that only seven remained. There are two or three houses still used as holiday homes during the summer, but as far as I know, no one lives on Scarp all the year round now. The church in the photo was left with its pulpit and pews in place and there they remain to this day, slowly rotting away.
A very interesting and quite famous experiment took place on Scarp in 1934. A German Inventor, Dr Gerhard Zucker, decided to try his hand at launching rockets, containing the island mail, from Harris to Scarp. Regrettably, the venture failed when the rockets kept exploding in flight and the containers with the letters in them were scattered all over the land. I read somewhere that some of the stamped letters that survived occasionally turn up at auction. This whole episode was the subject of a decent film called 'The Rocket Post', made a few years ago, but which failed to get a general release. I saw it at the film club in Stornoway and it's well worth watching if you can find a DVD copy on the internet. By complete coincidence, I met a woman this afternoon who was an extra in the film.

Two much valued community facilities, probably unique to the Outer Hebrides, are in danger of being closed down for ever. In a number of villages on the islands, there are small residential care units, where elderly and infirm people who don't want to go into a home or leave their communities, can live independently, but with care staff on 24 hour cover available for when they need them. These care units also take people for short term respite stays, which helps users and their families when they need support, but enables them to remain in their own homes the rest of the time.

The second facility probably about to vanish are first and second year secondary education units attached to primary schools. Several of these schools provide education for children up to the age of about 14, so that they can be taught in their own communities before transferring to one of the bigger secondary schools, usually many miles away, in the third year. Most people agree that this benefits the children by helping them to develop confidence and cope better with the larger schools when they do transfer.
A permanent obsession with cost cutting and increased centralisation has led the local council to propose closing the care units and S1 and S2 secondary schools. It looks as if the care units will go soon, although the council is thinking of renting them back to residents as tenancies and offering home help support.

The Scottish Education Minister has refused to allow the closure of the schools for now, but it's almost certainly only a matter of time before they go.

The care units and schools are important to this community and help remote islands such as this to continue to survive. The money ought to follow facilities identified by residents as socially necessary. Instead, as in many other parts of the UK, the politicians here are constantly nibbling away at community resources to save money. This may well ultimately contribute to the demise of island communities like Lewis, which provide a wonderful quality of life and a generally safe and secure place to raise children without many of the problems found in heavily populated urban centres.

All well at the Chateau this week. Number one son and grandaughter arriving Thursday. I'm taking a few days off work to spend time with them.

DALBEG BEACH, LEWIS


There are lots of lovely beaches to choose from on Lewis and Harris. This is one of my favourites. Even in mid Winter, it's a glorious place to visit, especially during fierce storms, when the waves boil and come crashing in from the sea. It's small, reasonably sheltered and has fine golden sand which is great for children to play on. It's only a few miles from here and I plan to take my grandaughter there to build sandcastles when she arrives in a couple of weeks, if the weather is good.

Oh the weather. I've spent the last week or two fantasising about being marooned by fifteen foot of snow, unable to get out and go to work. House cosy, stove chugging away and food in the fridge. Curled up on the sofa with one of the many unread books here and occasional flicking of the remote control to move between repeats of Sherlock Holmes, Midsomer Murders and Pie in the Sky on daytime TV. Friends have sent photos of cars and gardens in the South which have been completely engulfed by snow. So where is it then? Well,It's not here. I feel completely cheated because all we've had are a few flurries during the last few days, none of which has settled. It's quite cold and icy, but no worse than usual at this time of year and I'm really cheesed off about it.

Did the house survive the housewarming ? It certainly did. Sadly, no one behaved badly, so relatively little to report back. Lots of food, music, wine and games. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and the last few guests didn't leave until 4am on Sunday morning. Have lived alone so long that I've almost forgotten how nice it is to have a house full of people making merry. Think I might repeat the event in the Spring.

Last blog, I mentioned the dispute going on between the Harris golf club and Sports Scotland, who are withholding a £75,000 grant because the club was refusing to open on Sundays. Since then, the club committee have met again and confirmed that they will not agree to make the course available to the public on the Sabbath under any circumstances and it now looks as if they may lose the grant. I do love to hear of a principled stance.

This morning, about 9 o'clock, I was sat eating my breakfast and musing about the future of the world, the true meaning of life and how stupid I am to have forgotten to buy a new bag of coffee yesterday. Looking out of the window in between these great thoughts, a buzzard arrived and perched on a fence post about a hundred yards away. This bird often hunts on the croft, moving from post to post and ruined house gable end to rocky outcrop, in a regular circuit. It usually spends up to half an hour on one perch, but today, this buzzard has remained on the same post for about five hours without moving. I've been watching it all morning, so am quite sure that it hasn't flown away and returned. The weather today is dry, windless and about 4 degrees. Any ideas why it stayed in the same place for so long?

CROFT SHEEP

There are about twenty sheep on the croft just now and the only thing in life that seems to interest them is food. Their owner calls up to feed them every day with supplements, which they love. They consider all humans as great providers and whenever they see me, charge forward at a rate of knots. I can't leave the house without being followed and they can spot me from five hundred yards. Makes me feel like the Pied Piper. The sheep shown above are staring at me through the kitchen window in the forlorn hope that I will go out and ply them with whatever it is that sheep eat. It can feel quite spooky to walk into the kitchen to see this lot standing there waiting for me to appear.
There's something of the appearance of the Midwich Cuckoos about this flock.

Lots happening on the islands this last week, some good, some not so good.

The young man who went missing in South Uist on Boxing Day has still not been found and the real mystery is that there have been no sightings whatsoever of him, nor any clues to what his fate might be. The anguish his family must be suffering is unimaginable and it must be harder to maintain hope as each week passes.

Some time last year, I mentioned that there was a plan to build a wave farm at Siader, Barvas, here on Lewis. That plan has now been approved and construction will commence shortly.This will be the very first commercial wave farm in Scotland and is wonderful news. It will create about 70 badly needed new jobs and will produce 4MW of electricity supplying the needs of about 1800 homes. Lewis residents are keen to support renewable energy schemes that don't wreak havoc on the environment, unlike the recently rejected outrageous proposal to erect 181 giant turbines on pristine moorland in the North and West of the Island.

Down in Harris, at Scarista, there is a golf course sited in the most spectacular position overlooking the ocean. Golf club members have applied for a grant of £75,000 from SportScotand to upgrade the clubhouse and improve the drainage. The awarding of that grant is now at risk because the club refuses to open on Sundays. SportScotland, who have agreed the grant in principle, say they will not hand the money over until the club agrees to permit golfers to play on the course seven days a week. A spokesman for the club has said that religious beliefs prevent them agreeing to open the course on the Sabbath and they seem to be prepared to lose the grant funding as a consequence. SportScotland say they are unable to provide finance for clubs or groups who do not make their facilities available to the public every day. They say that they have responsibilities under 2006 Equality Legislation to ensure that all schemes they help to fund are accessible to all, "regardless of gender, race, disability, age, religion or belief, sexual orientation, marital/civil partnership status or social background." So there we are.
Just now, there is stalemate over this issue, but a compromise is currently being searched for.

A skellybob has been found over in Uig on the West side of Lewis. A human skeleton, thought to be 4000 years old, was discovered after soil erosion caused by one of the recent severe storms exposed a small stone coffin, known as a kist. The remains were found inside. The archaeologists have gone into raptures at this find and one of them said "when we find a burial in a small kist, we automatically think of the Bronze Age." Indeed we do.

Do you know, it is 62% more expensive to heat a house in Stornoway than in Bristol? I only know this gem because our local MSP received this information in response to enquiries he made in Parliament. It's apparently because of the wind chill factor we experience here, denied to the good citizens of Bristol. Why Bristol? I have no idea.

Every month, I get the plane to Benbecula to spend three days working in the Southern Isles. Twice during the three years I've been making this journey, the plane has turned back in mid air after developing technical problems. Those experiences make flights interesting and unpredictable and colleagues have started laying bets on the liklihood of my returning safely each time I travel. On one of those occasions, when buzzers buzzed loudly in the cockpit and red lights started flashing in the cabin, the passenger in front of me collapsed with an anxiety attack. There are no cabin staff on this flight and reassurances from me had little effect. The poor soul left the aircraft back at Stornoway a bumbling wreck and has not been seen since.
Well, last week, in my absence, the same plane was landing at Benbecula when the tail smacked the runway tarmac causing some damage, but no injuries to the ten passengers - apart from traumatising them for life. The airline has refused to comment on suggestions that the incident was caused by poor cargo and baggage loading. The plane is being repaired this week by the nice man in charge of sellotape, glue and sealing wax. Life was never so exciting in the South.
In case you want to look out for my welfare, I'll be travelling to Benbecula again on this plane on 10 February.

It's the long delayed housewarming party here on Saturday evening. Have invited mainly colleagues from work to come and have a nosy round, so looking forward to that. Most of the people I work with are sober, sensible and mature, but I'm hoping someone will disgrace themselves and provide much needed Winter entertainment.

BUTT OF LEWIS LIGHTHOUSE, NESS, LEWIS.


This is my favourite lighthouse. It's sited at the Northernmost point of Lewis, about 30 miles from here. The light, made of red brick, became operational in 1862 and was built by David Stevenson. It's 121 feet tall and has been fully automatic since 1998. It has a range of 25 miles. The lighthouse functions as the monitoring station for automatic lights on the Flannan Isles, North Rona and Sula Sgier and is itself now remotely controlled from the Northern Lighthouse Board headquarters in Edinburgh. There are great views out to sea from all round the light and it's probably the best place on the island to look for whales, sharks and dolphins. The cliffs all around the Butt are home to a variety of seabirds, making it a birdwatchers delight. A few years ago, I was sat on the cliff top there when I watched a Peregrine falcon strike a rock dove out of the sky, before taking it away to eat.
I love sitting quietly near the lighthouse on rare warm and still sunny days, watching the Gannets plunge diving for fish, just offshore.
The Butt of Lewis, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is the windiest place in Great Britain.

Which brings me nicely to current weather. It's cold and moderately windy right now, but the Met Office have forecast overnight winds of between 50-60 miles an hour from about midnight tonight. I've just looked up the Beaufort Scale, which describes winds of these speeds as:
'Storm force 10-11, seldom experienced inland. Trees will be uprooted, there will be loss of roof slates and chimney pots and considerable structural damage is likely'.

I've been working away in the Southern Isles this week and was stranded again on Barra for two days on Wednesday and Thursday, when the ferry was confined to harbour as a consequence of poor conditions at sea. Finally got home yesterday evening and very pleased I am to be here. It only takes about an hour to get the central heating to warm up the house and the stove roaring away. Now that the renovation is complete, the house is easy to heat, largely draught free and welcoming.

Although jobs continue to be lost here, some new posts are being created. Scottish Natural Heritage are advertising for 15 temporary field workers for the Uist Wader Project. As in previous years, the successful applicants will trap and collect hedgehogs, which have been eating their way through the eggs of ground nesting birds and causing a reduction in the bird population. Originally, the captured hedgehogs were killed, but attitudes have changed and the spiky beasties are now sent to the mainland for rehoming. The field worker posts pay £7:50 per hour for a 37 hour week, between now and mid May.
The British Trust for Conservation Volunteers are also advertising an interesting sounding job, for an apprentice to work on the management of Machair- the fertile, species rich coastal strips of land here. The person appointed will work as part of the RSPB team and learn about habitat management for Corncrakes, Corn Buntings and the endangered Great Yellow Bumble Bee. Sounds like a wonderful opportunity and I quite fancy it myself, age and lack of relevant qualifications notwithstanding.

Have gathered up a sleeping bag, torch, mint imperials and a glass of red wine. Almost time to go to the Anderson shelter to wait for Armageddon. Hope to blog again if I'm spared.

SUNRISE - 8:50am WEDNESDAY 7 JANUARY- PENTLAND ROAD, LEWIS


I photographed this lovely sunrise on my way to work a few days ago. The weather was warm, dry and settled, very different from today. As I write this at the kitchen table, the rain is hitting the double glazed windows horizontally and causing them to vibrate loudly. The wind is howling round the eaves and lifting the tiles on the roof. There was some damage to the roof caused by the last storm a couple of weeks ago and I'm waiting for the roofer to come and do the repairs. He called in earlier this week and discovered that about twenty tiles need replacing and arranged to come back yesterday to fit them. This storm has been blowing more or less constantly for about 36 hours now and was so bad yesterday morning that it would have been madness for the roofer to climb up his ladders. Hopefully, the weather will settle and he'll come back this week to finish the job.

In early November, I ordered a dining table and chairs from a company in England and was given a three week delivery date. It will be no surprise to regular readers to hear that that promise turned out to be nonsense and the dining set failed to arrive. Consequently, I was left with the prospect of eating Christmas lunch off the kitchen floor. A flurry of increasingly tetchy emails to the manufacturer resulted in them discovering that they had sent my goods to the courier on the day they said they would, but the courier had let the furniture sit in their warehouse for eleven days and failed to deliver them to me. No one was able to explain why, but at that point, on the 22 December, the manufacturer got their act together and told me they would try and deliver it by Christmas. I had no confidence that the table and chairs would arrive, but lo and behold, the door bell rang late on Christmas Eve morning and there was a nice man from the local delivery service with my stuff. Christmas was saved and the sequel to this story is that the maker has contacted me since to say that they were so fed up with their courier that they've sacked them and employed a different company. Result!

During the last year, I've bored readers of this blog to death with stories of unreliable and unavailable Lewis tradesmen and their generally arrogant attitude towards paying customers. Well, ironically, the tide has turned, the credit crunch is biting hard and many of these same tradesmen are now touting for work in the local newspaper. I'd like to tell you that I wish them well, but I just can't bring myself to utter the words. I suspect that if I was doing my renovation now, it would be done more quickly, less expensively and to a higher standard. Never mind.

In the early hours of Boxing day, a 21 year old man from South Uist disappeared on the way home from a dance. There has been no sighting of him, but he is not thought to have left the islands by boat or plane. Police and volunteers have been looking for him every day since he went missing, but his disappearance remains a complete mystery. Much of the land mass and many of the lochs on Uist have been searched by search parties and divers, without any clues being found. No evidence of accident or foul play has been uncovered, but the hunt for the missing man is beginning to wind down and concern for his safety is increasing.

DERELICT COTTAGE, NORTH UIST.

Happy New Year to you all.

The pretty derelict cottage shown above is situated a few yards from the entrance to The RSPB Balranald nature reserve on North Uist. There are hundreds of similar cottages all over the islands, slowly decaying into the ground. Anywhere else, they would be sold at a high price or renovated, providing housing for families and holidaymakers and improving the landscape. I've never been sure why so many houses are left to rot and fall down here, but there are a number of possible reasons. Many properties have been in the same family for generations and the attachment is so deep that the current owners can't bring themselves to sell on to strangers. Often, the house will be owned by people who live abroad and have plans to retire to the family home and croft, but for many reasons, never do so. Houses can be owned collectively by several family members and squabbles and disagreements about future use will prevent sale or renovation. Perhaps most often, people who inherit these unmodernised houses are simply unable to afford to restore them, particularly now that it is almost impossible to obtain renovation grants unless the property is on a croft.
For now, the cottage in the picture serves to provide a daily roost for starlings, lined up on the roofline and chimney stacks.

So, what's to become of us all this year? Relatives have gone home after a lovely Christmas and with a bit of a struggle, I returned to work yesterday with a fixed smile on my face and goodwill in my heart. After a couple of hours, it felt like the holiday had never happened. Familiar?
Now that the house is more or less finished and habitable, I plan to spend more time outside in the coming months.The shed is badly in need of paint and repairs and I want to create vegetable patches in various places on the croft where I can find arable land. Much of the croft is rock, bog and deep peat and crops don't grow easily. The front garden(?) remains waterlogged and the plan for it is to improve the drainage, dry it out a bit and establish some flower beds, difficult with the ferocious winds we have here. Putting up a polytunnel is part of the master plan, but I haven't yet decided where it can be sited or how it can be protected to prevent it being blown away to the mainland.
I'm expecting a variety of visitors throughout the year, all of whom will offer welcome suggestions, advice or muscle. Heating costs are a major expenditure in Winter, so I intend to cut peat this year and persuade unsuspecting souls to come and have a bit of a break here in April or May, in return for help wielding a peat iron.

Nothing too dramatic happening on the island so early in the year. The weather has been calm and fairly mild for the last week or two and most folks are just scurrying about, quietly getting on with their lives and looking forward to the end of regular storms and longer hours of daylight.
The employment situation continues to be dire, with lots of redundancies recently, but there is a glimmer of hope because the Harris Tweed industry seems to be picking up and the local fabrication yard, which has been making turbine towers, is said to have secured new contracts.
Woolworths and the fish processing factory have gone, but the local small craft brewery remains open and the good quality restaurants have done well over the holidays.

LOCH SEAFORTH, BOWGLASS, ISLE OF HARRIS



What a week. Was stranded on Barra when the ferry didn't sail because of poor weather at sea. Only got back this morning. Got my first puncture in many years whilst in the wilds of Harris. Nothing but sheep for miles and the wheel nuts were on so tight I couldn't undo them with my wheel brace. A number of tiles have come off the house roof in recent gales - The roof was not replaced during the renovation - just patched up to save money. The shed roof is leaking and the gas bottle supplying the hob ran out, so I couldn't cook until a replacement was obtained. My electric shaver has broken down - stress I expect - and the manual razor has brought me out in a rash. We've had horrendous weather, with particularly high winds in the last few days and my metal gate has blown off down the croft.
This computer has been playing up, hence the 3 weeks since the last blog. Other than that, all is well here at the Chateau. The house is lovely and warm, I finish work for two weeks from Monday and I've got family coming to stay for Christmas. I'm usually a bit of a grump about Christmas, but have tried hard to enter into the spirit of it all this year by putting up a tree with lovely twinkly lights on it and I've made a Christmas cake for the first time ever. It's so full of brandy that I've pinned a drink drive warning on it. The cake looks ok covered with marzipan and icing , but is a testament to the idiot proof quality of Delia's recipe, rather than any skill on my part. The cards are sent, presents purchased and wrapped and the turkey is in the freezer. A side of venison managed to hurl itself into my car boot whilst I was in North Uist and by a route I'm not entirely sure of, I've become the proud owner of a whole salmon the size of a small whale. My sister and brother in law are going to have to do some serious eating whilst here over Christmas.
Good news. Number one son and lovely grandaughter are coming to visit for a week in February, so very much looking forward to that.

Mixed fortunes on the island this week. Lots of jobs lost at Woolworths and the salmon factory, and multiple arrests made following the seizure of a large quantity of cocaine by the police. There is not a significant problem with heroin on Lewis, but cocaine and cannabis seem plentiful.

There has been a hare brained plan by the EU to close the entire West coast fishery, which would have meant that hundreds of island prawn fisherman would have been out of work, causing an economic disaster here. Fortunately, common sense has prevailed, the fishery has been reprieved and a lot of fishing families will have a much happier Christmas.
The Harris Tweed industry has been going through the mill recently and a year or two ago, it looked as if the tweed might disappear completely as the factories encountered financial difficulties. One of the mills closed down with the loss of 70 jobs, but has now reopened with plans for rapid expansion and is going to open a visitor centre soon to show tourists how tweed is made and to sell cloth to them from a shop in the mill.

Hope you all have a lovely Christmas and New Year.

TOLSTA CHAOLAIS & LITTLE BERNERA FROM THE CROFT


Before I came to live in the Outer Hebrides three years ago, all my belongings were packed into cardboard boxes and there they've remained ever since. Now that the house renovation is more or less finished, I've started to unpack the boxes, many of which contain books. Having built some bookcases recently with the help of a visiting friend, there is now somewhere to put them. I was a bit anxious that the books would have been damaged by damp and cold, but they are all fine. I originally packed them well in shredded paper and bubble wrap and apart from a little mustiness, they are all in good condition. It has been quite exciting to rip open boxes to find favourite old books, like long lost friends.

The island is much quieter now that the tourists have gone and we're all battening down the hatches for the Winter. The sheep have been taken off the croft for a few weeks, to be put to the ram and the weather is deteriorating rapidly. As I write this, It's snowing heavily, unusual for here and I haven't seen a car for a couple of hours. The hills of Uig and Harris, seen through the kitchen window, look lovely, with a covering of snow on the tops.
I've started to feed the birds regularly again and a pair of chaffinches are competing with the rock doves at the bird table just now. Bird sightings of the month for me have been a Sea Eagle perched on a fence post at the side of the road in North Uist two weeks ago and about 20 waxwings feeding off berries on the Rowan tree outside of my window at work a couple of days ago.

The recession has started to affect the island with potentially serious consequences. The salmon processing factory in Stornoway is closing down with the loss of 130 jobs. With magnificent timing, the owners, a multi national company, have decided that the gates will close after Christmas. In addition to those redundancies, there are also likely to be jobs lost at the local hauliers who transport the fish and at a company who produce the boxes that the salmon is packed in. To make matters worse, Woolworths, a long established store in Stornoway, are in financial trouble and will probably close down in January with the loss of further jobs. On a small island like this, those jobs can't be replaced quickly or easily.

Figures provided by the Halifax this week show that the Outer Hebrides has the second lowest house prices in the UK. It's also regarded as one of the most agreeable and beautiful places in Britain to live, with good schools, clean air and a generally low crime rate. Before there is a general stampede for the ferry, fuel, groceries and household items are expensive and there is a serious shortage of public housing. Unemployment is rising and the weather can be quite bracing.
The cheapest place to buy a house, according to the Halifax, is said to be Pendle in Lancashire. I rather like Pendle, so perhaps it's there next.

I'm off to Inverness next weekend for a pre Christmas shopping trip. There are still a number of items I need to complete the renovation, which I can't get here, so a visit to B&Q and Homebase is called for. Apart from work, I haven't been away from the island for many months, so I'm really looking forward to the break. The last time I tried to get away, the plane failed to fly due to poor weather and it was a bit of a blow being stranded here when I had arranged to see family and friends. I'm planning to go on the ferry this time, so that I can bring stuff back with me in the car. At this time of the year though, when the weather is fiercely unpredictable, the sailings are cancelled regularly and the ship often remains cosy and secure in Stornoway harbour.
Now that the house is comfortable and warm, I've decided to remain on the Island this Christmas for the first time since I moved to live here. My sister and brother in law, who live in the South of England, are flying here on 23 December, so we all have our fingers crossed that the weather will be mild and the planes will fly.

CORN STOOKS, MUIR OF AIRD, BENBECULA


Some parts of the Islands continue to farm traditionally, especially in the Southern Isles. These corn stooks, an alternative to combining, sit in fields near Balivanich. I think they will be used for Winter cattle feed and they also have the advantage of providing shelter and homes for little furry things.
The weather has been dire for much of this last week, but I've enjoyed being on holiday and myself and visiting friend have achieved quite a lot in beween watching reruns of Morse and Miss Marple on daytime television. Bookcases have been built, blinds fitted and the utility room floor painted. I guess we could have been more productive, but step by step, the house is coming together and feeling less like a campsite. The recent drop in temperature has provided a good opportunity to test the oil central heating and solid fuel stove for long periods and both seem to be working well.
With a secure, office based job, it's easy to forget that life is much harder for some people here. Earlier this week, a shellfish trawler sank off the East coast of Lewis, but fortunately, the crew of three managed to get into a liferaft before the boat went down. A rescue operation by the Coastguard and Lifeboat got under way, but the fishermen were picked up by another fishing boat, which happened to be in the area and arrived at the scene before the rescue services. This could easily have been a disaster and incidents like this occur not infrequently, but tend not to be reported widely outside of the North of Scotland.

NEAR GALLAN HEAD, LEWIS


I'm feeling very chilled out just now. Finished work a couple of hours ago and have some holiday left, so not going back until a week on Monday. A friend is arriving tomorrow afternoon and is staying for two weeks. Although I do enjoy the solitude of this place, I'm always pleased to have company and someone to chat with for a while.

The house is warm and secure now, but has been sorely tested this week by horrendous weather. Winter has definitely arrived. A severe storm last Saturday lasted a full day and night. At one point, early on Sunday morning, the wind was hammering the house constantly and I thought the roof was going to come off. It helped to remember that the house has stood for nearly eighty years without succumbing to the elements. Long may it continue to do so. Mid week, we had a rare flurry of snow, which made driving very difficult for a few hours until the gritters got their act together. Ferries and flights have been disrupted throughout the week, but thankfully, the weather is calm and settled again now.
Only finishing off work remaining to do on the house. The one big job left is painting all of the downstairs skirtings and then it's just fitting blinds, bookcases, door knobs, coat rails and the like.
It's been almost exactly a year since the house was a semi derelict shell and the work started. Although I'm very pleased to have been able to breathe new life into an old property, it's been quite a painful experience dealing with builders and other tradesmen here and I have little doubt they have taken advantage of my naivete and inexperience, to my cost. The pain is rapidly receding now and a little voice at the back of my head is suggesting to me that I should renovate another house and do it all better, having learnt from this experience. I don't think so. Not yet anyway.

Grey lag geese have been officially appointed as villains of the month, hated by everybody it seems. They are particularly partial to Outer Hebridean grass and now have the combined might of the local council and crofter's organisations lined up against them. The problem is that life has been so agreeable for the geese in recent years that their numbers have increased quickly and there are now about six thousand of them eating and causing damage to crops and grazings here. Apparently, they leave so much of their droppings behind them that sheep and cattle are refusing to feed in fields where the geese have been. Well I never.
One councillor has said this week that there are so many geese grazing around the runway at Stornoway Airport that planes are in danger when taking off and landing. As I use the airport every three weeks or so, I have a vested interest in ensuring that the geese are removed as I'm about to fly. Maybe trained hunting eagles could be used to get them, which could also be developed as a tourist attraction, thus achieving two objectives at once -- " Roll up, roll up. geese killing by the Eagle Squadron will start in ten minutes time. Get your tickets here. Credit cards accepted".

In common with many parts of the mainland, there is a serious housing crisis here, with many people being unable to afford to buy a house and consequently, a huge demand for Social housing. There are currently about 750 people on the housing waiting list, with many of those having no chance of being allocated a home within a reasonable time. What houses that do become vacant are usually given to families and individuals considered to be high priority homeless. There is a perception here, that may or may not be true, that incomers are appearing on the doorstep of Hebridean Housing as soon as they arrive and are leap frogging the waiting list by presenting as homeless with dependent children.
The housing situation is now so serious that a Government Minister from Edinburgh is coming to Stornoway in the next few weeks to help find a solution, or at least a way forward.

A couple of nights ago, the Coastguard on Skye were called by the police to say that several red and white flashing lights had been seen a few hundred yards off shore by an off duty policeman. The lights were thought to be from a boat that could have been in trouble, so the Coastguard went to have a look and called out the Lifeboat at the same time. The lights could still be seen from the beach, but the Lifeboat was unable to find a boat or get any response on the radio. Eventually, after an hour long search with no success, the lights were seen again, apparently on the shore. When the Coastguard investigated, they found an eight inch long model boat with a red masthead light, a flashing white bow light and another red light on the stern. On the sail attached to the model boat was written the message " HAPPY 42ND BIRTHDAY OLLIE XXX". With admirable diplomacy and self restraint, the Coastguard manager said "The Coastguard and Lifeboat crew would like to wish Ollie a Happy Birthday and hope it was an enjoyable one." He added, "if anyone else is thinking about using a similar method of celebrating, we would be grateful if you would let us know in advance what you are planning, to save us having to call out the Lifeboat and Coastguard".

PREHISTORIC STANDING STONE, POLLARCHAR, SOUTH UIST - TOWARDS BARRA


A very satisfying week. Brother in law has been and gone, having done lots of work while he was here. He set to and completed the half finished tiling in the kitchen that the tiler left when he disappeared a month or two ago. The joiner came and the wooden floors downstairs are now fitted and looking good. The stove is burning nicely and for the first time, the house is beginning to take on the feel of a home. There is no work left that I need tradesmen to do and the next few weeks will be spent finishing small jobs and finding furniture. The only recent disaster - a small one - happened after I'd put the third coat of paint on some newly made coat rails. I was just admiring my handiwork when an open roll of fibre glass loft insulation, placed precariously on a shelf by me, dropped off and fell on to the wet rails. It made a complete mess and I've no choice now but to strip the rails back to bare wood and start again. I tried letting the rails dry and sanding them down, but they looked awful, so back to the beginning again.

A local wag has raised a smile on the island by installing furniture on a small islet in a loch near Stornoway. Somehow, the culprit has managed to get a sofa and kitchen table onto the islet, probably by boat. As a nice finishing touch, two or three wine bottles have been attached to the top of the table. A flickering candle and open fire would have made the scene cosy and homely. It's hard to tell whether this is just a humorous jape or a statement on the possible consequences of the credit crunch and mortgage situation.

Stornoway black puddings are famous world wide and particularly here. There was outrage this week when it was reported that butchers in the central belt of Scotland are selling copy cat products marked 'Stornoway style black puddings'. Hell hath no fury. The MSP for the Highlands and Islands has taken up the cudgels and plans to take on the nasty imitation puds. -- ' The reputation of genuine Stornoway black puddings must be protected. We don't want other butchers taking advantage by using the Stornoway product name.' ---- He has tabled a motion in Parliament about this issue - truly, I jest not - and now plans to consult with European Parliamentary colleagues to see if Protected Geographical Status can be obtained for the puddings to stop the evil interlopers from marketing inferior counterfeit rubbish. There are precedents for this move with Melton Mowbray Pork Pies and Arbroath Smokies now having such protection.

At long last, the Government backed reduced ferry fare structure for the Outer Hebrides comes into being from Sunday. Fares to the main land are dropping significantly for an initial three year period. The Stornoway-Ullapool journey will cost approximately £90 less for a car and driver next week than it does now. I'm planning to celebrate by making a pre Christmas trip to Inverness for household goods, gifts, a change of scenery and a pint or two in a decent pub.

SCOLPAIG TOWER, NORTH UIST

This attractive tower, sometimes known as MacLeod's Folly, sits on a little islet in Loch Scolpaig on the Noth West coast of North Uist. It was built about 1830, by Dr Alexander Macleod, who was then factor of the North Uist Estate. MacLeod is said to have erected the building using local labour, as a means of providing employment for famine relief. It's an Octagonal two storey structure, with a parapet and seems to have had no practical purpose other than to sit well in the landscape and be stared at. When the water level is low in Summer, the tower can be reached easily via a stone causeway. Over the years, the weather has taken its toll and it is now in a sorry state of repair. A group of admirers of the folly has recently been formed to raise money to restore it to its former glory, before it falls down.

Living here, it is tempting to believe that this is one of the wettest places on the planet. A lot of the year though, we do have dry and sunny periods, but over on St Kilda, they've had a serious drought over the summer. A prolonged spell of dry weather led to the fresh water supply on Hirta running out and although 20 tonnes of water were shipped in from Stornoway, that lasted only one week. The situation became so serious that the 30 resident Ministry of Defence and National Trust workers had to evacuate the island for a while. The boffins got their heads together though and helicoptered in a number of experts to meet round a table on Hirta and come up with a solution. Consequently, Project Aquatine was created. This is a public private partnership between Scottish Water and Veolia Water, formed to supply water from a desalination plant, under contract to the MoD for 25 years. The new desalination unit arrived at St Kilda by barge last month, taking 14 hours to reach the island from the mainland. It removes salt and other minerals from sea water by pushing raw water through filters at high pressure in a process known as reverse osmosis. Please, please, don't ask me any techie questions about this, 'cos I won't know the answers. I haven't a clue how it all works, I just read about the project and thought it was interesting. All parties involved in Project Aquatine have declared it a success and claim that drinkable water will always be available from now on, whatever the weather. The plant has been designed to be removable, so that it can be taken off the Island if St Kilda was to become permanently uninhabited again in future.

The application to build a whisky distillery on Barra received planning approval from the local council last month and is expected to get under way soon. The new Red River distillery here at Uig on Lewis has already started production. The Tenants of West Harris are considering a community buy out of the West Harris Estate from the Government, under right to buy legislation. If that plan comes to fruition, one of the suggestions for development of the estate by the community is to start a distillery of their own to generate regular long term income. Hey Presto! Within a few years time, we could have three distilleries in the Outer Isles and tourism might increase through the creation of a new 'whisky trail'.

No real traumas here at the Chateau recently, other than a couple of easily fixed water pipe leaks resulting from the shoddy work of the plumber. I've been a lazy slob for the last week or two and the house is a bit of a tip, but my brother in law is coming back for a week, on Wednesday, so a big tidy up operation is underway. The joiner returns on Tuesday to fit the wooden floors and skirting, which I'm hoping will only take three or four days, because he's being paid by the hour.

Winter is almost upon us, the temperature is dropping rapidly and we've already had masses of heavy rain, which is a good test for the new access road and drainage channels. The road, which is becoming much admired and something of a local tourist attraction, is standing up well so far and is bedding in nicely. It's flat and well compacted, so I've no problems with ponds appearing, as they have each Winter since I arrived. The drains are flowing like rivers into the burn along the boundary and knowledgeable neighbours tell me that the front part of the croft will dry out nicely next year and become more usable.

A man in a cafe in Stornoway told me that we are going to have a harsh cold Winter and as he had a pleasant, honest and convincing face, I've stocked up with fuel on the strength of his prediction. Not sure if this is a better method than consulting the BBC long range forecast, but the coffee was good and I'm a trusting soul. The central heating oil arrived yesterday- now 60p per litre - and I've also bought in coal and logs for the multifuel stove, because I hate being cold inside the house.

A reader asked me how the mink trapping is going. Well, it seems to be progressing quite nicely, thank you. The trappers are working their way North and are currently in this part of the Island. Scottish Natural Heritage have advertised in the Stornoway Gazette this week for another Mink Trapper and are paying a salary of £14120 per annum. What is interesting about this is that the advert states explicitly that the mink project aims to eradicate every last mink from the Outer Hebrides, rather than to just control them.

THATCHED COTTAGE, SOLLAS, NORTH UIST.






It's ordinary, everday events that often provide the greatest pleasure. Picture the scene. Stornoway airport one morning last week. The Loganair flight from Edinburgh arrived, the passengers went on their way and the plane was being prepared for the return journey. At some point, the ground crew noticed that the pilot had disappeared. A thorough search ensued and our hero was discovered trapped in the aircraft toilet, to where he had retreated for a quiet five minutes to recover his composure between flights. The door to the toilet was completely jammed and neither the pilot or the entire might of the airport ground staff could free it. Eventually, after much deliberation, staff broke into the toilet through the aircraft hold area and with one bound, Biggles escaped and was freed. By that time though, the direct flight back to Edinburgh was cancelled and 14 passengers were re-routed via Inverness and arrived at their destination one hour late. The airline made a statement saying ' We would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused.' In the tradition of fine journalism, the Stornoway Gazette printed the story with the headline 'Delay at Stornoway for Loo-ganair passengers.'


Dead whales washed up on beaches here are a fairly frequent event, but a few days ago, a live 20 foot Pilot whale was stranded on the beach on the island of Berneray, North Uist. The coastguard and a dozen local residents kept its skin wet with water, while getting a canvas sheet under the whale so that it could be pulled back into the sea. With the incoming tide, the animal seemed to recover and the rescuers went into the sea with it and managed to encourage it to swim away from the shore. It was last seen that day swimming out to sea and there was some hope that the whale would survive. Sadly, it was found washed up on the shore dead the following morning. The cause of death and the reason for the original beaching are unknown.



At long last, I've finished painting all of the rooms in the house and I'm now just waiting for the joiner to return to fit the wooden floors downstairs. When he's done that, every major job will have been completed and I hope that I can then begin to enjoy living here, rather than just feeling that I've got permanent occupation of a building site.There are still dozens of minor finishing off tasks to do, including fitting blinds and the application of large quantities of silicone and filler, which will get attended to over the next few weeks and months as motivation ebbs and flows.