Backblipped

The Northern lights did make an appearance on Lewis last night!

The sun was shining as we drove away from the little house in Stornoway that's been our home for the last week.  It made it very difficult to leave.

We drove down the road to Tarbert for the last time, chatting about the places we'd been and what we would remember about this holiday.

As planned, we got to Tarbert in plenty of time before the ferry was due to depart and got to sooth our sadness at leaving with a bit of retail therapy.  

Visits to the Harris Distillery (known as the Social Distillery as you can have lunch there in lovely surroundings with the staff of the distillery.  Basically it's their work canteen.  We didn't get the chance to to that this time around but definitely next time :-) Essence of Harris and the Harris Tweed shop left us lighter of pocket but lighter of heart too :D  

On to the ferry and once again we were blessed with a lovely day, so a smooth crossing.  I couldn't bear to go out on deck to see the Hebrides grow smaller the further we got from them, but David took a photo for me (see extras.) 

Some googling on the ferry for placed to have lunch when we landed on Skye led us to The Galley Seafood Cafe at Earlish and we enjoyed a lovely lunch of scallops, black pudding and salad.  

We then made our way around the top of the island towards Staffin, with a little detour over the Quiraing again, this time to see the views in late afternoon light.  We were astounded by the number of people at the top.  There's now a dedicated car park with parking meters and it was really busy.  We were also astounded by the number of people standing perilously close to the edge of the cliffs in some places.  I had to look away as I was convinced one man with a little boy was going to come to a sticky end.  I was also astounded at some of the clothes the walkers were wearing.  One group of young men and women were in shorts and t-shirts with flimsy tops tied round their waists.  Their footwear wasn't much better with all of them sporting flimsy rubber soled gym style shoes.

When we stopped over with Sharon and Lewa last week Lewa told us of a woman who'd been airlifted to hospital in Inverness when she broke her leg trying to climb the Old Man of Stor whilst wearing flip flops!  What is wrong with these people?  Have they absolutely no common sense?!

Anyway, I got the shots I wanted and we headed back down the winding road and back to Sharon and Lewa's for the night.

It was just Sharon and the girls there as Lewa was on a course in Inverness.  We had a lovely dinner of roast chicken and veg followed by the gooiest homemade chocolate cake that Sharon had bought at a MacMillan coffee morning this morning.  

I was given the task of cutting it and ended up with chocolate all over my hand and up my arms.  I was heard to exclaim "Oh my God" when a particularly gooey but of ganache fell off the knife and landed on my lap.  Unfortunately it was five year old Anna who heard me exclaim it and thereafter everything she did for the rest of the evening was met with an exclamation of Oh my God!  Oops!  Sorry Sharon! :-)

We had just finished dinner when Sharon got a call from Lewa to say his course had finished early and he was on his way home from Inverness, so we got to see him after all, which was lovely.

I am not sure what aftershave David was wearing this trip but usually Anna and Faith are all over me, but I didn't get a look in.  After and initial cuddle on arrival, they just wanted David and spent the night crawling all over him and wanting him to play.  Faith even wanted to snuggle into him with her bedtime bottle of milk, which is unheard of apparently as she always wants  her mum at that point.  Even their cat was all over him (and he's not keen on cats but he liked Jack because he's a friendly boy :-)

Fell into bed just before midnight and set our alarm for another early rise.

Home tomorrow :-)