Open

Woke to rain, but by the time we were having our breakfast it was brightening up a lot. More chat with our host about the estates on the island and various planning issues and incomers (we’ve been surprised how many English people seem to have moved here and many of the businesses we’ve visited are run by them) and a bit of a catch up online and sort out of our stuff before we set off. I’d written to a beach finds artist that I follow to ask where on Islay she does her beachcombing and she says one place is right in front of Bruidladdich distillery which is just by where we are staying, so we stopped there for a wander. Like the other beaches we’ve been to though there was very little to find….quite a few limpet shells and tiny yellow/orange shells but nothing else. I’m surprised how few shells etc there seems to be here. We drove to Machir bay to explore that huge beach with its massive Atlantic rollers and had a lovely time wandering around on it, including doing a bit of a power walk to get my step count up a bit. It was gorgeous….almost entirely empty and such smooth sand stretching for what felt like miles with enormous crashing waves. Loved it! No shells here though either, just very few small black pebbles…odd! How come Lewis beaches have so much? I’ll need to look into that…
Went over to Guinart to the RSPB reserve and took a walk through the woodland trail. Lovely moss covered trees absolutely full of birdsong (chaffinch, willow warbler, wren, great tit, rook, and others my app couldn’t identify) and lots of lovely wild flowers (extra). We didn’t stay long in the bird hide, since we couldn’t see much and didn’t have binoculars so felt we were just disturbing the clearly very dedicated silent twitchers who were in there already.
There were a couple of light showers starting but we avoided getting wet by being under the trees, then drove down to the Machrie hotel for a late Sunday lunch. Very new building (golf resort) but really nicely done out inside with some very interesting art (including Bellany and Grayson Perry) and loads of big comfy sofas to relax in.
Lunch was delicious….ate too much!…but lovely to have a full slap up roast (local beef), then we slumped on a different sofa and I fell asleep for a while before we drove over to the ferry at Port Askaig. Straightforward crossing…once again calm despite there still being a strong wind, and very few people on board so we had the quiet room to ourselves. I did my Italian (struggling with possessives) then dozed whilst S read the paper and then we listened to my next book group book (Ghost wall by Sarah Moss) all the way home, frustratingly arriving just half an hour before it ended! Straight to bed when we got in just after 11. It’s been a good break and we’ve been pretty lucky with the weather.