Up with the lark – nearly.

Not a great sleep – it sounded like there was a 5-a-side football tournament going on in the hostel and the guy on the bunk above was not the quietest rolling over or getting up in the middle of the night to go to the loo.

However, it meant that there was no rush to go down the hill to the ferry.

It was an uneventful trip over to Harris ….. breakfast on the boat (not as expensive as I would have expected), nice weather and even a rainbow that we looked as if we were going to sail through just before we docked.

A nice gentle drive with a couple of stops to take pictures and we arrived at the cottage that will be home for the next week.

It wasn’t really what I expected.
Yes, it was the white building on the side of a hill but it was not the bland ‘same as every one elses’ holiday home for rent. It is extremely homely with personal touches and objects throughout. And we just about didn’t need to bring any food with us ………… the place is stocked with all sorts of the smaller things you would not normally bring on holiday (spices, vinegar, about 14 different kinds of tea, pasta, sauces etc). I think we are going to like it here.

We had a bit of a look around the woods attached and found all sorts of stone cairns, woven branches and loads of different kinds of fungi. It was just the sort of place that felt full of mystic and fun.

So the girls got into their ‘onesies’ and we had an absolute hoot taking pictures of them mucking about in the trees - like a modern version of the old 'Bigfoot' footage.

We had a very late lunch/early diner and then went out to find the Neolithic standing stone above the fantastic deserted beaches almost across the road.
The wind was picking up (gales and rain forecast for tomorrow) and the light was rubbish with neither sunset nor dramatic skies – but the waves were really picking up and it was getting quite dramatic.
Of course the girls pictures are great and mine are rubbish (I really just can’t do landscapes).

By the time we got back to the cottage I was a broken man – my back feels like it has had a workout with a baseball bat. So it was painkillers, oatcakes and cheese washed down with a couple of decent drams.

If the weather does turn foul (and it is sounding a bit like it as I head for bed ….. can’t see anything though because it is pitch black with no lights to be seem outside) then a quiet day working on the hundreds of pictures taken so far could be just the tonic for my back.