Running in the family

There's no easy way to say this, but my brother-in-law's brother has run from Land's End to John O' Groats. That's my sister Annie's husband Martin's brother Rob. Running. About 900 miles. At the rate of about 45-60 miles a day. With no rest days. This is the equivalent of (at least) two marathons a day for 18 days.

Not only this, he was accompanied by the most fantastic extended family entourage and supported by the tightest planning I've ever encountered (and nor had my sister's physiotherapist, who went up to run with them one day and has some experience of these things).

Rob is a member of Hinckley Running Club (Leicestershire) - you can read all about the club, see a sponsorshop link, and read his blog from this link.

So, given that John O'Groats is at the top of Scotland, I rang Rob's wife Niki to find out where they were, and Lesley and I decided it would be fun to go and meet them. There was no question of joining them during the day: I can't run fast enough to keep him company, and it's all finely planned, with Rob's sister Sue and her partner Martin cycling alongside or behind (so THEY did the whole distance too, on bikes) to give him snacks and drinks, keep him right on the route, and presumably to draw attention to him in their hi-viz vests so that traffic avoided him. So we went up to Brora on the north-east coast, 2 days short of the end of the run, to meet them at the campsite where they'd be in the evening. Thing was, we were a day early - I rang Niki to find they were in Dingwall, a day further South - so Lesley and I had a lovely restful day in the blazing sun in Brora. We had a plan to go and look at things - Dunrobin Castle, I recall - but it was so nice we just lay around the van and sunbathed. I did book the gang into the site for the next day, though: the campsite owner was quite surprised that we were being joined by six adults and two children in two motorhomes and a tent.

We saw their vans arrive about four o'clock: Niki driving a big hired camper with Reuben, 12 and Atticus, 14 in it (who, I had claimed, when booking them in, were 9 and 11 - see previous post on getting old), and Niki's mum and dad, Trish and Ian, in another camper. The tent was for Sue and Martin, the cyclists, and everyone had their jobs - Trish cooked for them and the two boys, Ian and the boys put the cyclists' tent up, and Niki did meals for Rob, Sue, Martin and herself (all carefully calorie-controlled), distributed route sheets (worked out in advance by Sue) for the next day, shopped, packed up snacks and lunches and made drinks bottles, did the blog, massaged Rob and collected his data, and booked campsites...all helped by her parents whenever they could. And, if it was raining, she had to go and meet the team for scheduled breaks three times in the day to make sure they had a sheltered place to stop and change clothes if they needed to. So she was pretty worn out by it all, but hugely organised and cheerful. We did offer to help - eg make supper - but it was all so finely tuned that it was better to butt out and just offer a place to sit and a glass of wine or juice to anyone who wanted it.

We waited for the team to come back and greeted them - and were very touched that, at the end of every day, Rob stops just short of the home 100m to hug and kiss his sister and Martin for helping him all day. And then he came in and was pleased to see us and shook Lesley's hand. Although, to be fair, the rest of the evening he had a thousand-yard stare. He said he couldn't sleep well because his legs were keeping going in the night. Niki had left him a bed to himself and was sharing with Reuben, because of all the twitching (perhaps it runs in the family: Annie says Martin does it too: he's a long-distance swimmer).





I was really glad Lesley was there, because she's so sociable and interested in everything she helped boost everyone, even though they were exhausted. Reuben and Atticus were just lovely: Reuben wearing a kilt and shirt they'd found in a second hand shop, and telling us lots of stories, and Atticus, who is deeply cool and is not only a grade A scholar but a bassist in a rock band. We all went to the beach together to give them a break from being cooped up in the van.



Later on, eight of them came over to squeeze into my van and have a cup of tea, and also do the blog, because my internet was working and they didn't have a signal. It was great to see them - what a brilliant family, and working so well together. I've since heard, of course, that they finished in the morning of day 18. Rob said he felt fine and could just carry on, but unfortunately he'd run out of land. I've no idea what he plans to do next - in fact none of them had any plans beyond this trip, which took two years to co-ordinate and arrange - but I have an idea there will be something even bigger coming up. Round the world, perhaps?

Lossiemouth landing

Here begins an odd time in my journey...coming back to the mainland, and finding it full of cars, and people! The 45 mph I had been doing on the islands suddenly didn't seem enough for anyone on the mainland, so I have been pulling off the road into parking places to let the queues go by. I came back from Stornoway on the 6.15am ferry, so arrived in Ullapool at about 9. So there was plenty of time for driving, and I decided to go over to see Lesley and Luke in Lossiemouth right away (I even had time for a two-hour walk with Bon on a forestry trail on the way).






You have to go through Inverness to get to Lossie - I didn't stop, because the bloke looking after the main carpark took one look at my van and made a 'turn around and go away' gesture, and after that the only place I could find to park was Morrison's, which I couldn't be bothered with. Inverness seemed very busy and crowded - it's a normal shopping town with all the chain stores - but Lossie is small and quiet, with a long beach where people surf, lots of low fishermen's houses arranged around a series of greens, and a nice 'front street', as they call it in Scotland, with shops and cafes. It's on the Moray coast, so if you imagine that bit on the top right of the map where a bit sticks out that's almost horizontal - the back of the UK's head, so to speak - it's halfway along.

Lesley and Luke were having a barbecue for Luke's birthday the day after I arrived, so I stopped in Nairn on the way (another pretty town, if a bit run-down) to get him a present. Nairn is where Tilda Swinton is having her film festival, so I picked up a programme in case L&L wanted to go to anything. I had a long conversation with the chap in the outdoor shop about the difficulties of dealing with companies like North Face and Berghaus, and bought Luke a nice North Face scarf (he's an outdoor boy: climbing, cycling, etc), a clicker to administer small electric shocks to midge bites to stop them itching, a little compass that you can thread on your watchstrap, and a book about Nairn.

I managed to shoehorn my van into Lesley and Luke's drive, with three inches, literally, to spare on either side. I did get a bit wedged on their woodpile, but managed it OK - until I realised that it was the wrong way round and none of the doors would open. And I didn't break my habit of sleeping in the van despite the offer of a bed in the house. So that means I still haven't slept in a building since I left in June, which is becoming something of a matter of pride.



I've known Lesley for what seems like ever. We met at Edinburgh University in 1984 when I'd just started my PhD and was doing classes, some of which we shared with the MA in Linguistics. Lesley and I were both in the Generative Grammar class and started exchanging looks of horrified incomprehension when Jim Hurford drew flurries of syntax trees on the board. Lesley was brave enough to ask questions, which I think everyone in the class thanked her for, silently. Then a room came up in the flat I was staying in and Lesley moved in. We had some great parties, and I made cups of tea - and once, memorably, a trout with almonds - for her while she was writing up her dissertation in her big, artistic handwriting (imagine! A handwritten dissertation!) It was about meaning postulates. I can't even remember what those are, and I bet she can't, either.

Lesley had a tiny room and loads of friends, and they were always coming in and having various crises all over her, and when she was out, all over me. She was going out with Bruno at one point (who I subsequently went out with three years ago, a full 20 years later) and at another point was engaged to someone from Germany, who turned up dramatically once when Lesley was out, so I had to mop him up...and I remember a girlfriend of Bruno's appearing, also in tears...and then there was Nigel and Derek, two gay guys who introduced Lesley to Fire Island (a gay club on Princes Street, which I was always too prudish to go to) and were also always having some kind of drama. You can imagine me, studying away in my room, answering the door for all these people, making tea and supplying the hankies. I always felt Lesley's life was more dramatic than mine. More recently, it has been the other way round, so I guess it all evens out in the end. (I realise I've used 'drama' in some way three times in this paragraph. I think they should all stay.)

We had one house party that resulted in her father peeing out of the flat window (he had had a rugby-playing past, so I suppose it was to be expected) and Lesley, in her effusiveness, greeted the geekiest and least hygienic computer scientist we knew with a kiss on the cheek. And I was standing just behind her at the door and there was no choice but to follow suit. I have not yet forgiven her for this, even though it was 23 years ago.

She was also my wardrobe advisor. A remark I've never recovered from came when she threw open my wardrobe doors one day and said 'My God, Judy, you're so *neutral*!' I interpreted this both philosophically and literally, and for some time it sent me into a spin of head-to-toe jade green, as well as some ill-advised orange and blue stripy jumpers (remember, this was the 80s). I seem to recall Bruno was some kind of New Romantic who looked about 12 - and when I met him again at 43, he still did, although he looked a bit less like Adam Ant. Jan now does the wardrobe advice (and has similar feelings about brown, which I wear a lot of), but Lesley still has a key role in telling me what I'm talking about when I call her on the phone. She does ten-minute diagnosis of the current emotional situation, puts it in a nutshell, and hangs up. I think of her as a sort of cross between Ruby Wax, Joan Rivers, and Bette Midler. All of whom are Jewish, so I don't know if Lesley is channelling something, because as far as I know her roots are firmly in Cumbria with no hint of the Red Sea.




Lesley has recently taking up painting, which she's getting ever better at - and has generously given me two beautiful watercolours of vases of flowers which have pride of place in my van, as well as a framed set of three smaller pictures which I've also managed to put up. And she's still contributing to my wardrobe: this time, three pairs of earrings and some shorts. I do reciprocate: every so often I see something that's just so her that I put it in the post - most recently, a very nice bag from Egypt. Not that I think she's a bag of any kind.

Anyway, Lesley and I kept in touch when she went to do teacher training, and then to various schools. I remember she came to stay in Edinburgh with Luke and they got engaged there: I shared a taxi with them up to Princes Street when they went to get the ring. Luke is Head of Physics and a housemaster at the boarding school they are still at, where they met, and Lesley's had a successful career as a French, German and Italian teacher, and was a housemistress for a while. She's has now taken early retirement. They've got a lovely 14-year-old daughter, Fiona. I last saw Fiona a year ago, when she seemed about ten and just out of Bratz dolls and pink everything, and 12 months later, she's 18. I didn't say 'My, how you've grown!', but I do remember in 2006 her coming in in tears because she'd woken up in the night realising she'd forgotten to do her maths homework, and so Lesley sat me down next to her at the kitchen table and we drew triangles and had to work out the area of them. I do recall realising that one she'd drawn at my suggestion was half the area it should have been, and I am still puzzled as to why. Fiona is now almost a proper grown-up, so she won't thank me for remembering the maths episode. I have a similar problem with my friends Jon and Vina's eldest: I remember holding her up to the mirror when she was about 11 months old. I accidentally called her by her baby-name on a visit a year or so ago and realised I was talking to an 18-year-old who looks like Sienna Miller.

Ooh dear, I am getting old. This was all trees when I was a girl (looking out of the window, it still is).



Back to Luke and Lesley. In termtime, they live in a lovely flat at the school, which is old, beamed and dramatic, and they look after 60 boys, so they've kept on their house in Lossie and use it as a second home and go there in the holidays. So Luke was in relaxed mode, enjoying going for bike rides and doing the Sudoku - in termtime, they're in loco parentis, and are regularly called upon to solve crises emotional, financial, moral, and academic for their charges (See? Lesley has made a career out of handing people hankies). Lesley's Mum and Dad have moved up from Cumbria to Lossie, too, so I saw them a couple of times - we're old friends - and I think her Dad in particular enjoyed getting maps out and telling me where to go. They also liked the van. I was expecting her Dad to be disapproving about people giving up jobs and going gallivanting off in vans, but all he said that was at all negative was that my cab needed a polish. Which is entirely correct.

It was restful staying with them, and I had some nice walks around Lossie: it's so pretty, and the houses are so nice, and there's a really good sandy beach: if it was in the South it would be one of the most chic places to live imaginable, and I can't understand why it's not more trendy. I'm glad it's not, though, because it seems to be mostly populated with people who were born and bred there and the cappucino comes from two Italian families who settled there ages ago, rather than from Starbucks. There is a big RAF base there, and another at Fochabers nearby, so noisy Harriers frequently fly overhead.

While I was wandering about I came across this camper van. I didn't spot its occupants, but they are Italian, and the van (and, presumably, they) went from Italy across Africa last year, going by the maps and things on the side. It is so high up, I presume there's a ladder to get down from the doors (unless you open the door in the morning holding your cup of coffee, step out, and do a Mrs Doyle, falling from the windowledge). Its height must also make it immune from casual attack, unless your assailant is on a horse (or a camel).



Lesley then suggested she come somewhere with me in my rather more ordinary van, which seemed a good idea because I didn't have any further plans...which took us further North, for reasons I'll explain in my next post.

Learnings

I got the word 'learnings' from working in branding - never liked the word much, but it does allow you to make 'learning' into a count noun. And if I know one thing about commerce, it's that it does like to count things (it means you can make powerpoint slides out of it, for a start).

I have found out some things, or remembered some things, since I've been travelling. Although it does remind me of that book 'Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten', I'll acquaint you with them here. Some of them, I like to think, are Universal Truths and Philosophy of an Extremely Deep Nature. Others are just things about me, but which may strike a chord. So this is to celebrate being two days off two months away. I expect to be wiser in the future, too, so any of this is to be regarded (like all knowledge, if you believe Karl Popper) as temporary. When I find out I'm wrong about any of these things, I'll let you know straight away.

(1) Doing what you want is easy. Knowing what you want is the hard bit.

(2) I function much better in every way if I can sleep when I want to. I used to worry that, if allowed, I would sleep round the clock and thereby miss my whole life, but there is a natural limit. A nap in the afternoon is essential. Unless I don't feel like it.

(3) I seem to need to eat at 12 noon, 5pm, 10pm, and 2am. See above for how that works.

(3) Exercise definitely cheers you up, sometimes to the point of euphoria. I'm not sure whether it's the happy chemicals that are stimulated by (eg) running, or the smug sense that, having done it, anything else you do that day is a bonus. But it works.

(4) Left to myself, I don't drink alcohol. At all. I haven't the slightest interest in it. But I do smoke, and I do eat cake.

(5) If you don't know what to do, stop and observe the organism (ie you, without the annoying intervention of your mind). It will eventually do something - like reach for a piece of cake, fall asleep, or buy a camper van - that tells you what it wants. For this reason, boredom is something to aim at, because it is the blank canvas upon which what you really want will appear. Strive to be bored.

(6) I only get lonely when I'm frightened. The rest of the time, my head seems to be enough company. Or my DVD and book collection. But I do think that's against a background of knowing that 'my' people are out there somewhere. Reading this, for example.

(7) But, even given (6), I don't think I will ever want to be without a dog. Walking is pointless without one. Having one also avoids the stigma involved in talking to oneself.

(8) The right human lifestyle is one that involves useful physical activity as a matter of course, preferably outdoors, and preferably to achieve something necessary. That's clearing rocks out of your field or rebuilding a fence, rather than achieving the body beautiful. So if you find your gym fees too high and you are still getting fat, I'd recommend crofting, in between bouts on the internet. (This is further confirmed by new edicts that we need 90 minutes' hard exercise a day to keep healthy and avoid putting on weight. Why waste it on a treadmill?)

(9) Most things that look like jumping off a cliff seem, in retrospect, a six-inch drop with moss to land on. This is meant entirely metaphorically. Do not attempt it near anything that looks physically like a cliff. It will probably be a cliff.

(10) Take a picture by all means, but the view further up is always better. I have many series of photos where I went round a bend and could see even further. I have always interpreted this as philosophical.

(11) Avon Skin-So-Soft does work against midges, but only temporarily. I do not interpret this as philosophical.

(12) I have not been used to doing only one thing at a time, but the preoccupation that comes with multi-tasking makes it practically impossible to notice anything important. I am now doing things like scraping the last bit of peanut butter from the old jar into the new one with supreme concentration. I suspect the Buddhists already have a handle on this one.

(13) What you do, or don't do, is not actually all that important. My grandfather lived until he was 94. Not that he'd ever have done it, but at the end of his life I don't think taking a summer off in a camper van would even have made a sentence in his life's narrative. See previous observation about cliffs.

(14) Having no plan at all seems to work very well for me. At least at the moment. Please don't follow this one if you are trying to (eg) run a company.

(15) What stops me doing things is fear of regret. But I've learned over the years that I don't tend to regret anything - except possibly the times when I didn't stop doing things sooner.

(16) A dog will eat and drink perfectly happily out of a plastic bag. If you were thinking of buying a portable dog bowl, save your money.

(17) If you have to wrestle with it, you're doing it wrong.

(18) There is a natural urge in our culture to make things symmetrical or end on an even number. Or have things in threes, or beginning with the same letter. This sense of symmetry may be aesthetically satisfying, but it does not lend any value in terms of usefulness, good sense, or logic.

West Side Story 2: Ardroil Appointment

Can you stand any more pictures of beaches? I have decided you can. Ardroil is in the middle of nowhere - and about five lucky crofters own the land around it, so you have to pay to camp. And how do they cash in on this natural wonder? By charging £2 a night. You go up to the house nearest the beach and there's a little guy there you pay your money to who always seems to be in - in fact I think he's been standing behind the door since last year. Mind you, if I were him, I wouldn't go anywhere either.

There's absolutely nothing there except a public loo in a portakabin with a tap on the side about 250m back up the track. Go past it and you find yourself on a small flat area of machair overlooking a beach that fills with water up to six inches deep at high tide, completely dry except for a fresh water stream across it at low tide. I went there last year for a Kite Festival where we had great bonfires on the beach and not much wind, but I did try kite buggying. This time, no kites and very few people there at all. And not enough wind for my 2m kite - it needs quite a lot otherwise I can't launch it on my own, although it's fine when it gets up there - but I was quite content to wander, and look at the sand.

I'd actually planned to go back to Stornoway for a reunion party with the HebCeltFest organisers, but when I got back to Stornoway intending to camp on the ferry quay for two days I was overcome with the desire to get away again, party or no party. I am afraid that the lure of the scenery has beaten the desire for human interaction again. And also the funfair had come to town, and the booming music made the sea front seem incredibly tawdry (and it comes to something when you feel Stornoway is too urban). So at 6pm I drove all the way back west again, got there at 8, and heaved a sigh of relief. I had the ferry back to the mainland not the next day but very early the morning after, so it could only be one night, but the sunset (sorry, but it was of Sistine Chapel quality) and the next day's wandering about the bay, plus a big clean-out of the van, made the whole thing worthwhile. There was a little island in the bay you could climb onto and I left Bonnie's lead there by accident - but it seemed a useful sacrifice to the gods of Sand, Sea, and Sky.

It was good to go back. Last time, Bonnie and I both got bronchitis on this beach, possibly because of staying out until 2am each night by the bonfire, which seemed warm but probably wasn't. This time, I'm conscious that Bonnie is getting old (I seem to be about the same as last year, and possibly a bit fitter) because she's had various new problems since we last came. So the final photo is one I'll probably cherish. She won't last for ever, and it'll be nice to remember all the times we made tracks together in wonderful places.

People and places

I feel that there's some background missing from the story - I've gone on about Stornoway, but not shown you any pictures of it, nor have I talked about Point, which is the part of Lewis that Annie and Martin lived on last year and which we revisited together this year, and about their visit in general. So.

I first met up with Annie and Martin in Harris. They'd flown from East Midlands to Inverness and then hired a car and got the ferry across, and they had a B and B place near Luskentyre - Beul na Mara, run by a very nice woman called Katherine ( I would definitely recommend the B and B!). The B and B had a panoramic view of the beach from a lovely conservatory built on the back. The beach is more an estuary, really - when the tide is out, it's one of the biggest beaches you've ever seen. Down there somewhere is a picture of Bonnie in the middle of it. Anyway, Annie, Martin and I had a fab meal out in Leverburgh at a place called The Anchorage, which I'd also recommend. Not only is the food great, but they know a lot about Celtic music and often have live bands. When we went there, it was only CDs, but very nicely chosen ones. And the people knew Annie and Martin, and were very friendly. I still remember the asparagus ravioli. Yum.


In Harris, we also went on a boat trip - I think I've talked about that already - and had a very nice meal at the B and B, which was on a very windy night. Katherine kindly let me park the van on her drive instead of going back to the campsite, so the van had a bit of shelter from a force 8. It was still a bit rock and roll though.

We met up again later in Lewis: I'd established myself at the campsite (Laxdale, if you need to know - it's fine, and the only one on the east side of Lewis with electricity, showers, etc) in Stornoway, Jan had arrived, and we met up from time to time at HebCeltFest and at An Lanntair, the arts centre, for coffee and concerts. And then after that, Annie and Martin moved on to a place in Point called Portvoller, and borrowed a house from their friend Mairi, who lives in Derbyshire just round the corner from them but was born in Portvoller and still keeps the family home. Next door in Portvoller is her nephew Ian Angus Macleod, who I met last year at the Hebridean Kite Festival over at Uig on the West Coast of Lewis. I met him again when he was mowing the front lawn of his aunt's house. He also drives the local bus. So it all comes together.




I camped on the drive of the house at Portvoller and watched the fabulous sunsets, ate meals with Annie and Martin, and played card games and Rummikub with them in the evenings. I'm quite bad at both, so they enjoyed beating me every night. During this time (July 22) it was Annie's birthday, and we went up to the lighthouse at Tiumpan Head and ate cake and watched the gannets diving into the water. There were also some great sunsets. Annie got a fab new camera for her birthday - a Canon Powershot G9, if anyone's interested, and I want one myself -so was keen to try it out. The picture is of her unwrapping it. It's brill - it has a fabulous zoom, a big screen, and like the iPhone it seems to know which way up it is so it turns the picture round. It even made me look nice (I don't normally like myself in photos). It's either the camera or the two month holiday, I'm not sure which. And I did some good sunbathing, as you'll see from the picture of me lounging on the lawn with Bonnie: Annie and Martin went visiting friends and left me in charge of the house, and it was good to be able to wander in and out after so long spent in a van. And at times, the weather was so hot I had to intersperse my spells on the lawn with an hour or so indoors. Napping, of course.



And I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of Stornoway. Parts of it are quite industrial-looking (cargo sheds, things to do with fish, and so on) but there are also some pretty waterfront buildings. And across the water Lews Castle and its extensive grounds - which are open for anyone to walk in - look across to the busy shops and waterfront on the other side. And there's always the ferries to watch coming in and out, and the Customs vessels and lifeboats, and visiting yachts from all over. I also thought you'd like the picture of the replica Queen from the Lewis Chessmen. Her pose reminds me of a picture of me that turned up on a roll of film that Annie took at my wedding. Nuff said.


By the time I left Lewis, I had a few thank you letters to write. To the hairdresser with the big Alsatian who had tried to find me an appointment and by the time she succeeded, I'd gone over to the west and had no signal, so didn't find out until too late; to Hector Low, the fabulous vet who looked after Bonnie; to the crofter who'd invited me to stay and who I didn't get around to phoning; to Ian Angus Macleod saying I'll probably see him again next year and to thank him for the offer of the loan of a kite, and to Caroline MacLennan, who organised HebCeltFest and has now put my reviews up on the website. I finished these with a little help from Annie, who reorganised some of my prose (see, she's a proper journalist!) and added some of her recollections to mine to beef up some of the reviews. Nothing like getting your big sister to help you out with your homework. Although it's been a while - I think the last time was when she lent me all her notes on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight at University. I still remember her getting top marks for her essay on the notion of 'trawBe' (that 'B' is meant to be an Anglo-Saxon thorn). Swot.

West Side Story 1: The Black Houses

I am trying to catch up with myself now...loads to tell you. I'm going to start with the West Side of Lewis, which is a long drive across stark scenery, through hill passes, over lunar landscapes...to some of the best sights and beaches on the island. So I finally tore myself away from Stornoway and decided to visit the wilds.

There are some great things to see. First of all, there are a couple of renovated Black House villages - Na Gearrannan being the most notable. Black Houses are so called because they had an open peat fire right in the middle, and no chimney, so everything was done in a haze of peat smoke. Pots were suspended over the fire, and the smoke rose and deposited tar in the roof beams, effectively preserving them. The houses were round-ended, built out of stones without mortar to about shoulder height, and then thatched, the thatch being traditionally weighted down with hanging stones. So the houses were low and oval, and most had various lean-to additions - in earlier times, the cattle would be brought in to the lean-to over the winter and would share the living space with the humans, and in later times the lean-to part was often used to house the loom. So all the crofter would have to do (all, she says) is work on the croft when it was possible to do so (most people grew potatoes and wheat, enough for themselves, tended sheep and one or two cows, and stacked up soil into a 'lazy bed' - flip knows why they call them that, because the people were anything but lazy - which was a long strip of soil that was fertilised with manure that the cattle built up in the lean-to over the winter and with seaweed. This was used for growing a few vegetables. In the winter, and other times when you couldn't work on the croft, a lot of people were weaving tweed on their loom in the lean-to. Most people would work for eight to ten hours a day at this, in addition to their crofting jobs. And most if not all people stopped everything on a Sunday, went to church, read the scriptures, and didn't do any more work.




The Black House in the photo is the one that's been turned into a museum at Na Gearrannan, and the rest are kitted out to be modern and luxurious inside and can be rented as holiday cottages. The museum one has benefited from the later addition of a fireplace, and so isn't peaty and smoky inside, but they keep a peat fire burning in the grate so the smell of burning peat still greets you when you go in. It's two rooms - a living/kitchen and a bedroom - and they've made it so that it looks like the people have just left. They slept in little bed boxes with curtains which look cosy and comfortable. I felt could quite easily sit in a black house and write things over the winter. Bonnie obviously felt at home too. And off the front 'hall' was a weaver working on a loom in the lean-to, surrounded by weaving and farming equipment.





Most people had moved out of Black Houses in the late fifties, and they started to fall into ruin - you'd build a 'white house', which was a stone cottage built with mortar and harled (can't remember the English word for this: is it 'rendered'?) and often whitewashed on the outside. A steep ladder staircase led up to a room in the roof. These had chimneys and were roofed with either corrugated iron or slate, and so it was the end of thatch and the end of the smoky peat fire in the middle of the room. Few of these had indoor plumbing, though, so trips to fetch water and an outhouse (or a trowel and a trip outside) were used for a loo. Further northwest along the coast is Arnol, which has a white house. Actually, inside, it doesn't look that much different, except it's much lighter: black houses may have had a couple of window openings under the thatch, but very little natural light got in. White houses had proper windows. There was a range to cook on and the floors were level, rather than being just of compacted earth and often quite uneven.

Further up the coast again (I think) there is a Norse Mill and Kiln - two little stone and thatched buildings. They're just open and you can go and have a look inside. Their construction is identical to that of the Black Houses, so little changed between - er, when were the Norsemen there? 900ish? Earlier? - and the 1950s, in terms of the building methods. The only difference I could see was that the Norse buildings had no windows at all, and were pitch black inside. I had to take a flash photo inside the kiln building to see what I was looking at. They must have worked by torchlight.

With no electricity, by the way, the houses were often lit with candles made from a pool of oil in a little hollow in a stone - often seabird oil - with a wick sticking out. Tallow candles were a luxury and didn't come in until later, and then it was paraffin. There was a scheme on Lewis, begun in the mid-19th century, to extract paraffin from peat. They even built a factory to do it, but peat isn't all that rich in paraffin and the idea was overtaken by cheaper and quicker methods from elsewhere, so paraffin began to come in by boat. Now, as I've noted before, wind power is all the talk, and there are several schemes to build big windfarms on Lewis. So far, the biggest one has been scuppered by objections from the nature conservation lobby who say that birds might fly into the turbines, particularly golden eagles, apart from environmental damage to the land caused by the building. But others argue that on an island that is desperately in need of income, and in the light of global environmental concerns about oil, gas, and nuclear energy, it is worth sacrificing the birds.

Beardies of the world unite

I'm back on the mainland now, and have a big backlog to do about Lewis - but I wanted to put a picture up quickly in case its subjects wanted to download it! This is Brett and Theresa with their beardie Tilly. We got talking at Na Gearrannan Blackhouse Village (about which more later) and they revealed they were on holiday for their 25th wedding anniversary. I hope this is a nice anniversary picture (you must have got married when you were ten). Anyway, happy anniversary to you both, and wishing you many more lovely trips. And a hug to a very cuddly beardie.

By the way, Brett - here's the Working Beardie site I was talking about -
and you may also be interested in this classic cartoon!