In the summer time when the weather is fine........

What a hectic few weeks! It’s been so, so busy with visitors and travellers and festivals and schedules to stick to but worth every sleep deprived minute!

I’ve now had two lots of visitors who were taken round a few of my favourite spots on the island so I could show them just what it is that infiltrates my being and makes me full of joy to live here. I keep looking around at all the fantastic places I go to and take other people to and feel like it’s all my own work sometimes! I feel so bloody proud and chuffed that I live here and just want to show it off to everyone else. I LIVE HERE!! 

We’ve also had a new friend staying here with us, let me tell you about Kate. Kate was introduced to me via email after a call went out to The Islanders to consider offering a room to people who were travelling from all over the world to The Hebridean Celtic Festival, affectionately known as HebCeltFest. The HebCeltFest is now 18 years old and is now firmly established on the folk festival circuit and creeping across onto the type of lists so loved by Guardian journalists about The Best This That and The Other. It is a fantastic festival. Big enough to attract Big Names (this year it was Van Morrison) yet still small enough for the loos to remain fragrant. You can even park without paying and still only be a two minute walk away from the main festival site in Stornoway Castle grounds. It’s a spectacular setting overlooking the harbour with remarkable sunsets and a distinct lack of midges thanks to the sea breeze.

The setting in front of Stornoway Castle

I volunteered to work at the festival in return for a free weekend pass and I contacted the organisers to let them know I had a spare room for someone. I was put in touch with Kate who was hoping to be a volunteer too if she could find somewhere to stay. Kate is from Melbourne, Australia and is about 3 months into a year of travelling around Europe before heading off to University for 8 years to train to be a vet. Kate just sat at our kitchen table and it just felt as if she’d been there for ever. What a lovely young woman she is. I’m so pleased to have met someone as adventurous and excited about travelling and yet completely grounded.  She told us she’d been saving up since she was about eight years old for her trip around Europe and her favourite possession was a miniature model of the Eiffel Tower  - which we found in the car after she left, oops. We’ll get it back to her somehow.

Seriously, if anyone is wondering how to fill in a few days of their summer they can’t do anything better than volunteer at the festival. It’s had some amazing reviews this year and it volunteering is a great way to attend the festival for free. It’s so laid back that it doesn’t feel like you’re working even when you’re on duty. 

However, the queues for the food stalls were ridiculously long and vegetarians hardly got a look in so next year I think I might even set up a food stall. Sandwiches and Welsh cakes, perhaps. Anyone want to join me?

The view from the festival field

Straight after the festival I blagged a lift back to Wales with my visitors, Karyl & Chris, to go and see Bruce Springsteen playing at The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. What a showman that guy is! I’ve never been a huge Sprinsgteen fan but after hearing his Seeger Sessions CD I started to listen to his other stuff a bit more and started to appreciate his music a bit more so just had to go and see him when he was playing in my home town. Big huge enormous thanks to my mucker Karyl for buying the ticket for me for my birthday.

I came back up to Lewis in my own car with Jennie and Sarah helping to do the overnight driving so we could catch the early afternoon ferry from Skye back to Harris. It felt like we were being naughty – like we were on a road trip. Lack of sleep made us all giggly and every lovely thing we saw became exaggerated and magnified beyond all expectation. And some of the lovely things we saw were absolutely fantastic. We drove the length of Loch Ness while it grew steadily lighter and lighter. The dawn finally broke as we started to rise up over to Rannoch Moor. It was totally surreal to see right in front of us a fine stag standing on a crag overlooking silhouetted against the rising sun. It was one of those simple moments where we looked at each other for reassurance that we’d all just seen the same thing – Walt Disney couldn’t have designed the scene any better. Shortly after that we were right on top of the moor with all the lochans and marsh pools glistening golden in the early sun when an eagle soared out of nowhere and flew down low over the car and glided across the sky in front of us. The absolute majesty of that early morning journey across the moor will remain with me for a long time.

Sunrise over Rannoch Moor.

Luckily the summer weather stayed put for a few days and I was able to show off the best bits of the island when the sun was shining.

Since my visitors left I’ve had a little bit of time of my hands to take up a couple of new hobbies. I’ll tell you all about my chickens and my rug making in the next chapter.