Jean's bench

Jean no longer had any use for her garden bench, and kindly gave it to us. Sue has now completed the restoration of the bench and is sitting on it here in the sunshine at the Barn.

Isle of Skye, Essential Gardening Equipment...

With space in the van at a premium when we moved here, I left my watering can in Kent - "Not going to need that" I thought... How wrong I was! Our planted tubs wouldn't be flowering without a daily watering. I'm even watering bedding plants in borders...

It's been a couple of scorching hot days this weekend. We have made the most of it, and done some outside work at the Barn. Sue has attended to a restoration job on a lovely bench we were given by a friend of hers...


...and I have at last installed some steps to make getting to the upper part of the garden an easier proposition.


It was hot work - but I am pleased with the result, and they will soon 'naturalise' with the grass growing round the edges.

Hard at Work...not

We went to Aird View today to do a touch of gardening. This is about as hard as the work gets.


Basil likes to help...

The Skye At Night

We had an evening out yesterday, visiting our friends Anders and Karin from Sweden. They rented the Barn last winter, and have been staying in Fiscavaig since we have been on Skye. They return to Sweden next month, so it was good to meet up and have a 'Swedish' meal with them.

We left Fiscavaig to drive home just after midnight. The sky was broken cloud, and a large moon occasionally appeared. The western sky was streaked with the last vestiges of grey daylight - it never really gets dark in the summer here. The air was still and warm, scented with meadowsweet, which is flowering everywhere just now.

I drove the 20-or-so miles quite slowly, aware that there are hedgehogs toddling about, and always the occasional insomniac sheep standing, chewing, in the middle of the road. In the 40 minute trip, we didn't see another vehicle - and this is 'high season' for tourists... I am still getting used to the lack of traffic on Skye!

Dorrell in Devon

I left Roskhill at 4.00am yesterday morning for the trek south. My favoured route is up Glen Shiel, then past Loch Garry and Loch Lochy to Fort William. This is all wonderful scenery, on this occasion with mostly blue skies and cloud skimming the tops of the mountains. I was tempted to stop to take photos, but I had a long way to go...

I filled up with diesel in Fort William at £1.31.9 - it's 7p per litre dearer on Skye... I then take the A82 down through eye-achingly beautiful Glen Coe and across Rannoch Moor to Crianlarich. I avoid the A82 south to Glasgow, as it is narrow and often choked with slow moving caravans. I prefer to go east to Callander and then join the A9 at Dunblane.

This part of the journey was virtually traffic free, is about 215 miles, and took almost exactly four hours. From here, it's motorway and dual carriageway all the way to Torquay, so another 485 miles later, I was here! We might moan about traffic congestion and the state of our roads, but yesterday, everything was flowing smoothly, and I was in Torquay by 5.30pm - not bad going in a VW van!

Here's the view from where I am sitting writing this -

- quite a contrast to Skye!

More to follow as the week goes on...

NHS Scotland...hmmm...

I still have my hernia...

I made the trip to Broadford on Thursday, only to be told when I got there that my appointment had been re-scheduled for Wednesday (the day before) but no-one thought to tell me... So now I have another appointment at the beginning of August.

A result of this is that I am bringing forward a trip to Devon to visit friends and family. I'll be driving down on Sunday (tomorrow) and expect to stay a week. I'll still have access to the internet, so will probably post a picture/message or whatever while I'm away.

Hope to hear from some of you on here soon - just click on the 'comment' button.

New website live!

Just a quickie to let you all know that my new website for us is now live online at www.bedbreakfastskye.co.uk Next challenge is to get the search engines to find it - that can take weeks! Also have a website finished for Graham, a mountain guide friend. I have to get that online to replace his existing site as soon as possible. I'm beginning to get the hang of the Dreamweaver software!

Sue is on her way back from her trip to Kent - she should be somewhere between Glasgow and Fort William as I write - nice day for the journey!

I'm off to Broadford hospital for my hernia repair tomorrow. I expect to be home again by Friday teatime. I probably won't be doing much over the weekend!

Off the Island!!

For the first time since moving here at the end of April, I left the island last week - for a trip to Inverness. The journey takes about three hours, and goes through some truly stunning scenery.

The trip was multi-purpose. I delivered Sue to the bus garage in Inverness after we had done a day's shopping. Sue has gone down to Kent for a week to catch up with friends and spend some time with her Mum, and this time she went by coach, which is very much cheaper than using the car.

Also, we had to order some new carpets for Aird View - the Scottish Tourist Board 'star rating' is based upon quality assurance inspections, and last year we were warned that we would need new carpets by the time of this years' inspection - so the deed had to be done, though I have to say that the carpets look OK to me...

I returned to Roskhill in the evening with a car loaded with bits from B&Q, and now have a couple of DIY tasks to complete before Sue gets back and sees all the mess here...