What I’ve been up to…

I’ve been up to the top of Gallows Hill in Stornoway. That’s what I’ve been up to.  GB and I had coffee (with my obligatory Florentine) at the Woodlands on Saturday morning then I left him to do the Co-op shopping while I wandered around the Castle Grounds.  The view from Gallows Hill is wonderful.

I spent a wonderful couple of hours but didn’t spot any new (to me) wildlife or views, just the occasional lost-looking German tourists off the cruise liner anchored outside the harbour.  Spesh’s husband David was bussing a load of them around the Island and he had wonderful day for it. A couple of his recent Island tours have been undertaken in the pouring rain notwithstanding which the tourists all got off the coach to troop around the various sights and squelch back onto the coach again in a steaming mass.  Poor souls – the world looks so much better when that yellow thing is in the sky.

I managed to tire myself out so much it was straight to bed for me at four in the afternoon and I didn’t emerge until the early hours of Sunday.  By which time the meteors were raining down.  Well, not exactly raining.  More sort of spitting at an average rate of about one every five minutes (though two came down only a split second apart, in the same part of the sky and at the same trajectory.  Was this one that split on entry into the atmosphere, I wonder.  I don’t k now much about these things.  Just enough more than primitive man not to be frightened by them!   Unlike last nights pale little efforts these were brilliant ones.  Really bright and streaky and one directly overhead was a real starburst of a one. 

Having decided I was too awake to go back to bed and feeling bright and breezy I did some odd jobs on the computer.  One of them was order some stamps from a dealer who sells all the old British commemoratives. These are brilliant for Postcrossing because it means I can send people a stamp appropriate to their interests.  A postal worker in Ireland, for example, got one of these.

Saturday also provided me with the first decent sunrise of the holiday.  I can’t believe it’s taken nearly five weeks but most of the time the Island has been grey and cloudy.

 There has been some compensation in the many shades of grey…

 The dew after the heavy mist of Friday night gave me the chance to photograoh a washing line on Saturday morning. Not something I normally bother photographing!

And dew on a slightly more attractive subject - the mallow.

Then Sunday gave me another sunrise so I’m quite happy now.

 I love the way the mist hangs in the valley.

 Well, the Olympics are over for another four years.  I shall miss them.  I didn’t watch much this year - they are usually in all day every day at home.   I saw enough to know that we Brits did the thing well.  So did the athletes and I’m not just referring to the British ones. So much dedication, so much effort, so much emotion.  No doping scandals to hit the headlines and make the games derided by those who like to think we aren’t really getting better and better.  The USA girls broke one of the oldest Olympic records in the 4 x 100 metres.  Another big “Well Done” to all the volunteers who helped for the whole sixteen days and took part in the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. But, of course, for me it is our 65 medal winners including the 29 golds that have made the Games so special.  I can’t see us matching that total for a few Olympics to come and I hope people realise that the atmosphere of the stadia and velodromes and so on have contributed to that wonderful total in a  way that no future Olympics can for the GB team.  

A final bonus for me has been the Royal Mail issuing special stamps and painting pillar boxes gold.  I suspect my postcrossing friends will be getting Gold Medal stamps for a while to come. Well done everyone!