Moving on.....to Island Blogging

Please note my blog has now moved onto Island Blogging - this is a network of Blogs kept by people who live on Scottish Islands.

If you want to keep following the adventures of N and I, please follow this link and update your favourites! Unfortunately most of the photos have not transferred across, so I will post them again later

http://sarahmac.islandblogging.co.uk/

A lovely hairy Cow!

I know that you can buy postcards of Highland Cows, but somehow, when you have taken the picture yourself from the car window, the cow looks even prettier! Look at this one

I have been asked to post more pictures of the house and the village we live in. Every time I have my camera the weather is awful and yesterday, when the weather was beautiful my camera was at home.....but I have a couple taken from the road between Grimshader and Ranish. As the road winds between the hills there are a couple of places where you can see the house through the gaps.

Hard to see when the picture is that small, but our house is just above the silvery patch of water just to the right of centre of the shot. Hmmm, that didn't really work did it? Sorry Dad!

We are working hard again today at observing a traditional Lewis Sabbath. I am getting a bit better at doing very little, but need to try harder again next week. N and I went to church today in Leurbost - N happily pointed out that he knew far more people than I did, which was horribly true! Even the minister recognised him from a visit to the school. I enjoyed the calm atmosphere and the singing - especially the singing.

Did some more work on the family tree with "The Elder" yesterday - we now have around 350 names on it and still growing. Starting to pull a few reports from the data and finding the best way of looking at it. Not bumped into any new relations this week, although we talked, quite by chance yesterday to some one whose blog I have been watching for a few months. Strange how small this place really is!

Swimming, climbing and football are still the mainstays of N's out of school activities. He is playing for Lochs U12s and is in a tournament which runs every Tuesday night for another 4 weeks. The tournament is indoor and 5-a-side, so very fast and exciting to watch. We are trying to swim twice a week to get him good enough for canoe club, not sure if we are progressing or not. As for the climbing....that is great. We had an induction on the climbing wall in the Sports Centre, and that means we can go as often as we like - with me doing the belaying, rope thang. We went on our own for the first time yesterday, and fumbled our wya through the knot tying (with a bit of timely intervention from a climber just when we needed it!). N made it to the top via 3 different routes, each harder than the last - he is a bit of a natural.

This week the mobile library comes, so off to try and finish my books - although you can have as many as you like and there are no late fines, so if I don't finish it doesn't really matter! What a place

HouseWarming

....not sure of HouseWarming is one word or two, but quite like it with a capital in the middle, so will leave it like that

One of my friends, Iain, told me in January that he didn't think I'd manage to keep my blog going past the end of March. Obviously I am determined to prove him wrong, purely out of spite. I must say, however, that I do struggle to update as regularly as I would like to. I have just been reading another blog (some porn star or other, over in Achmor). His blog has not been going much longer than mine, but he gets LOADS of comments. Maybe it is just that he is naturally wittier than me, or maybe he writes all the comments himself? Whichever it is, I'll need to find out. Having said that, lots of the blogs I read do have some "clever" content - some social comment, something educational about the Island or political undertones - whereas mine is just about what N and I have been up to and what we have had for tea. While that is interesting to my parents and some friends, I suppose my subject matter is not as "public" as some others. I am going to try adding some labels to the this post, which may mean I get more "passing traffic"....let's see!

The last 2 weeks have been eventful. N had his 9th Birthday, his Dad came to visit for the weekend and I moved out to Lochganvich for a couple of days (to give them "boy time"). N enjoyed himself and had a gaggle of boys over for a "Rock Band" party on Saturday night. I had a lovely peaceful weekend learning a few bits of Gaelic with my cousin and having a ride in a Porsche on Saturday night

I went to the mainland for 2 days last week - first crossing of the Minch since our big move in January. I flew over, and we STILL managed to find a bumpy bit in the middle, even being up in the air instead of on the surface of the water. Hung on to breakfast, but the Hostie had to sit on the floor of the plane for a few minutes, trying to hold on to her coffee pot. We all smiled and tried not to look nervous. I think I pulled it off and was glad to be "spared" to come back the next day

Last Saturday we had a wee gathering to warm our house. We invited everyone we have met in the village so far - but it was fairly last minute and several people couldn't come. Mrs Bonfire made an extremely good lamb curry, I made a chicken curry and beef casserole......and there was loads of beer and wine. My house is not as Party-friendly as out house in Cheshire - consequently the men spent most of the evening in the kitchen and the girls grabbed the lounge and the children were all in N's room. We all had a good time and at least a couple of people felt a bit jaded on Sunday, which I took as a good sign

I have promised Dad to put some pictures of the house on - so will do that at the weekend