Friday night and it’s blowing a hooley. It was a nice enough day but always the wind. We took a turn over to Dry Harbour this afternoon and enjoyed a ‘breezy’ sunset on the way back.

Promising Night

The forecast for the next week looks like South West force 6 plus!!! Oh and 80 mph winds on Sunday, it should be interesting. I’d had a busy day Tuesday taking advantage of a dry few hours to clear the ditches that were blocked up.

Ditching

But it was very wet off the paths, last job was to de-mast the Wayfarer and tie it down for the Winter before the rain made working outside impossible. The mast (once I took it off) unfortunately was a lot more bent than I thought.

Away For The Winter

Wednesday was the best day this week so I took a trip out looking for hinds, with a cull figure outstanding and the winter taking more out of them everyday it is important to get the job done sooner rather than later. It was with a futile hope that I headed North to the Lighthouse.

Early Morning sun over Applecross

I had some things to pick up there, so it wasn’t a wasted journey. Some of the boys up at the Qinetic Base are moving on so I thought it would be a good chance to see them before they left. The sun came out but the deer got wind I was about and they weren’t.

Always a Good Sight

Once I came off the moor path passed the lighthouse the first thing I saw was the Base poly tunnel. (or at least what I didn’t see).

Gone With The Wind

Now that was a surprise!! Ours is still standing.

The Plastics in Gairloch

I had a tea with the guys and Iain the engineer was telling me that a week last Wednesday he was wakened (as we all were) at 5 in the morning with the noise of thunder, lightening and wind.  Once he got up he had a look at the wind recorder, it was showing 113 knots (130 mph). He thought it was a lot stronger earlier but the wind recorder log wasn’t switched on, but the damage was done whatever. I headed back home into the sun which was a novelty, Iain had also said they had recorded 50 mph that morning and it felt like that heading back South. I took a bit of shelter behind one of the ruins at Braighe and was intrigued to see a blue flag fluttering away on the wall, turns out it was one of the Archaeology groups markers.

Blue Flag

No hinds apart from a family group hanging about the cottages.

A Family Group

All Mothers and daughters, a young group and a good quality group, not a cull hind among them. Once I got home fed and watered it was light enough to head South, a better prospect. Sure enough not far down the track I spied a single hind, I successfully stalked it and got it back to the larder, with the way the weathers going it will be good to be butchering at the end of the week.

Thursday looked calm so a frantic evening was spent writing Xmas cards and getting presents organised as MV Spindrift was due in the morning, as it was the morning was very dreich with only a small gap in the weather. So emails, shopping, lists and calls were flying back and forth for Calum and Irene to do the food shop and Pam and Kevin to get the hard goods. Trying to remember everything is a nightmare and we always forget something, or something doesn’t arrive to the suppliers. Lunch time our first boat for a while arrived. Thanks to our shore based pals.

Loaded

It had gone flat calm and the rain stopped for 1 hour, it was good to get the shopping, the goodies and of course the mail. There was five sacks!!!!  We had been busy on the internet for sure.

Mail Drop

So here we are listening to the wind outside whistling away, looks like a long week ahead.

Plans for going Xmas shopping are on hold but we had good