Weather: Breezy and bright with sunny periods, later rain

Keith kindly invited us for Sunday lunch. The drive his house is about 10 miles and as there is only the single main road around the island, we were confident of our timely arrival. However, on the route, we were confronted by a flock of sheep blocking the road. Being unused to such colourful diversions, we became distracted and managed to drive past his house and then had to phone for directions. Keith then met us at the gate.

Keith lives in a house that he designed together with a local architect. His house has beautiful views through a panoramic window of the bay near to the village of Sollas. He lives alone with his two elderly dogs. Fran, whom we had met earlier in the week, at the Arts Centre, was also invited for lunch. The lunch was excellent, particularly Keith’s homemade ‘mackerel pate’. We talked about many things, most notably, the presence of rats on the islands. Keith described how on one memorable occasion, whilst he was looking out of his window, a large rat approached the bird table and climbed up on it to get to the bird food. Suddenly a buzzard swooped down at lightning speed and snatched it away. Such a great story. There are tales of cats being taken by eagles. One of our cats is massive, and I cannot imagine the size of bird that would be required to lift him off the ground, at least unaided. Fran described having lived in an extremely remote location for 40 years on the eastern side of the island with spectacular views across the Sound of Harris. She invited us to visit soon, which we look forward to.

Now that the ferocity of the wind has dropped the cats are going out again. There is still much mutual staring in and out of the windows though.