Weather: Windy and overcast, becoming very wet and windy in the evening.

The main event this morning was that we received the keys to our new accommodation. These were kindly dropped off by Chris who amongst other things, is a mature fine art student at U.H.I. We then drove down to the south of Benbecula to buy a ‘tick removal’ kit. This comprises what looks like 2 different sized plastic tweezers. The trick is to hook them under the body of the tick (this is the engorged part, with the blood sac) then to turn it smartly to the left thereby releasing the disgusting little brute’s legs. The tick can then be disposed of..

This is not a nice, but neither are ticks. Armed with this new tool in the fight against nature, in a lighter moment, we then stopped at a new bigger and better Co-op store and bought something for lunch. This we had as a picnic in the car over-looking a flat, misty landscape towards a sandy bay at Carnan on South Uist.

It was then time to travel on to our new house at Minish to check things over. It is a very nicely proportioned traditional cottage, beautifully situated besides a sea loch. It has been a while since it was previously occupied so it does need a good clean and one or two things sorting out but we are very excited about the prospect of moving here.

The weather deteriorated in the evening and by the time we turned up for the opening of the new exhibition at Taigh Chearsabhagh, it was very windy and raining hard (bit of a theme developing here..) We were also an hour early, having thought to arrive fashionably late. As we seemed to be running on Newcastle event opening times (6-8pm) we retired to the lounge bar of the Lochmaddy Hotel to wait for the other guests to arrive.

Apart from the exhibitions on view at the centre there were two more venues to visit, one at the Livestock Mart where Keith McKintyre was showing three large drawings in what is an interesting alternative space. The other was at the one-time tourist office where Keith and Andy McKinnon were showing a moving image piece that they had made off the Isle of Man coast. After viewing these surprising and inspiring art works we retraced our steps to the Arts Centre which had by this time closed. This meant that the exhibitions on show here would need to be visited on another occasion.

The cats were very well behaved and seemed to have settled down into a suitable routine. (We’ll soon change that..)