A VERY Sloppy Kind of Day!

 

Up this morning about 6 am to actual SUNSHINE!  Absolutely NOT used to this kind of beginning!!  But we’ll definitely take it!  I had a truly lovely soak in the wonderful bathtub here!  As it’s been weeks since I’ve had access to a nice tub, it was really terrific!  

 

In Orkney, it took 2½ days for the house to actually warm up to a livable temperature – and here, it took something like 2½ -3 hours!  It was so warm in here last night that we actually turned off all the heaters, or at least turned them down!  Much prefer to be warm, that’s for sure!  

 

Breakfast was basically toast, and we were ready to go out about 9 – and it was still sunny!  While there are two basically neolithic monuments on the island, there are many partial stone circles and cairns – they seem to be everywhere.  Our first stop, Steinacleit Cairn, was sitting at the top of a hill.  The problem was that it was located at the edge of an inland lake – a loch – and the ground was absolutely drenched.  There was signage saying that one needed really good hiking shoes to reach the site.  Well, as we only have our tennies, we decided they probably weren’t up to the task, and we’d have to forego the pleasures the cairn, and left for Callanish I, some 20 miles to the south.

 

Loved the stone bridge (one lane wide)

Callanais I

At Callanish II

My shoes

R's shoes

Our dear friends, Stew and Bob, had visited the islands of Lewis and Harris some years ago.  They had actually wanted to go to Harris, home of the famous tweeds.  Turns out that the islands are actually one island, with a narrow spot in between the two halves, but whatever.  At any rate, they felt that Lewis, where we are, was incredibly bleak, and that Harris, was much more beautiful.  But we’ll find out tomorrow!  

 

Made it to Callanish I – This is the main area of standing stones, and contains the Visitor’s Center.  Similar to Stonehenge (much farther south, in Salisbury), it is about 5,000 years old.  These monuments raise all kinds of questions.  Why were they built?  Does the number and placement of the stones have any special meaning?  Some astronomers have claimed some of the alignments point to rising or setting points of the Sun or the Moon or particular stars but who really knows?   Another baffling thing is that these monuments have survived at all, that people (being people) haven’t destroyed them by now.

 

The most interesting thing about this island, though, is that because it’s Sunday, many, many things are closed!  Most of the museums and restaurants, as well as the Visitors Center, and Museum at Callanish!  And talk about a dearth of bathrooms!  Whew!  Incredible!  So, up the walk to the first batch of stones!  There is a lovely 2-mile walk linking Callanish I, II and III, but we decided, as there are parking lots at each, to drive to each.  The stones were beautiful, but there were also a lot of people around – very difficult to find a way to take photos without running into other people in them – and possibly we’ve just been spoiled by having sites all to ourselves over these past several weeks!  Oh well!  Callanish II was fine – although I got a start to find there was already someone ahead of us, just sitting on the ground with her back up against one of the stones, sitting in the sunshine!  But it was at Callanish III that the real adventure began!  

 

Callanish III is a very small stone circle – it may have been either the beginning or the end of the route – but boy, you had to quite literally go through a bog to get to it!  [It reminded me of the Great Grimpen Mire – See Hound of the Baskervilles – R].  My new white tennies were white no longer!  And I won’t even begin to describe R’s shoes AND socks!  UGH!!!  Should have taken a photo of the resultant socks once the shoes were off back at the apartment!  Incredible!!!  Not sure if that mud or whatever it was – I think it was peat water, actually, as it was actually BLACK all over the socks – was very difficult to wash off!  We had the shoes outside in the sun for several hours, and now they’re upside down on one of the heaters, and I’m hoping they dry off before we have to do something about dinner!  When you’re traveling – at least when we’re traveling, we usually only have one pair of shoes each.  This time, though, R has his “good” traveling shoes – leather black shoes, which he can wear with jeans, and I have a pair of flats that I can wear with jeans – which I think I’m going to have to wear to dinner tonight – although honestly, my feet will FREEZE!  However, needs must!!  And we’ll see how it goes!!  

 

Watched Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple this afternoon, and found them to be pretty good, actually!  Not Joan Hickson good, but the stories are very well done!  Decided, rather than head into town for dinner, to make do with what we have on hand for dinner.  (Have to admit that eating out all the time does get rather old; one of the many wonderful benefits of AirBnB and Booking.com!).  So, I’m going to have my second wonderful baked potato, and then we’ve got a large serving of chicken satay with rice.  Additionally, R is making himself a cheese and Coleman’s mustard sandwich on excellent French bread, so I don’t think we’ll be going hungry anytime soon!  

 

More tomorrow!

m

xxx