By hanging and strangling…
September 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
That’s the literal translation of a Dutch saying when a goal is achieved with very small margins. This was certainly true for the Scottish rugby team when they entered the quarter finals of the World Cup today through a victory over Italy with 18 - 16. Disappointment was great at the Italian side… of course. An all time greatest was the match between Fiji and Wales. This was rugby at its best! What a great match. Suspense from start to finish with the Fijians victorious at end.
So far for rugby. It would almost make you forget the wonderful weather we have the past days. It’s like an after-summer and long may it last! We’re making good progress with the garden project. If the good weather holds the work should be ready by the end of this week.
This morning I could not resist taking a picture of our own private bay. When the moon is full, this part fills up with water during high tide and this morning the early sunlight was making it a great picture. I had to experiment a bit with the shutter time to capture the light just right. I think it worked out ok. Notice the reflection in the water due to the complete lack of wind…
Duncelt
September 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
Yesterday evening was the closing show of the Duncelt festival in Dunvegan. It was a light show depicting a local legend about a piper being brought into the world of the faeries where he has to perform a number of challenges.
The show was impressive and was performed largely on a stage set in the waters of Loch Duvegan, by a group of people called “te POOKa”. The audience was more or less directly involved as the majority of the performers made their entrance through the group of spectators standing at the car park: faeries, goblins, a scary looking chap with a hood, the piper, a dancer with a hoop…
The show and the music were really nice although the storyline was a bit hard to follow at times, as the actors appeared not to wear microphones. But alas… the drift of the story was clear and the great weather, the surroundings, the music and the mystical characters did in fact create a special atmosphere for me. The show ended with impressive fireworks when the piper had completed all his challenges.
We went over to the Early Bird Enterprises booth and enjoyed one of their lovely venison burgers. A great evening!
No power…
September 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
Quite a surprise today, when we found two letters from Scottish Hydro, the company that delivers our electricity. There will be no electricity on October the 10th during the afternoon and October the 12th trough out the whole day (from 09:00 to 17:00). I guess this has to do with the activity that has been going on with the new electricity poles recently.
It is a bit annoying and it makes you realize how dependent we are on electricity coming into our houses 24/7…
Lazy
September 26, 2007 | 1 Comment |
Today we just didn’t feel like any garden work and decided to leave it for a day. The weather being unpredictable, this wasn’t a bad decision. So, first we went off to Dunvegan for some fresh fruits and vegetables. We generally buy our stuff at the Fruit and Nut Place (see picture), a shed-like building hosting an amazing assortment of fresh fruits, vegetables and things you just can’t get at the supermarket. We found out that - to our knowledge - they’re the only shop selling buckwheat flour, an indispensable ingredient for making “poffertjes” (small Dutch pan cackes, eaten with butter and icing sugar).
Next we headed to Struan. We decided not to build the chicken hutch ourselves but in stead buy it ready-made from Mr. MacDonald whom we buy the hens off. As we still have no shed, I otherwise had to make the hen hutch outside. With the weather being so unpredictable, we decided to choose the easy way.
While driving back from Struan, we now noticed that the earlier mentioned Ben Aketil wind farm is quite visible from large parts of the B884, the road which runs from Dunvegan past our house to Glendale and beyond. We drove up to Osdale Farmhouse to check out the views from there and were quite astonished by the fact that the two turbines (of a total of ten) are so clearly visible.
On this picture you see the turbines in the distance (right of the middle). The road in front is the B884 running from Dunvegan to Glendale and past our house.
Clan against Clan
September 25, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
In the days of old, the clans of Scotland used to fight harsh battles amongst them. You can find tales of clan clashes all over the internet. A story which impressed me quite a bit was the one about Trumpan Church, a church in the hamlet of Trumpan here on Skye on the Waternish peninsula.
One day in May in the year 1578 galleys of the clan MacDonald of Uist came to Trumpan and massacred the congregation of Trumpan Church - people of the clan MacLeod - by setting fire to the church. It is said that one women survived and managed to warn the MacLeod’s in Dunvegan. The revenge of the MacLeod’s was swift and eventually all of the MacDonalds were killed as they could not launch their boats due to low tide. The battle was named the ‘Battle of the Spoiling of the Dyke’ (’Blar Milleadh Garaidh’ in Gealic) so called because, when all was over, the bodies of the MacDonald clansmen were buried by the toppling of a great dyke or wall of turf onto their bodies.
It’s hard to imagine… a peaceful congregation gathered together in a church and all being slaughtered. Even harder to imagine when you’re standing there - in modern times - and everything is quiet and peaceful…
Full moon
September 25, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
The funny thing with a full moon on a clear night is that it looks like it’s not completely dark. The house - having sparkling white walls - emits a ghostly light. It’s like you’ve left the outside lights on.
Well I decided to pick up the old camera and do some experimental photography. Unfortunately, I do not have a tripod so I had to improvise a little (I put the camera on the roof of the car), as taking photo’s in the night requires long shutter times.
As said, I experimented a bit and below photo came out best and is quite realistic as well. It’s taken from the car park, towards the south west. The fence you see is the border with the land belonging to our neighbors.
Hooks, maps and a great match…
September 23, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
Today was a bit of a stay-in-the-house-because-it’s-terrible-outside day. Rain and increasing winds so we didn’t go out to venture anything special. I started reading one of my latest book acquisitions: a very nice second hand copy of Jack Vance’s “Chronicles of Cadwel”.
We also did some useful things. After hanging the curtains we still had to install curtain hooks and holder bands. Claire made bands from the leftover cloth and we had ordered sets of hooks which I fixed to the walls today. There was to be some drilling and you always have to be prepared to use special plugs to fix things in the plasterboard walls, however we were lucky this time. All the hooks were located on studs, so no need for plugs. Just screws!
I added a pretty nice feature to the skinidin.com site: a Google map of Skye with a collection of markers showing places we’ve been to or visit on a regular basis. In the coming days I will link them to pictures and blog posts when relevant, so it will add a alternate way of reading about our doings here on the island…
And… there was a great rugby match: South Africa - Tonga. The Springboks anticipated a walk over and had send out a team of second choice players. Bad move! The Tongans played great and South Africa only just got the better of the game: 30 - 25. A truly great match! I was on the edge of my seat!!
Internet Explorer users
September 22, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
Thanks to Caroline I discovered that Internet Explorer is sensitive to one of the plugins I use to display Google Maps on this site, up to the point that it just doesn’t display the site at all.
For now I have deactivated the plugin and will investigate the matter. So, due to that there are no Google Maps popping up with geo-tagged posts and you might see some weird looking links with a couple of posts. Please ignore them…
I will investigate further…
[Update 22nd September] I figured out the cause of the problem although I could not fix it completely. I decided to hack the plugin. The site should now display the maps correctly for IE users as well.
The farm revisited
September 21, 2007 | Leave a Comment |
I wrote about the wind farm earlier on. Now I wanted to know the exact location, so I checked out some maps and websites. The project is known as the “Ben Aketil Wind Farm”. Ben Aketil is 266 meters high mountain, roughly between Dunvegan and Edinbane.
Check out the map below to get idea about the position. As you can see, it’s quite a bit away from our location so i doubt our views will be affected by the turbines.
[Update 21st September]: We drove by the farm today and the first two turbines have been erected. You can’t see them from our location but they’re quite visible when you’re approaching Edinbane. I thought they did not look too intrusive…
The weekly struggle
September 20, 2007 | 2 Comments |
The “weekly struggle” is a walk uphill of about 200 meters. The first part of the terrain is flat, through stone chippings, then a rough path with an ascent of about 9%, then an iron gate that has to be opened and then 20 meters to the finish. All this performed in a pitch black environment, hauling a large green container of about 1.20 meters height and an average weight of about 50 kilo’s…
You guessed it?
Yes, it’s the weekly emptying of the bin. The bins are emptied on Friday morning here in Skinidin, so Thursday evening the thing has to be wheeled to the roadside. During the summertime this is not much of a problem. During other periods of the year in gets really dark in the evening, and I mean pitch black! If you were to walk out without a light, you’d be lucky not to step into the burn and break a limb or hit your head against one of the trees.
But it’s not all trouble… This evening it wasn’t cold and the skies were clear. I have never seen stars like I’ve seen them here on Skye. It’s like traveling through space: the stars, the milky way, the moon - all extremely bright. It’s so clear it’s like you can almost touch them. The complete lack of environmental lights makes it a really wonderful experience….
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Latest music...
Hair (1968, Original Broadway recording). Some naughty lyrics for that time!!
An Rathad a Bhatarsaigh, by the Vatersay Boys