(Nick here, guest blogging while Frances is in Norway)

As promised, back to Lewis and Harris for today’s missive.

While we did spend most of our time exploring Harris, we ventured north to Lewis on one occasion to visit the Callanish standing stones, a stone circle in the north west of the island. The weather was blazing sunshine with scooting clouds, so not ideal for photography (I tend to prefer moody sunrise or sunset light) but with a special filter I was able to get a long exposure shot of the stones with a spooky sky to reflect the mystery surrounding sites like this.

Another longish drive took us to Hushinish, a remote settlement with a sheltered beach and a satisfying mix of wave-worn rounded boulders and smooth white sand.

Our accommodation at Scarista House was next to a pristine sandy beach with views of Chiapaval mountain. Playing with my filter again I took one photo with a 10 minute exposure time, to really make the sky look special:

The various grasses growing on the sand provided photographic interest too.

As you’d expect on an island, water was a common feature of most of our photographs, from wind-blown rippled lagoons, to breaking waves and peat-tinted streams creating wonderfully coloured waterfalls.

And on our final night at Scarista, we were treated to a rare sighting of the aurora!

The drive back took us across Skye (by this time the Tarbert-Uig service was running again) and down through Glencoe to Glasgow, where we stopped for a night before the long drive back to Watford. Here are a few more photos from the mainland on that drive home.

Looking up at pine trees

Loch Lochy

Glencoe villlage at sunset

Buachaille Etive Mhór at sunset

Sunset colours over Glencoe

Thank you for all the lovely comments following Monday’s post. I hope you’ve enjoyed these pictures as much.

(Nick here, guest blogging while Frances is in Norway)

A hiatus from the Hebrides photos (more tomorrow – promise!). There were various squeals of delight after I teased you all with that photo of Archie and Fergus on Sunday, so here are the full crew of 10.

Archie is the daddy and the grandaddy (literally) of the guinea pig family. He is about 5 years old now (I don’t know exactly – my OH keeps track better than me). He is also by far the tamest – the only one who doesn’t scurry for cover at the slightest noise, and he is happy to sit and have his middle parting tickled for as long as you have the energy. A heart of gold, and yet a randy bugger, as you’ll find out…

Lumi is the mother and grandmother of the bunch. She is still a little shy, as you can see from her coy expression here. ‘Lumi’ is Finnish for ‘snow’ and she was named by our son. When we put her with Archie, she was pregnant in no time, and gave birth to four little bebbies, who are next.

Roo, or Roo-bear, has a cute black hat that is utterly endearing. She is the boss of her little coterie, consisting of her, her mother and her sister Piglet. She recently had to have a rather painful gallstone removed – we were allowed to keep the offending item which is as big as a peppercorn. I dread to think what the equivalent would be in a human, but she has soldiered on and is as cheeky and bossy as ever.

Roo’s sister Piglet is the long-suffering sister. She and her mum just basically do what Roo tells them. However when it comes to treats (carrot, cucumber or cabbage) they will all fight their best to get more than their fair share, even though we always give them equal portions.

Hamish is, rather surprisingly, a girl. After she was born, the vet reliably informed us that she and Rabbit were boys, while Roo and Piglet were definitely girls. So we separated them by sex, with Hamish and Rabbit going to live with Archie, while Lumi had custody of the others. A few months later however, when I went to visit them in the garden, both Hamish and Rabbit were distinctively fatter, and sure enough, a few days later, we had been gifted with five more little pups, in a huge variety of colours.

This is Rabbit, named for her distinctive rabbit-like colouring. She too was thought to be a boy on birth, but thankfully she doesn’t have to suffer the indignity of a particularly masculine name. She is also a little shy and bossed about by her sister Hamish, but she does get on better with her daughter Crinkle.

…and here is the aforementioned Crinkle, with the best expression ever. She won’t let her mum Rabbit take too much nonsense from Auntie Hamish, and can more than hold her own in a food fight.

This is Hamish’s son Donald, who lives with his brother Douglas. He keeps insisting that his hair grows like that naturally, and is definitely NOT a toupee. He has promised to make guinea pigs great again, and we suspect he has a red baseball cap somewhere.

Douglas is a few shades darker than his brother, and has a white stripe down his nose. These two are lovely company – for each other and for us, as they are both almost as tame as their dad (who is also their grandad but we won’t go there for now). As a result of the unexpected inbreeding, they both have an extra toe on their back feet, but are otherwise perfectly happy, healthy piggies.

Fergus lives with his dad/grandad, and is the brother of Crinkle. He has an adorable white face, and is not shy of demanding food whenever we are near. He has a middle parting as impressive as Archie’s, and once tried to go and visit his cousins Donald and Douglas after escaping from his temporary indoor accommodation. They did all get along, but Archie was lonely, so we had to put him back.

Those of you who have been counting will note that I have talked about 10 piggies, when there were 11 at one stage. Sadly, Rabbit’s other daughter Flora developed pneumonia and we lost her a few months ago.

A quick postscript, I’m sure Frances won’t mind – most of the landscape photos you’ll see me posting this week are available for sale as prints from my site. Please do have a browse!

(Nick here, guest blogging while Frances is in Norway)

In September I joined the Guild of Photographers on a tour of Lewis and Harris (well, mostly Harris if I’m honest). Despite the name, Lewis and Harris is a single island, located off the west coast of Scotland. Its location (green pin) relative to Shetland (red pin) can be seen in the map below:

I was due to travel on the ferry from Uig on Skye to Tarbert, at the narrowest point of the island, but the day before the sailing, as I was collecting my hire car, I was told by the ferry operator that the boat I was due to sail on had been damaged and the crossing had been suspended. Thankfully I was able to re-book for free on the Ullapool to Stornway service (both towns can be seen on the map above). This turned out to be a real boon, as the journey from Edinburgh (my overnight stop) to Ullapool was easier than the route to Uig, the ferry was later in the day so I didn’t have to leave at 6am, and the road from Inverness to Ullapool is one of the most beautiful roads I have driven on. Sadly, as I was on a timetable, I didn’t have time to stop and photograph this road.

I met some friends who were also on the tour at Ullapool, picked up some beer (we were warned that alcohol was expensive on the island) and caught the ferry just before sunset. The views from the boat were pretty special.

It was properly dark by the time we arrived at Stornoway, and the drive to our accommodation was quite a long one, so I had to knuckle down and get on with it, watching out for sheep along the way. Seeing a herd of sheep in the middle of the road, illuminated only by your headlights, looks a little like this (without the metal railings):

Stolen from Twitter

I was shown to my room and, exhausted, fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Over the following days, we explored the coast of Harris, the southernmost part of the island, even visiting one of the eminent weavers of the world famous Harris Tweed, a lovely chap called Donald John Mackay. He allowed us in to take a portrait of him in his workshop.

His workshop sits right next to Luskentyre Bay, one of the most famous beaches in the Hebrides, if not the whole of Scotland, and it’s easy to see why. The peat-tinted water that flows off the moors onto the white sand, mixing with the green seawater, creates a whole palette of colours that, combined with the ever changing light, create an ever-varying and ever-interesting scene that draws photographers from all over the world.

This post is turning out to be quite long – I do waffle on – so I’ll leave you with a photo of one of the most spectacular sunsets I’ve witnessed, taken just south of Luskentyre, over the rocks at Rubha Romagraich near Horgabost beach.

The colours really were that bright – I’ve not done anything to them in Photoshop!

Yesterday’s guinea pig photos were popular, it seems, so I’ll write some more about them tomorrow, and we’ll return to Lewis and Harris on Wednesday. Have a great week!

Hello everyone, it’s Nick here again. As Frances said yesterday, she’s off for a jaunt to Norway with Daisy so has, in her wisdom (or folly) left me in charge while she is away.

It’s nearly three years since I last posted, commenting on the emergence of spring here in Watford. I believe I’ve introduced you to our menagerie, including the star of the show, Danny (seen here in August, on a trip to Dartmoor):

He is three years old now and has matured into a wonderful companion; friendly, playful, intelligent, and affectionate. He gets on well with (most) other dogs, though he has issues with the short-snouted varieties such as French Bulldogs and Pugs, and loves children, who almost invariably want to stroke him when they see him.

In his current state (he hasn’t had a haircut for a few months now) he is barely recognisable as a dog beneath all that hair, but we brush him regularly and I’m really tempted to keep the fuzz that clings to the brush as it’s as soft as cashmere wool and would make a lovely jumper!

You might also recall Rosie and Cinnamon, our two chickens, from my previous posts. Sadly we have had to say goodbye to Rosie this past week, who developed a tumour on her liver. Cinnamon however is a picture of health, and we are looking into getting another chicken to keep her company. She doesn’t seem too distressed by the loss of her friend but I think it would be fair to give her some more company so we are in contact with someone local who is downsizing their flock. She is still laying on an almost daily basis – there is nothing to compare with a fresh poached egg for lunch.

Then there are the guinea pigs – 10 of them, no less. We brought them inside recently for the cold weather, but as it’s much milder now they will be returned to their outdoor hutches very soon. Archie, on the left, is the patriarch and father to most of the others, and Fergus, on the right, lives with him.

That’s all for now! Tomorrow I’ll tell you about a recent photography trip to the isle of Lewis and Harris, in the Outer Hebrides. This will contain proper photos, not iPhone snaps, as I know Frances has been building me up considerably!

Well this is my last blog post for a while.  My friend, Nick Miners, will be taking over in my absence.

From Rise Art ‘s website – “Nick is a freelance photographer obsessed with Iceland. He travels there as often as he can in search of the elusive perfect photo, despite knowing that it probably doesn’t exist. A side product of this search is an growing portfolio of landscape photography from Iceland, some of which was taken from an altitude of 6,000 feet. He is also fascinated by architecture, especially the mixed emotions generated by the brutalist movement.“

Anywho, Daisy and I have packed, Daisy has made extensive lists for OH and I have agonised about every animal who lives here.

OH will be fine.  Basically, throw silage at everyone.

Some get a hard feed as well.  Some don’t.

And some shouldn’t but, well, Gypsy would be very upset and they are travelling south when we get back so a bit extra won’t hurt.  They can run up thin after the ferry trip.

Little Albie is, at long last, weaned.  Huzzah!  He is not happy about this situation.  It was virtually white water and he was barely bothering but now it has gone completely, he stomps around following anyone he can find of the human variety to ask for his milk back.  Sorry Albie.  Not going to happen.  Big boy now.

BeAnne went into a decline when she saw the suitcase come out.

Anywho, we will be back on next Monday morning and, if you are interested, we are going to The Røros Winter Fair (Rørosmartnan, Sør-Trøndelag), then to Maihaughen Museum, Lillehammer and on to Oslo.

I have packed every camera I own!