Busy bee

It's been a busy old week this week, trying to wade through a HUGE order for a shop in Portree - I'll be glad when it's finished!

A little sandy beach on Eriskay looking over to S. Uist.

The gang at the hostel.

The hostel at Howmore.

Here's some more photos from the Uists, we camped for three nights at the hostel at Howmore. A great little place with a lovely atmosphere, we met up with some super people there, with whom we shared evenings of flying the kite on the beach, fishing and playing scrabble - great fun. The days were spent looking for otters (which we saw), listening to Corncrakes and dotting around the islands looking at various artists work during the arts festival, just my cup of tea!

A gorgeous little croft house.

Wild orchids.

Otter watching.

Unfortunately it's gotten to that time of year again when the "C" word (Christmas!) is being banded around the house like it's just around the corner, not something that I particlurly enjoy, seeing as the sun is shining and it is actually quite warm outside! Hey ho, the joys of being wrapped up in the world of retail...............(ha ha!)

Enjoy your weekend.

L x

P.S. Thank you to the lovely ladies Marie and Tracy for the awards, will post about them next week.

Harris & Lewis

As promised more photos of the holiday. We started our little island hopscotch by sailing over to Harris, one of the most spectacular places on earth. As we drove to the south of the island to spend our first night in the sweetest little B&B ever, all we could do was soak up the amazing scenery of one golden beach after the other.

An evening stroll along Scarista beach

Sorrel Cottage B&B, Leverburgh, a stunningly simple, home from home place to rest your head, made even more special by the lovely warm welcome from it's owner Paula.

Flying the kite on Luskentyre beach, Harris.

Luskentyre is also home to Luskentyre Harris Tweed Company, we had a great chat with Donald, who showed us his workroom, the weaving loom and how it worked. He designed and produced the Harris tweed that was used for the limited edition Nike trainer back in 2004. On looking out of his shop window I asked him where he got his inspiration from, but kind of knew I was looking at it, the aquas of the sea, the golden sands, the pale blue skye and the amazing colours of the machair.

The view from our first nights campsite, at Cliff on the West coast of Lewis. This patch of harebells just gently bobbed in the sea breeze.

Our second nights campsite on the beach at Garenin, the blackhouse village, a conservation village of traditional blackhouses, some of which have been turned into a hostal. There is also a wonderful museum set up as to how the house would have been originally, (another) Donald weaves all day demonstrating to visitors in the weaving shed, and then through in the kitchen there are demostrations of spinning, making oatcakes and the day we were there how to make butter. Theres also a superb little tearoom selling good coffee and great homebaking!

Donald weaving Harris Tweed.

Butter making with a roaring fire in the background.

Looking down through the black village.

Callanish Standing stones.

Feeding the pigs at the Callanish Visitor Centre - really nice little place that do a great bowl of soup, coffee and cake!

Uig Sands, a gorgeous big stretch of sands of Lewis.

Surfers at Dalmore beach, this was probably my favourite beach, a little cove of golden sands, aqua sea and great waves - ooh how I wish I'd had a surf board! It was so hot I ended up sunbathing for the afternoon, stripped down to my bra and my jeans rolled up as there was hardly anyone else there!

We spent our last night on Harris camping at Scarista beach, shown in the first photo. We sat down on the sands with a bottle of wine and watched the sun set (more photos but taken in a different format, will show them later!). It was such a beautiful night, not a single soul on the huge stretch of beach, then, all of a sudden what pops up in front of us but two dolphins! They gave us the pleasure of watching them play for a good five minutes, you can't pay for scenery like that. It just rounded off our first few days perfectly, we were off to The Uists the next day, once we'd seen a bit of the east coast of Harris. I have to admit I was looking forward to a soft bed and a good shower, our second night of B&B....

More to follow on the Uists next week, see you all soon.

L x

Back to work!

Back to work today after two glorious weeks of holiday. To say that we were both a tad stressed before we left would be a bit of an understatement, so our holiday in the Outer Hebrides was just what we were needing. We were lucky enough to get great weather the nights we were camping and met up with some really super folk.

The wildlife is quite amazing over there, and the beaches are just mind blowing, but more on that tomorrow.

As usual the work load has pilled up after two weeks away so we're going to be busy bees over the next few months. We've come home completely inspired by all of the artists living and working over on the islands so it's full steam ahead with building the studio and shop, I've put a deadline of the end of September on it................hmmm, we shall see, watch this space!

Will catch up with you all soon, in the meantime I'll just have to tease you with a couple of photos!

L x