Admiral Hales attempts cpr on a Yamaha 200 o/b

It still didn't work without kippering the fish still in the harbour water. Not for the want of a good mechanic either

No. 1 sheeps

There they were, them sheeps posing for me with my Kodak Cresta  camera. By the tractor. Ex-tractor.

There again

Kyles of Scalpay.

Lady Matheson Memorial

Lady Mary Jane Matheson was an immigrant from Quebec who married a drug dealer - Lord Matheson who bought the Isle of Lewis. This is her memorial, up there in that curved wall thing. She died in London apparently. Well, I almost did living there many years ago - or at least my soul died.

Over the top

Eve had the day off - so it was raining.
We took off for Harris to have a look-see at the new Talla na Mara community hall which includes a fine cafe as well as artists hutches and at the moment Geoff Stear's fine art on show.

The snap I took whilst stopped on the Clisham road o'er Tarbert end. The clouds were very shapely I must say. Oh how very lovely it was - especially when we tucked into the tea and cakes in the cafe. Eh? What's a day off for?

A Tractor

Somewhere nice

Nice eh?
Lovely when the sun is shining. And a cafe nearby to sate one's thirst too.

Plus a bit of X

Uncle Alex Boyd gifted to me a roll of 35mm Kodak Plus-x - from 1958.

I used it in the Zorki6 camera with Industar 26m lens. It works.
I doused it in PQ developer 1:10 to counteract the probable loss of contrast.

Here we are:

Nice road eh?

Me

I waiting till midday was past so you knew it is really me. Pinholed and all that. 8x10 pinhole loaned by Mr A Boyd, loaded with old Ilford paper, show and developed this morning.

Obviously, I look better than this but, you know pinhole, 5 mins exposure etc.

Fankastic !

Apologies for the title but I've gone a bit tearful over these lovely portraits. I mean, who can not love fanks like these - nestling by the roadside, near the sea [ although everything is by the sea really] and made of recycled lives.

Don't tell me you don't want to be here looking over that fank with a loch and the sea behind it, the hills to the side while the sun warms your back.

Fanks again

Brace yourself, I might be showing one or two of these portraits I tooked of fanks. I like them. They little the landscape of the island and serve as a reminder of the way of the peoples till recently. Some are still used but most I think have seen better and busier days.

I did start a series called Fanks for the memory some time back and it needs finishing.

I show you.....

I show you this portrait of a Fank just to remind you, if you needed reminding - and I do - that the new Bergger Pancro 400 35mm film looks great at box speed in ID11. Whatever that means.

It may actually be a fankette to be pedantic but round here on this ere road in that sunlight with those clouds that day it looked lovely. So lovely that I took it's portrait.

And now the croisant

Artist Geof Stear  artfully brings the fresh croissant into his range at the very lovely Linda Norgrove brunch at Ravenspoint over the weekend. Congrats to Rhoda and others who got the thing together.

I have a beret like that you know - Stubbsy the artist gave it to me so I could get into the looking like an artist thing. Only, it just makes me look like Ms Wolfie

Of course, I didn't do landscapes

But it seems I have been working on that of late.

Sorry and all that.

It's ok. He's not here.

I shot him with the Holga. I can show it to you as he's not here but swanning around Ireland snapping everything that doesn't move.

Bergger Pancro 400

Yes, yes it's The Crofter. You've seen him before.

Here I caught him in a moment of dog-less happiness at home enjoying the warm weather on what was his birthday. Oh joy. His world is likely to be upset soon with the arrival of a baby into the household. Makes a change from lambs anyway.

I shot the man with my trusty OM1n using the new Bergger Pancro 400 doused afterwards in Rodinal 1:25. Nice don't you think?

Oooof

Here I was, stood by the sea contemplating - life and all that - when this pinhole camera looked at me. Briefly.

The coows

Yes, it's the same coows as I snapped up before. I was so taken with them I shot them again. They really didn't seemed to mind  at all.

You're wrong!

No, not another snap from The Birthday Stroll. Not a bit of it. Twas the day before. And the other direction from home. Totally the other direction as it happens. And in rain. Yes, did I tell you it can rain here?

It wasn't raining when I left home you understand. When I strolled past The Crofter's croft and everything. Hardly a cloud in the sky - apart from the ones that were there you understand. I was going out toward The Crofter's peat banks out beyond over there, where the sun was shining.

Lovely stroll in the force 7 breeze but then I noticed a blackening of the clouds a tad - out over the moor. Too bad I thought. Then the hail came, all of a sudden and everything. I hardly had a chance to scurry  under the branches of the tiny wood there. It eased as soon as it started so I started off again - until the rain came down moments later.

Bother I thought, shot a fence with a peat track in the distance and went home. Then the sun came out again !

Water

Heard enough about the peat track yet? Oh well, you might be dissappointed today.

We are not short of water here - usually. We did have a very dry start to the year a while back and the lochens did run low and the water was less than fully available.

It's not like that this year though.

This is part of a peat track out to our peat bank. Seems to have joined the lochen it runs alongside at this point. We skirted the dampness by taking the route close to the Hebridean fence on the left. Hebridean in that many of the wooden posts hang delicately on the wire and flap in the breeze.