There is no denying that this part of Scotland can be a little on the windy side.  But wind has its uses.  As you probably know (if you've followed this blog for a while) our home is not on the mains electricity grid.  We source all our electrical energy from the wind via a wind generator and solar panels.  As we get closer to the winter season the solar panels become less efficient and we rely heavily on the wind generator as our main source of power.

Sailing is also reliant on the wind - well mostly anyway.  And today Stevan went sailing.  It is quite a while since he was last afloat on a small yacht, but it soon all came flooding back to him, and he found his sea legs pretty quickly.  He also had time to get some great shots of this part of the world from the seaward side:

hills

suilvin

When I think about sailing and seeing the land from the seaward side, I always think of a piece I read in either Children of Three Oceans by David Lewis or Children of Cape Horn by Rosie Swale.   The two young daughters were experienced sailors at a very early age, and it tells the story of when they went to school for a short while when they were anchored offshore during their round the world trip, and the teacher asked the pupils to paint a picture of the beach.   All the children painted pictures of the beach, looking out towards the sea, except the two girls, who painted the beach as if seeing it from their yacht offshore.   It's all to do with perspective.

The 3 hens are taking their time to settle in.  We're having a bit of difficulty distinguishing them from one another at the moment, but likely names include Endora, Esmeralda and Hagatha.   They are still very tentative and shy - except Hagatha who nips me every now and then, and while they have freedom to a section of the garden they just go under the trailer and won't come out all day.  I just hope they don't start laying their eggs under the trailer!  Especially not after I went to the trouble of buying a ceramic egg to show them where they should be laying their eggs.  Oh, and they don't seem to like the wind much!