Uist Lady

Yesterday the rains were torrential all day, making it miserable for the visiting archaeologists attending HAF 2010.
But they made their way to Teampull Na Trionaid, a 700 year old seminary and place of pilgrimage of national importance, and stood under the bucketing heavens to listen to Dr John Raven of Historic Scotland talking about the building.

Dr Raven included research on the building in his PhD on the ecclesiastical landscape of the Uists. He’s also very much behind local residents’ drive to carry out remedial work to halt the inexorable deterioration of the building. They need £200,000 to prop it up and lime-mortar it.

Yesterday evening Nunton Steadings was packed for an evening themed around the Udal, an incredible site on North Uists’s northwest coast. It was excavated over 23 seasons by Iain Crawford, teams of archaeologists and students, and many local people. They found habitations from the Neolithic to 1700 AD. But the findings remain unpublished and the finds themselves are in mothballs. This rankles with local people who invested much of their time and effort into the dig, only to have the book of their history not only slammed shut, but devoid of any text.
Sandi Humphrey, a local lady from Sollas, stood up and told the assembled multitude which included many archaeologists who had worked on the dig, how betrayed locals feel about the way they have been treated. There was interesting news by way of response from Beverley Ballin Smith, of Glasgow University. She says she now has all the Udal finds in her possession and wants to seek money for a ten year project to complete the research work. And she wants the finds returned to our community, asking us to start getting plans for a suitable building together now, in preparation.
The road to this will be complicated, long, hard and very rocky. As Beverley said: “All we need is money.” Around £2 million and counting.
Here are local volunteers clearing away the 40 year old rotting and hazardous remains of Iain Crawford’s caravan and the greenhouse he put up against the side of it for finds processing (known fondly as the Crystal Palace.)

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This week saw the South Uist and Benbecula Agricultural Society’s annual show at Iochdar. The weather wasn’t up to much, but at least it didn’t rain. Cattle were back at the show after a two year absence, and the show had a good buzz this year. Next year the show will move from its traditional Wednesday after Games week to the Saturday after the North Uist Games, by the way, thus helping crofters who can’t get time off their other jobs, and also adding to a great week for visitors coming for Games and the Young Piper of the Year competition.

Supreme cattle champion was this babe just three months old. She was too shy to get any closer.Her breeder is Iain Francis Morrison of Gerinish.

Supreme sheep champions were these wedder lambs from John Maclean of Garrynamonie.



You’ll find all the results on a new page on the left hand side.

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We had to step over last year’s Christmas tree to vote- but we turned out in good numbers.
Our sitting MP Angus MacNeil was re-elected with an increased majority. I caught up with him at Carinish Hall, where he was cautiously optimistic and determined to visit all polling stations the length and breadth of the Western Isles, ferries permitting.

Peter Rabbit is heard in Gaelic. Gonzalo Mazzei releases his beautiful production of five Beatrix Potter favourites on CD.

Paible school’s annual fund-raising fun run. Two and a half miles in beautiful weather. (Monty Halls viewers take note. We have lots of sunny days here!)

UISTLADY’S EXTREMELY AMATEURISH AND ILL-INFORMED NATURE NOTES:
Our swallow pair have been working hard on their nest, building it up with mud and straw. They fly in together each night to roost. We’ve seen them coming home as early as 8.15, and having a lie in until almost 12 hours later; but as the days stretch longer and longer they’re out and about by 6am and not home until after 9.
We have two pairs of wheatears around us, and lots of corn bunting paying visits every time the grass is cut. Short-eared owls cruise over this area quite often, as do buzzards. But today, as we were putting up another section of wind-break netting, a pair of golden eagles passed lazily overhead, mobbed by lapwing and oyster catchers. The sky is full of aerial battles at this time of year with ground-nesting chicks so vulnerable.
Deer are encroaching further and further onto the west side of our island, coming down from the moors near us in herds of up to 40, and decimating gardens with established trees. Nothing spooks them. It might well be that our new windbreak will now allow our saplings to shoot up, and provide lunch for the deer next spring
I heard my first corncrake of the season on Cnoc An Torrain machair a few days ago, but they’ve been here a week or so already, I’m told.
It’s still not completely dark by well after 11pm, so we are all enjoying the long days by getting lots of work done around our homes and crofts. The winds are mainly northerly though, so growth is slow. Even my mizuna leaves seem to be in suspended animation.
And Anneke and I STILL haven’t done the Preparation 500. What is to become of our garden?

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Frin and Lewis are doing a survey of the North Uist cockle beds as part of research to create a sustainable management plan for cockle-gathering on a commercial scale.

North Uist author Flora MacDonald has had her enchanting memoir Cocoa and Crabs shortlisted for a Tesco Bank Summer Read award. She’s up there with Banks, Rankin, Duffy, McCall Smith… go Florraidh!

The ladies of the Guild raised £1600 at their sale of work in Carinish church hall- no wonder, people were queueing round the block for their delicious baking.

…and Uistlady is getting ready to go to South Africa on a big adventure. More follows!

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The Met office has told us to get ready for a large snowfall tonight, and all schools in Lewis and Harris are to close tomorrow. Uist schools can use their discretion. What’s happened to our friendly Gulf stream?

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