Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Let the Sun shine, Maybe

This picture says it all.  The BBC weather app says there will be full sunshine at 1:00 p.m.  None of the sun and cloudy stuff before and after.  It is sitting in the window at 1:15, with rain coming down outside and streaming down the window.  We have heard this was to wrong year to be here in October.  All of Scotland, and some of England, have been very wet for both September and October. 

Yesterday, however, the sun really did come out most of the morning and into the early afternoon. 
So we walked up to the beaches on the northwest edge of Iona, where the Atlantic Ocean crashes into the ancient Lewisian Gneiss.  The multiple color bands in the rock are surprising.  I was ready to say it is my favorite spot on Iona, then realized I have already said that once or twice before.  Anyway, it is in the top five places.  After returning to the house and having lunch, when the sun still shining, we decided to climb up Dun Bhuirg.  It has the remains of an Iron Age hill fort.  So we got our boots on, picked up our walking sticks, and started walking west.  Five minutes out a large dark cloud was rolling in and we were leaning into the wind.  We were unwilling to give in, and walked on.  This shows the sky and beach at the Bay at the Back of the Ocean. 
We did get close to the top of Dun Bhuirg, but the wind was so strong that high up that it was not safe to walk narrow ledges with steep drops. So we turned back. 

Today we have been preparing to leave Iona tomorrow morning.  It involved gathering things scattered over a house for four weeks, washing multiple loads of laundry, and eating what is left in the refrigerator.  We attended the 5:00 p.m. Eucharist at Bishops House, then treated ourselves to a last supper at the Argyle Hotel.  Weather willing and ferries running, we will be off Iona in the morning, then bus, a second ferry and train to Glasgow in the late afternoon. 

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