A day out

When people come to visit from doon sooth, they often ask us if we've explored this or that area or walked up this or that hill. The answer is almost invariably 'no'. I guess we don't need to - we're surrounded by natural beauty and don't feel the need to go jump in a car to enjoy it. It does feel unadventurous though. Another reason is, actually we're quite busy, and even when we're not doing stuff it feels as though we should be and planning excursions really isn't a priority.

But occassionally we get a day out together. Thursday was a gloriously windy sunny and warm day. We had a van full of demolition rubble from the house so we packed up a picnic lunch and headed off to the refuse dump at Melness. And a great time was had by all:

• At the tip we met a refuse worker who keeps organic pigs and was amenable to swapping a bit of pork for some goats cheese and whey (to feed the pigs).
  
• After eaying our pack lunch in Tongue we headed for Skerray and met the wonderful people who run the post office and the food link project. We spent an hour or so sitting in the sun with them chatting about things.

Very pleasant.