Shopping trip - 01/12/04

The alternate day is here again, so it's up to Steornabhagh / Stornoway on the usual 10am bus. Can by now make a Bayeux tapestry of the landscape along the route, but it remains quite scenic. What does bother me is that from my current location, Kershader, you could cross Loch Erisort in a boat and land at Lacasaidh / Laxay on the main road to Stornoway. This saves 10 miles out of the 22 that separate Kershader and Stornoway. Pity that there is no ferry. Apparently, until the road into South Lochs got upgraded, the mails for the area were transferred by boat from Crosbost (North Lochs) to Cromor (stress the second syllable). But now that there is this super highway, also known as the B8060, this is no longer the case. Having done the necessary, I returned to base on the 12.30, which necessitates me to walk the 5 miles from Balallan to Kershader. The driver on the Harris bus got off to speak to the operators of MacDonald coaches, but there is no connecting busservice at 1pm. Well known to me, but not to him. It doesn't matter too much to me, I'll don't mind the 90 minute walk, as I've indicated before. Having had my lunch off the road, in the hills, I returned to the hostel just before 3. Was overtaken by the 2.50 bus, and the driver got off to speak to me about the missing connection. Wow. Spent the evening watching blinking telly. There is currently a spelling competition on BBC1 and ITV1 are running "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here". Not riveting, but it does fill the dark hours.