Bikes at the beach, North Uist

Here are our bikes, taking a rest in the sand dunes on North Uist.

After yesterday's exertions, we took things a little easier today. This morning we checked in at the RSPB reserve at Balranald and arranged to join a ranger walk tomorrow. Then we cycled along the coast a little before leaving the bikes here for a walk along the shoreline in the sunshine.

This afternoon we relaxed at our bed and breakfast. I am sorry to say that I am now losing the holiday Scrabble series 7-5 to Mr hazelh. I hope that there is still time for me to win back the lead before we return to the mainland on Thursday.

The local inn is closed on Monday evenings so tonight we were obliged to cycle 8 miles (and back) for our evening meal in the dining room of Langass Lodge. The meal was lovely, although not as ordered. While I was delighted at the arrival of my half lobster, Mr hazelh was surprised to be presented with haddock rather than the halibut that he requested. I concluded that it was his own fault for mumbling and was pleased when he graciously accepted the 'wrong' dish.

It was only when the menus were re-presented to us for pudding that I saw that haddock wasn't even on the list of main courses. Then we realised that something rather strange had happened. We eventually worked out with the restaurant manager that our 3-days-in-the-job waiter had accidentally written down the name of a dish listed on the bar menu as Mr hazelh's order, and nobody in the kitchen had questioned this request from the dining room.

We accepted this as a mistake without complaining, but asked if our bill could be adjusted to take into account that one of us had a bar meal. The staff were great and accommodated this request. They also didn't charge us for our bottle of wine. We still left a tip because we had a nice time and thought that they handled the mistake very professionally. (Perhaps I shouldn't mention that they'd had another disaster earlier in the evening when an entire tray of drinks went flying over the table of a party of five!)

Exercise today: 27 miles of cycling.