Viking

Our first afternoon on Lewis yesterday was rather bleak especially up on the peat moors on our way to Callanish on the local bus. The standing stones were well worth a visit and testament to the ancient settlements that had once flourished in this place. Then we got what turned out to be the school bus back around all the little west coastal villages on our way back to Stornaway.
Very interesting and everyone waved at the bus driver and knew each other by name. As we were obviously strangers he gave us a commentary on the places we were passing. Lovely people. (The children were well behaved too- no school holiday this week in Scotland)
Next morning was glorious again and all that feeling of bleakness disappeared. We only had time to do one thing so did a 5 mile walk around the grounds of Lews castle, which were beautiful and just across the harbour from our hotel, before we had to catch our ferry back to the mainland.
Again there were many sights to blip and what to choose?
These figures are a common theme on Lewis. In the 19th century someone dug up a viking chess set carved out of bone and thought they had some spiritual purpose. these have been carved at the Woodwork centre on the estate -seen in the background. this is a king and his queen was standing opposite at the entrance to the centre. Throughout the grounds there are other examples of wood carving many of which are quirky and quite often carved from dead wood or stumps where they stand. One I particularly liked and which nearly made my blip was an old tree stump with steps and a little door and windows carved in it. Amazingly there were leaves and branches on it sprouting new growth.
Another unsuccessful candidate for my blip was the statue of a Herring Girl on the harbour. it reminded me of Molly Malone in Dublin.