campervan? dormabile?

When did campervans cease to be ‘dormabiles’?

Whenever it was, the one I am in now belongs to that era… described as ‘quirky’ by the owner it drives like a tractor, and I am looking forward to exchanging it for the one I booked, which has a fault being fixed. Soon, hopefully…

Another day on Lewis, another lighthouse. This one has been put to imaginative use as a kennel and cattery. Earlier I had tramped across a bog to visit a chambered cairn. As far as I can tell the land is pretty much bog everywhere apart from the roads. Makes walking anywhere cross country quite an adventure.

Callanish, Calanias, Callernish: all different spellings for the same place, an extraordinary collection of standing stones, stone circles and chambered cairns dating back 5000 years or so. The main collection, adjacent to visitor centre with cafe and car park, is very busy. The two outlying circles, smaller and involving a bit of bog crossing, are deserted.

I learnt my first word of Gaelic – no idea of the real spelling, but it sounds like ‘molth’. It means the pebble shore, and where the landlady at the last b&b played as a child. Her house was so neat and tidy it reminded me of the woman in Under Milk Wood who said “and before you let the sun in, make sure it wipes its shoes”. She took one look at my walking boots and practically whipped them off me before I could cross the threshold. I had stopped to ask directions nearby, and the man I asked not only knew where the house was, but told me there would be a gray Audi and a Polo parked outside. Local knowledge indeed.