Well, on Wednesday the first storm of the winter hit us - Storm Ali. Amber warnings from the Met Office and terror all round. As a  gesture  we closed the hoop house door, took the chairs off the balcony, and one of our braver cottagers gave up half his holiday to hi-tail it back to that safest of places - Harrogate. (Having lived in Leeds for a number of years I experienced some of the worst storms ever, but there you go). Of course it was all exaggerated. 60 mph gusts at Machrihanish but here at the Mains we are very sheltered and, apart from the wisteria descending from the pergola, all was well.

At least it could give CalMac an opportunity to have a new excuse for the boats not sailing. It has been a terrible year for the timetable - boats endlessly breaking down and at the moment they've had to shuffle them all around and at the week-ends they are all whizzing backwards and forwards round the Mull of Kintyre to provide the next sailing to Stornoway or Uig or  Barra. The down side of living on the islands. My cousin's daughter has just moved to Coll and has a new baby, so every visit to the obstetrician in Glasgow necessitates boat and train and overnighters in Oban.

Cottages are suddenly easing off and at the end of this month we move into the cheapest of price brackets, so be tempted! We often holiday at the beginning of October and nearly always get lovely weather. Apart from a hill-walking break up north one year when we got soaked every day as we tramped the mountains in gales and rain, and draped our cottage with sodden jackets and dripping dogs (try getting a sheepdog onto a pulley) every night.

Enough, the sun has come out and the tomatoes will be ripening.

Well, I'd never winner 'Blogger of the year' as there 's no time to blog! Far too busy growing monster marrows. Yet again we mourn the passing of the garden show. So that's 10 jars of wonderful chutney (we hope - you have to be patient with chutney)  My brother-in -law, clearing out his mum's house a few years ago, found some home made jam dated 1956. However , if you're into that sort of thing, the brambles are brilliant this year - huge and juicy and masses of them. I always freeze them and end up making jam the following July.

Village is over the summer rush so no exuberant dances  or exciting golf matches ahead of us. And sadly the famous Carradale Duck Race is no longer ,which is a huge miss for all the visitors.

And yet more depressing news - the shop has finally closed. We all had great hopes last year when
a young couple moved in, but it just didn't work out . We can still get milk in the Post Office - and digestive biscuits - but it's a trip to the toon for anything else, so be warned.

I can offer wonderful dark skies however.  We've had a couple of nights with amazing displays of stars, and with Mars and Saturn both hovering above the southern horizon it's very spectacular. Out with the telescope.

And just to sum up the recent weather, we have an Israeli couple in the cottage just now, and last dreich, drizzley Sunday  he said to me  'Trish, what is this weather called - we don't have it at home?' Thank goodness we've now had 2 sunny days.