This is when Douglas Cottage comes into its own. This very murky photo of the chimney with a wee puff of smoke coming out is supposed to show you that now that winter is nearly upon us you can have a lovely cosy little cottage with the wood burning stove puffing away. The last couple in - who come into the category of very frequent visitors - actually brought all their own fuel as they are clearing out Mum's house! Heaven knows what was burnt in there this week.

Mhairi's has a nice wood burner as well, while Colin's just relies on winter sunshine streaming through the windows.

Well, I know you will all be worrying whether Dougie our neighbouring farmer has got the barley in, so he can get away to his beloved Iona for a week's holiday. It's O.K., it's in. This was a glorious day when they started cutting, then followed by awful rain, but it dried up again and now the field is full of sheep.

A wonderfully clear night last night and so it's back to star gazing. We have no light pollution at all and looking towards the bay over the months you can get a marvellous idea of the constellations as they drift round. Last night there were lots of shooting stars, and now we are coming up, hopefully, to more sun spot activity we should start seeing the Northern lights.

The other night I was very confused by a large orange globe drifting towards me, but I think it must have been a Chinese Lantern (the huge gangs that book all the houses at Saddell are prone to releasing things like this!!!)