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Not as much snow as expected this morning, and the predicted severe gales are just bitter and brutal breezes. However, much more extreme weather is expected later today and tomorrow. If I sound a little disappointed, it’s just that I take a childlike delight in snow. It’s always fun to see a St Bernard plunging…

I’m currently trying to keep peat stoves going in two different houses…this is the Radiocroft pot-bellied Machine Mart stove, making the TM Show the only peat-fired radio programme on earth, probably. Along at the hoose, I’ve lit (or litten, as they say in Shetland) the Rayurn and have left it with two chickens in the…

Slept for 12 hours on the north boat, with occasional wakings for particularly bumpy bits of sea. And that’s the last Phenergan outing (I hope) until the new year. It’s great to be back in Shetland after nearly three weeks away in Glasgow, Ireland, Lewis, Inverness, Ullapool, Aberdeen and all points inbetween. Some good work…

To Dundee, home of some of the greatest pubs in the universe – this time, The Speedwell, universally known as Mennie’s, and The Phoenix, universally known as Bannerman’s. And to the magnificent Malabar on Perth Road, home of Goanese and Keralan cooking. For those of a certain age, Jacob, who owns the Malabar, will be…

Out for a pint at the Three Judges in Partick with my old pal Stewart, and as his long-lived mongrel Clio had just passed away, we decided to toast her memory in a pint of this. Afterwards, I was feeling just a bit…ruff!

We went there because we were in a hurry, Papingo was full and Atrio wasn’t. Mistake. Cullen Skink? I think not. I had a superb Cullen Skink at the Ceilidh Place in Ullapool last Tuesday night, made to the classic recipe: chunks of tattie, smoked haddock, cream, onion. Atrio provided something of a contrast. Five…

Sounds boring, but Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) is a system aimed at encouraging tourism and business in the Scottish islands. Basically, you charge for ferry trips what the equivalent would be if you drove the same distance. Roughly. All is explained here. The pilot project has just started (I’ve only just realised)on the various mainland-Outer…

To Tolsta this morning, with Dave Halliday and his Harley Sportster 1200, photographer John Maclean and the trusty, very far from home Citroen C4 (why are so many Citroen C4 four-doors metallic maroon? I saw ANOTHER one today). It was freezing, but spectacular. Again, that amazing Lewis phenomenon of bleakness suddenly giving way to astonishing…

I kept seeing place names that were familiar from Shetland: Mangersta, Mealista, Kirkibost (same as Kirkibister); the photographer I’m working with, John Maclean, told me that most Lewis place names are Norse in origin, though many have been Gaelicised. Much of Lewis even looks like Shetland, in its bleak bogland. But it’s a lot more…