NaBloPoMo #15

I arrived in Lewis in the afternoon of Monday, 15th November 2004. I had spent the morning wandering the machair on the western shores of Berneray. I was not to leave the island for nearly three years, when I went on a trip to Glasgow with a friend. I stayed in a hostel that was hosting workers in the fish processing factories on Goat Island. They were all from eastern Europe. In the afternoon, I took the bus to South Lochs, where I was to stay for nearly three months. Those were punctuated by bad weather, with a lot of wind - one storm was memorable in that it cut power for 48 hours. One township, Shieldenish, was off power for six days. Losing power for a few days is no disaster. The storm, of 11 January 2005, did prove disastrous for a family of Campbells from South Uist. Five of their number, of three generations, were lost in a storm surge in the South Ford. I remember them each year.