Friday 15th September - Lewis

I've admitted before that I like stone circles and 'henges' so I go and look at the standing stones at Callanish, "the second most important site after Stonehenge." The Western Isles has several standing circles and Neolithic monoliths, although sometimes you do end up looking at something and thinking is it a Neolithic site or just a large rock that happens to be there? Am impressed with Callanish - is a beautiful site at a great location overlooking a couple of lochs. One thing I love about stone circles is that we still don't really have a clue why they built them all those millennia - yes the exhibitions have numerous 'artist's impressions', but read the small print and we don't really know.

Then head to the Blackhouse at Arnol. A blackhouse is how the islanders used to live - a living space at one end of thatched barn and the animals at the other. Incredibly this blackhouse - so named because of the smoke from the indoor peat fire - was still lived in until the early 1960s. As 'swinging London' was happening people were still in effect living in barns with animals!

Is a ground breaking football match taking place - the first meeting (outside the inter island games...) of the Western Isles versus the Shetland Islands. Not sure whether this is strictly speaking an international fixture, but they are optimistic that this could be the first of a regular bout of fixtures, hopefully also including the Orkneys.

Arrive for the scheduled kick off time of 6pm - it's a small non-league style ground and there are a couple of hundred people there (who all seem to know each other and the players). Then there is annoucement - the kick off will delayed as so far only 5 to 6 of the Shetland team have arrived, but their plane has now landed so we are just waiting for them to get across from there. The match kicks off at about 6.45pm. This could be interesting - there are no floodlights. Even with only taking a 5 minute half time break the match ends in virtual darkness at about 8.15pm. In a fairly decent match, the Western Isles win 3-1.

End the evening at the Stornoway Balti House; the staff of which probably constitute the entire Asian population of the Hebrides. In what is the most northernly and remote Balti house I've eaten in, I have a thoroughly good meal.