Additionally, Spotwelder had to remove his Duchess to BEB, as they would not allow him to depart on the Sunday from BRR, but we were staying on BEB on Sunday night. So he, Mark, jmd and JimmytheJock headed off for BEB, with the intention of getting the bus and ferry back to Barra that afternoon. We watched them depart before the inbound Loganair flight, and then headed back to the terminal to wait.

We didn’t wait long before the Loganair flight arrived – although I do have to say some of us were getting pretty blasé about the whole thing and didn’t even go outside to watch. However, we did get a good view of Pete and Brian_1 (flip-flops and all – was Barra really ready for flip-flops?) deplaning, and met them inside the terminal. We waited for the bags at the high-tech luggage facility, and then one car-load headed off, the rest of us waiting on a taxi to take us back to hotel. Highlight of this run was ajamieson delicately inquiring if there would be taxis available after the bars shut, in case we wanted to go drinking in Castlebay to which our rather aged lady taxi driver responded, in the softest island accent imaginable “Och, you’ll be wanting to get pissed then!” to which he rather shamefacedly agreed.

Upon return to the hotel, we arranged a time for dinner and then the group split up. Some set off to go up the hill next to the hotel. Hills not being my forte, a group of us went over the beach and along the clifftops for a stroll, where we were joined later by some of the ill-equipped hill climbers. The scenery was magnificent, the air clear and fresh, and even though the weather wasn’t fantastic, it was good weather to walk in. All in all a good time was had by all, although once back, we did start to get concerned about the length of time it took the hill climbers to return, but even they made it back eventually, and well before dinner.

For most of the dinner we had the dining room pretty much to ourselves… and then the ferry arrived from Oban, and with it that nights coach party! The average age of the inhabitants of the dining room rose steeply…

After dinner, we adjourned to the bar, where we already had the champagne cooling. Our drunken barman of the night before seemed delighted to have the opportunity of serving so much champagne and so the evening progressed.

And in the way of some FT do’s it quickly descended into surreality. Can I hold up my and Shuttle-Bored’s hands and say we probably instigated it, having got drunk enough to think that some country dancing was in order, much to the bemusement of the rest of the FTers as we Gay Gordon'd (how appropriate ) and then Canadian Barn Danced our way around the very small dance floor. But it was fun!

However, there were several unintended side effects of this… firstly, one of the locals stopped glowering at me like I was a Babylonian harlot (see bible for further explanation) as obviously Babylonian harlots cannot country dance. The more important one for the rest of the group was that the alcoholic barman decided that such public displays should be reciprocated, and so persuaded the 14 year old to give us a display of Highland dancing (imagine tartan and bagpipes for the difference between country and Highland dancing). Unfortunately lacking tartan and bagpipes, the poor lass was made to dance to her grandmother singing for her, a kind of tune that went diddley-dee diddley-dee…. For all too long………… It was also noted by some of the male members of the group that the poor child seemed likely to fall out of her top at any moment…

We daren’t look at each other. This was even worse than piano playing elves (which at least was pleasant to listen to). But we clapped politely at the end… afterall, she was about 14, and at that age everything is embarrassing. However, in our embarrassment, we misjudged our clapping… and they thought we wanted more

Shortly after, she was made to get up, with her cousin/sister/friend/aunt/all of the above (this is Barra afterall) and proceeded to demonstrate some kind of Irish thing.. all the time with the diddley-dee diddley-dee music going on in the background…. AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

And then the piece de resistance… everyone had complained about my poetry the day before… it was positively Byron-esque alongside the poem that the alcoholic barman decided to honour us with. I’ve never experienced so much horror in all my life as he started a second verse…

Despite his urgings, surprisingly our group declined to provide any further entertainment, and it was actually with a sense of relief that Shuttle-Bored and I escaped out to the car to listen to the shipping forecast. This had been necessitated by the appearance just before dinner of the shipping forecast, suggesting gales in the area on the next day – which since we were dependent upon ferries to get to South Uist the next day could be very problematic.

So as a result, the group had been pre-warned that they might have an early alarm call if we decided we needed to go for the early ferry the next day… and we went out to listen to the 00:50 shipping forecast in the car, sipping our champagne as the wind shook the car around us. And it was as bad as we feared….



Which for those of you who don’t speak shipping forecast meant that there were going to be storms, up to near hurricane strength (at least to the north of us!).

And on that bombshell, we tottered off to bed……