Hooray For eBay

I bought one or two small things on eBay always using the Buy It Now button, never by bidding.  When we were on Skye, something happened to Marion's camera and a lot of dirt got inside the lens.  Not only can it not be cleaned off but it shows up as big splodges right in the middle of every photo taken.  I emailed a Glasgow repair company and they said it was very difficult to dismantle these small cameras and they thought it would cost £60-70 to do a repair.

I checked the price of a new camera on Amazon and they are still quite expensive.  Next, I had a look at eBay and by an amazing co-incidence there was one only ... identical in every way and brand new ... and the auction was ending in 24 hours.  I put in a bid and won.  It was a third of the cost of a new one!

The package only arrived this afternoon in the post because the lady that was selling it could not get out her house for two days to drive to the Post Office because of the snow.

Fire And Ice

Have a look at these pictures of a fire being put out in Chicago.  I found them on the BBC website.

Spring's Nearly Here

If you look closely, there are tiny buds everywhere.

These catkins up on Skye are ready to come into bloom in a few days

Giant Highlander

That's the way Marion likes them: Tall, strong and as thick as six short planks of wood.

This Is Not A Happy Bunny

 

These bunnies are on display in the Hyndland chemist shop

The Road To The Isles

It takes about five hours to drive to Elgol from Glasgow.  I've outlined the island of Skye in red because the gap between it and the mainland is tiny.  You used to have to get a ferry boat to take your car over to Skye until they built a huge bridge you can just drive over.  Skye is huge - it's about the size of a small country, really.  There aren't many roads so a lot of the island is a wilderness that can only be reached by boat.

Going North

 

The road to Skye takes you through Glencoe which is 90 miles north of Glasgow.  This is a panorama made from four photographs stitched together.  People come from all over the world to climb these mountains.  The biggest hazard is the weather which can change very quickly.  Today (Saturday) four climbers died in an avalanche and one is in hospital with bad head injuries.

The next photos are from another stop we made on the way there.  Somebody had made a tiny snowman and sat him on the information panel.  While we were photographing him, the snowman fell to the ground like Humpty Dumpty and we couldn't put him back together again.