Islandey planning...

This year is feeling a bit upside down on the Island front. Of course we were in the Hebrides for Christmas which was wonderful - we had a glorious week in a lovely little cottage right next to a beach - can't be beaten, that!  Normally at this time of year we would be beginning to think of all the things we need to do ahead of our main fortnight trip up there - but not this year as we've been invited to join a big group of pals for a trip to Lundy again instead at the same sort of time - so the main Hebrides holiday has been postponed until later in the year. It feels very odd that we are only now booking our accommodation for that fortnight!

Lundy - The view of the Old Light from the graveyard - May 2015

We've decided to re-book for the lovely cottage at Balranald where we stayed last year - it suited us well and we loved the location. Being within walking distance of our favourite RSPB reserve was a definite bonus and it makes a lovely circular walk on a day when we don't want to take the car out - we always try to avoid using the car at least one day while we're on the Islands. We did have somewhere else in mind to book as well, so a decision had to be made. We reverted to our old planning method of a Pro's and Cons list for each place, and then discussed that between ourselves to reach a conclusion. While there are some things that are really a "must have" for us when we're away for a fortnight now (a real fire, and a nice location close to beaches) there are others that are negotiable and we have found that writing a proper list of the advantages and disadvantages can really help to clarify things. This time around advantages included "A bit cheaper" on one, and "All electric included" on the other, which kind of balanced each other out a bit - but we decided in the end to book the less expensive one with limited electricity included, but to politely ask whether a bit more electric could be added in for us as we are booking for a fortnight at a less popular (and colder!) time of year - the answer came back "Yes, we can do that" right away which we were appreciative of. It's always nice when people will go that extra mile to thank you for repeat business, and this just confirmed that our decision to return is the right one.

The views from that sunroom out over the machair are fabulous!

While we were discussing our planning for this year's trip, it also suddenly occurred to us that if we want to switch our weeks back to our usual time of year for next year, we'd need to think about booking that pretty soon to so as to be sure to get the weeks we want in the accommodation we chose - and for that we've decided to take the plunge and book the other property that we were looking at for this year. A quick look revealed that for the different time of year that one was actually going to work out a little cheaper, and as none of the other "Cons" on that one's list were anything substantial, we've decided that a change will be good, and if it works out well it will give us another option for choosing our accommodation for future trips. It's in a beautiful location a little further around the west coast - and still has glorious walking right from the door in all directions. It's also an area we've said before that we'd like to explore better, so hopefully being right there will enable that. Yes, it does seem utterly crazy to be thinking about booking a 2019 trip already, but with the tendency of people re-booking for the following year directly after their current stay we really will have to get cracking on this within the next few months if we don't want to miss out.

Definitely a "Room with a view" at the top of the Old Light!

I mentioned Lundy above - well that isn't our only visit there this year as we have been invited to spend Christmas on the Island - with the same group we're going with in the Spring. Availability of accommodation on the Island for Christmas and New Year can be a bit of a nightmare as the regulars tend to snap it up - our group have a couple of folk not able to attend this time and so we've been asked if we'd like to take their place - needless to say we jumped at the chance! We seem to have slipped into a bit of a pattern over the past few years of spending Christmas on an Island - with the last two years being on Benbecula of course - I'm vaguely hopeful that MrEH might avoid giving me a streaming cold for Christmas this year though - that would be rather nice!

Robyn