Checked out by 10am, packed all the bags in my car. For breakfast we headed over to the Woodland Centre in the grounds of Lews Castle. Very nice fry up cooked to order in a little kitchen, great coffee with nice views
across the harbour to Stornoway town centre - if you ignored the waves of drizzle blowing in! Following food we wandered around the town, I bought some cheap binoculars for
wildlife spotting out and about. One of the gift shoppy shops had a decent looking replica set of the Lewis Chessmen, although the price disuaded the purchase. Popped into An Lanntair again as the exhibition space had reopened, showcasing a central installation of a huge peat cutting pile, with the surrounding walls adorned by historical photographs of the peat cutters and their lives. An information panel took us through the process, espousing the benefits of the various different stacking techniques that were/are traditional in various parts of the island. We also explored a veritable tweed dungeon - a fantastic almanac of Harris tweed, a treasure trove of reels of herringbone cloth, flatcaps and waistcoats.
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| One day I'll have one of these! |
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| The peat cutting exhibition at An Lanntair |
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| A must for tweed lovers - the fantastically quirky cellar of tweedy delights! |
A quick dash up to the impressive war memorial rounded off the morning - unfortunately the weather was still a bit grim so the promised views over Stornoway weren't at their best. The memorial was built in 1924 to commemorate the disproportionate sacrifice of Lewis lives in the Great War. Funded in part by the enigmatic Lord Leverhulme it was called into service again following WWII. The legacy of Lord Leverhulme on the islands of Harris and Lewis is a fascinating one and worth checking out!
Then it was time to head over to Stornoway airport and bid my folks/sister farewell - they were catching a plane to Glasgow before driving back home to Lakes. It had been great to have them here, ticked off the main tourist sites on the island!
Feeling a little guilty about the long weekend I'd had off from the hospital I went back into A&E at 5pm, intending to stay for a few hours - didn't leave until 2am! Great evening (/morning), started off with a very sick patient who after stabilisation went straight into the CT and onto HDU. Throughout the rest of the evening saw loads of key presentations - cryptic chest pain, ambiguous abdo pain and perplexing pulmonary pain! My patient list ended up sounding like the first 3 chapters of Medicine at a Glance - great revision of lots of core knowledge. After 8pm the department came under the care of a superb GP, if slightly enigmatic! Their stethoscope was a contraption that wouldn't have looked out of place in a medical history museum - a Leatham stethoscope purchased in 1981! If it ain't broke... (Although if it does break there aren't any companies around any more to repair/replace them!) The GP is also involved in the helicopter service up here, so hopefully be able to arrange a flight for me - if truth be told that's one of the main reasons I stayed in so late ;) Carried on seeing lots of good stuff, a well paediatric patient with a worried mother brought back some things from my paeds placement earlier in the year. The whole evening was good revision, and didn't feel slow at all although I started to take my eye off the ball after 1am due to tiredness/hunger. Time to go to bed!
Feeling a little guilty about the long weekend I'd had off from the hospital I went back into A&E at 5pm, intending to stay for a few hours - didn't leave until 2am! Great evening (/morning), started off with a very sick patient who after stabilisation went straight into the CT and onto HDU. Throughout the rest of the evening saw loads of key presentations - cryptic chest pain, ambiguous abdo pain and perplexing pulmonary pain! My patient list ended up sounding like the first 3 chapters of Medicine at a Glance - great revision of lots of core knowledge. After 8pm the department came under the care of a superb GP, if slightly enigmatic! Their stethoscope was a contraption that wouldn't have looked out of place in a medical history museum - a Leatham stethoscope purchased in 1981! If it ain't broke... (Although if it does break there aren't any companies around any more to repair/replace them!) The GP is also involved in the helicopter service up here, so hopefully be able to arrange a flight for me - if truth be told that's one of the main reasons I stayed in so late ;) Carried on seeing lots of good stuff, a well paediatric patient with a worried mother brought back some things from my paeds placement earlier in the year. The whole evening was good revision, and didn't feel slow at all although I started to take my eye off the ball after 1am due to tiredness/hunger. Time to go to bed!
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