Jonathan: It’s familiar as a Christmas Carol, but the season it describes – with ‘earth as hard iron, water like a stone’ – is more typical of mid to late January, and this year I’d even say it describes life in Uist. Not that I’ve seen Cherubims and Seraphims appearing in the sky – just snow clouds!  The weather continues cold but calm, and that means no seaweed cast up on the shore; or rather no fresh seaweed, just an accumulation of rotting old stuff, which is little use for feeding the soil, much of the goodness having already leached out of it.  Nonetheless, for a second time I’ve been to Smercleit Taobh a Deas to load up a trailer of the stuff: this morning I’ll be taking that load to the croft to put around the fruit bushes.  There are bright spells during the days, and I’ve put these to use working on Tilly’s Fence – the new fence separating off our back garden here at An Gàrradh Mòr; collecting seaweed of course. At other times there’s been sawing firewood – every two or three days. But the main occupation for me right now is catching up on maintenance and decoration of our holiday let at Askernish – plenty to do there!