Jonathan: Much as I’d like to bid a final glad farewell to my long and illustrious career (okay, okay, let’s just call it work) as a civil engineer, the fact is it earns good money that right now we really need. It is true that the old familar streams work (roads, trams, waste management) have all but dried up: In theory I’m still employed by a large UK firm of consultants; but that’s on a casual, as-needed basis, and in practice they don’t actually need me now. Or any time soon. If at all.  Ever.  So it’s fortunate that since coming home last year I’ve found engineering work in my own name, and all of it here in Eilean Siar – the Outer Hebrides, in Harris and Barra as well as Uist. And all of that in new directions: onshore wind energy, land drainage, and most recently the design of a camp site. And I don’t mean a gate into a field and a hole in the ground for emptying the portable loo: this is a site of a quality you’d expect from the Camping & Caravanning Club or the Caravan Club.  I’ve not said anything about these new projects in my blogs because of confidentiality, but as of today the planning application was registered, so it is now in the public realm.  The developer is our neighbour at Croft 9, Domhnall Iain MacIsaac, and the campsite will be in the field adjacent to the walled garden. Not everyone’s choice for a neighbour, (the campsite that is, not Domhnall Iain!), but we’d do the same, and the flow of visitors is an economic opportunity I’m sure we will exploit!