Rainy night in Tarbert...

The rain is hammering down on the Isle of Harris, driven sideways by a buffetting wind. If I opened the Romahome door without holding onto it, the wind would rip it off its hinges. I’m busy editing photographs, but this isn’t how I’d planned to spend my days on the Hebrides. I can take pictures in many different kinds of light, but heavy rain stops play as surely as it does at the Lords test match.

I don’t know whether to stick or twist: stay another night in Tarbert, and hope the rain relents, or take the ferry from Leverburgh to North Uist. I don’t suppose the weather will be any better across the Sound of Harris; I’m just fed up with the rain. While I was thinking what to do, I called in at Rodel, at the southern tip of Harris. Signs suggested there was a hotel there, so I was hoping for a warm fire and a cold beer. I passed a gloomy gray building; it looked like an Albanian orphanage or some kind of correctional institution, of the kind that Jimmy Savile used to visit. It’s hard to imagine a more cheerless place. Then I saw the sign in the rear view mirror; yes, I’d just passed the Rodel Hotel.

The door to the bar was locked, so I walked into the hotel entrance. “Can I get a drink?”, I asked the woman at reception. “Of course”, she said. I found the bar, with one guy at the bar. A chef, I think. “I’ll see if I can find someone to serve you”, he said, and wandered off. I got my beer, eventually, and a sit down in a hard-backed chair… but no fire. The walls were covered in huge paintings by a ‘local artist’: darkly surreal and mildly disturbing interpretations of island locations. The interior of the hotel was every bit as cheerless as the outside. How do places like this manage to spin a profit? Do they really want anyone to come in? Maybe I’ll take a look on TripAdvisor*, to see what other people might have to say. Cheers…

* Everyone on TripAdvisor  is enthusiastic about the place. Aaaarrgghh...

The blackhouse village on the west of Lewis...