Part way through the morning a friend from North Uist phoned, I was chatting merrily away to him and suddenly he disappeared. “Hmm strange“, I thought. Phone rang again and he was on his mobile, “we had a power cut” he said. After we’d finished chatting I thought, “time for coffee!” I headed into the kitchen and was met by silence, total silence. I realised not even the fridge was running and that we also had a power cut. We are not usually off for long but I really needed coffee and my camping stove was handy on the worktop, ready for taking on a wee jaunt so I fired it up and made a brew.

The power cut was island-wide, from Lewis to Barra and also part of Skye and lasted a few hours. I don’t know what the problem was.