St KIlda - Thursday 27 June

Everyone in the work party is expected to help with communal duties – helping Alison our cook in the kitchen setting tables, clearing up, taking away waste to the skip or recycling as appropriate. There is a rota of 2 people each day who help , and everyone has been fitting in very well. Depending on what Alison has planned , one can often assist in food preparation as well as serving.  We tend to have breakfast at 8am with a view to starting work at 9, mid morning tea at 11ish, lunch 1ish, afternoon tea 4 and then stop anywher4e between 5,30 and 6.30 depending on what we are doing. The helpers also do the housework – sweeping floors and so on – everything to keep things working smoothly.



Jo (left) helps Alison (right) with dinner





Washing up! (L-R Janice, Jo, Paul and Ken)




Derek dusting the bookshelves



Work ongoing includes cleit roof repairs – an arcane art to replace sections of cleit roofs which have been eroded with new turf.  The erosion is caused by the Soay sheep grazing on the roofs (more of this later, or simply erosion because the old system of repairing roofs (now abandoned I am glad to say) did not result in good repairs as the grass ended up burnt by the preparation.

Now, one marks out the area to be replaced and cuts blocks of new turf to fit. These are cut from the turf in the locality so that the vegetation which will develop on the roof is similar to that in the area of the cleit.

CUtting the rurf to fit the gap. (L-R Kevin, Ian, Sara and Janice)

The hole in the roof of the cleit is packed out with moistened soil from our “soil bank” – broken down soil we have collected over the years, and stored in House 7. The newly cut piece of turf is soaked in water, positioned in the space prepared for it, slid under the turf above (this is done by shaping the hole and shaping the new turf to match), and then trimming it to fit exactly.  Now that we are gaining experience, we are going to attempt a large repair which will probably take 6 people at least half a day.

Kevin, Sara, Ianh and Janice lift the turf in to place




Kevin trims turf to fit



Safety is all important, and if one is at any height, ther ladder has someone at tyhe foot making sure it is stable. Fal, one of our party, is a very (and I mean “VERY”) keen botanist. AS one walks, her eyes are always aimed towards the ground. Today I noticed, that even holding a ladder she was looking at tyhe plants growing around the cleit.



Fal botanises even while holding the ladder!



Another task has been recoating the roofs of cottages 2 and 5 (the bitumen is replaced roughly on a 3 – 4 year cycle).  This is messy. The bitumen is fairly runny when it is warm, but goes stiff when the day cools down. Then one has to work ones way along the roof spreading this thick black goo with a spreader which itself gets stiffer as the day goes on.



Renate stirrs the thick gloop to spread on the roof





Ken on the roof of House 5 (our workshop)



Helicopters come and go – on Tuesdays and Fridays, we can have up to 3 flights as crew changes take place – they look fantastic as they sweep over the village.

The Orcas (trip boats) came in from Leverburgh yesterday and brought an interesting visitor.  One lady, walking down the street mentioned that her great, great grandfather had been born in House 1 (our living house) in 1805. She and her daughter had come to Harris for family reasons, and had managed to arrange a day trip to St Kilda. I took her to House 1, and showed her the Mackinnon family tree (one should never leave home without one!). On the tree, I pointed out her great, great grandfather’s name and marriage and she mentioned that he had married a lady from Harris and moved there. She was astounded and left the island really happy to go off and find out more. At the pier there was a real mix of people (3 boat loads). There I introduced her to a couple from Harris who I had spoken with in the village street. The couple asked about her great great grandfather, asked how long the family had lived on Harris and if she knew their croft. The couple knew the family, and the croft – a link made on St Kilda!

Renate (left) with Mrs MacKinnon (right) looking at the St Kilda  Mackinnon family tree

I mentioned Soay Sheep - “Soay” from the old Norse for “Sheep Island”. C1000 years ago, the Vikings find a wee island with wee dark sheep on it, and call it the Sheep Island “Soay”. The name finds its way on the maps. W come along, and find an island called Soay wityh wee dark sheep on it, so call the sheep “Soay Sheep”. The full translation of their name in to English would thus seem to become “Sheep Island Sheep”.

They are an exceptionally primitive breed of sheep – google it! Their closest5 relatives are the Mouflon of Central Europe, so they are probably direct descendants of the original sheep brought to Britain by the Neolithic peoples some 6000 years ago – here in St Kilda, they have not suffered from selective breeding for wool, milk or mutton production, so remain close to their ancestral past.

Soay go up vertical walls, so the head dyke of the Village leans outwards – likewise the wee planticruz which are found in the Village area – more on these later.

A gaggle of Soay lambs in a cleit



Jo in our party is trying ot become a NInja Soay stalker - she is finding out how one can approach them without scaring them away and this get close up pics




Soay get everywhere



Today the Polar Pioneer arrived landing 53 visitors and several crew. Our shop is where the ST Kilda Club makes a lot of money which goes directly to the NTS purely for ongoing work on St Kilda. While we are here, one of our duties is to man the shop. Did you know that it is acceptable to the GB passport office to have your passport stamped with our rubber stamp – you can only do this on Hirta as the stamp remains here all year round. Visitors also stamp books they buy, postcards and anything they can put the stamp on.

Janice (left) and Sara (right) serve visitors from the |Polar Pioneer

Day off tomorrow, so more walking for those who want to see the “Cleit at the End of the World” -  a challenge not for the faint hearted!