Yesterday I uploaded days six and seven, to find lots of people had posted comments over the past week. This was a great surprise and really pleasant one too, so thank you. This has prompted me to consider the blog as more of a diablog now and not just a ‘message from the Ministry’.  If you permit me I’ll fill you in on what happens on St Kilda, who is here and what goes on in house 1. As I’m sure you all know there is a permanent presence on St Kilda of the Qinetiq radar base. Among the many things they supply our water, electricity and the web access for this blog. As well as us (RCAHMS staff: James, Ian P and Angela) there are Jill, George and Bill from the National Trust for Scotland (NTS). There is also Mary Harman, who you all know by now. Last but not least are Christine and Ian; Christine is the cook on this trip and along with Ian, her husband, they are keeping us fed, watered, sorting out tool stores (along with Glynn) and house 1 in excellent working order. We are a demanding lot and they provide us with cordon bleu meals, which are brilliant.  We go out everyday as two teams of three (RCAHMS x 2 and NTS x 1) to different parts of the island and carry out our surveys, come rain or shine. Until today it has been all shine, which is unheard of to have such a long spell of settled weather. Today it briefly rained and it was just at the point when George, Ian and I were furthest from our waterproofs. However, by the time we had our waterproofs on it had blown through and was dry again. During blog hour (14.00-15.00) we were on Oiseval trying to sort out the cleits on the steep ridges that descend east from the summit. We spent a long time going back and forth until George, the new St Kilda NTS archaeologist, managed to work out slopes, descriptions, GPS plots, aerial photographic discrepancies and what was what. He will go far, but I think RCAHMS should poach him fast as he’s got great potential as an Archaeological Investigator.   Anyway, enough of this, keep posting your comments and thank you Anya for looking after the kids and keeping the hearth warm for when I get back.