The Stornoway Dragon Reserve

Well, we are finally here at Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis (or Leòdhas, as the locals called it--if there were any locals left). We originally thought we would be arriving on the 20th, but at the last minute Charlie sent us a Floo call asking us to put off our arrival until today--I think they were worried about putting some finishing touches on the construction of the new guest quarters. Well, whatever the problem might have been, I can see no sign of anything not being in a perfect state of readiness. Because the construction has just been completed (everything smells of new paint and sawdust, under the smells of the holiday greens), the dragon handlers are able to invite guests for the first time, and, like Charlie, they are all obviously bursting with pride to show off the Reserve.

We had hoped to spend the day seeing the dragons and then doing some sight seeing on the island, but we had a bit of a bobble with our plans. We had arrived by Floo rather than trying to bring Ginny by side along apparition. Well, all the fires here at the Reserve are fueled by peat, and the combination of Floo powder with a peat fire can cause unpleasant effects for some people. Poor Ginny was one of the unlucky ones, and no sooner had we arrived than she was quite overwhelmingly sick to her stomach, and continued queasy for several hours afterwards. Charlie felt dreadfully about it, but there's no way of predicting in advance which people react badly.

I was surprised by how few people there are here. There are other handlers, of course, about five to each dragon, so that's about sixty. There will be more handlers arriving next April, Charlie says, when a new clutch of eggs is expected to hatch. The staff to look after the Reserve, other than handlers (adminstration, etc.), is quite a skeleton crew, although Charlie says they do also see periodic visitors from the Ministry. I wondered whether they would use Muggles for food service and janitorial staff, but the dragons don't like them, and very few survived anyway so most of that work is done by house elves.

Assuming Ginny is feeling better tomorrow, we will probably spend the morning at the dragon compound, and then we'll visit the Callanish Stones in the afternoon. It seems quite peculiar to not be preoccupied with preparations to serve Christmas dinner at the Burrow. What a novelty to have someone else serving the meals!