Stevan

1. And here it is, gently spinning, but that's 500w of power coming in. A little while later, after I'd done all the fixing of the guys, the wind suddenly sprang up, and I had the satisfaction of seeing the unit gently furl, while putting 1kW of power into the batteries. The unit is quiet. It's a pleasure to work with such brilliant designs. 50 years of Hugh Piggott's experience is showing here. Oh, and he's a really lovely person, quiet and humble, in spite of his achievements.

1. Oh, and all the while, we were under observation.....

6/...

1. Here's the bearing unit and cabling at the top of the unit. Just before I somehow levered the hefty alternator onto the pole. The annual maintenance includes ensuring these parts are absolutely smeared in grease. Again, there are no closely-fitting ball bearings or other close-tolerance parts, and it all results in the reliability out neighbour has enjoyed for so long.

5/...

1. Hugh actually found that the alternator had thrown one of its magnets. Who knows when that happened, but the units are so tough that, apart from an occasional ticking noise, it was still working well. It was ready last week, so was collected again from the pier yesterday, and as it happened, there was a weather window suitable for the re-erection today. Now Hugh's designs are used around the world, and, while this one was professionally built, many are self-built.

3/...

1. The term "appropriate technology" might have been invented for Hugh. For example, he found that there was little need for complex commutators to feed power from the rotating head assembly to the wires, because what turns in one direction tends to turn in the other direction. So the wires are fed directly down the tower. When we took advantage of the unit being down to untangle the wires, I found perhaps six turns in the wires, after 4 or 5 years' operation.

4/...

1. A small crisis of confidence when I realised I wasn't sure which direction the blades fitted onto the alternator. But then I noticed the rust staining on the blades and that was fine. These are held on by bars held by two nuts. Those bars straddle two adjacent blades, providing resilience if something Goes Wrong. It looks tatty, but this is a 20 year old unit, and all that rustiness is merely on the surface.

7/...

1. (Have I kept count of the thread properly? Probably not.) Fast forward quite a lot of connecting, testing and fitting of the ancillaries, such as the large tail (it's heavy) and the nose cone as well as the cables at the bottom of the tower. All was looking well, so I raised it, and was happy when it flopped around into the wind. Back to the battery shed to release the electrical brake and watch the ammeter flicker into life.

8/...

Part of the beauty of this walk is that it gives wonderful views of The Mountain, Quinag, the Milk Pail, Queen of Assynt hills*, the best mountain in Assynt and the second best on the planet** She's named the Milk Pail because the renowned black cattle of Assynt used to spend their summers on the mountain, gaining weight and producing milk for local on-site processing to cheese and butter. Plenty more Quinag pics coming up.

• • As Allan Macrae called her

** - as is widely acknowledged