Saturday 23 October

Not a bad day at all, although there were a few showers mid-afternoon. Went to the shops at around 3pm, among them the garden centre. Where they also have various pets for sale, varying from birds, kittens and rabbits to a very vocal cockateel. It could "talk", saying things like "Hello!" and "Look at that", in other words imitating everything that it overheard people say around it.

I am a stickler to grammatical rules, so I was not please to see a teddy bear in a shop with a notice on it saying Aunt's make life bearable. There are no apostrophes in plurals, ok?

People have been getting their breath back after yesterday's submarine farce off Kyle. The most sophisticated sub in the Royal Navy, but its crew were not able to navigate a couple of red and green buckets in the Kyle of Lochalsh. Meanwhile, plans have been unveiled that laden supertankers will no longer require a tug escort when making their way up and down the Minch. Because said tug will not be on station any more after September 2011. Fortunately, yesterday's problem with HMS Astute has underlined the need for the tug to be here. Stornoway is only 75 miles from Kyle, so a couple of hours' sail had the Anglian Sovereign on the scene. If it had had to come from Glasgow, this would have taken nearly a day.

The family of Lewis woman Linda Norgrove have set up a charity in her memory, which will go live next week; probably around the time of her funeral on Tuesday. The charity will aim to continue her work in Afghanistan, of getting farmers to grow crops other than opium poppies.