Monday 11 April

Quite a nice sunny day, interspersed however with the occasional shower. Went into town this afternoon, via Sandwick Road. That is a diversion, but I took the walk to check out a diversion. As of today, the east-bound lane on this road, the A866 Stornoway to Point road, is supposed to be closed for works. Nothing appeared to have changed though.

I went into the library to look at a newspaper from 1897, to check for the mention of a tragedy that happened near Mingulay that year. No word of it at all. To think that all the fencible men of nearby Pabbay were lost - and not a beep in the Highland News for May 1897. I also looked in the Stornoway Gazette of 1 May 1997, but the only thing of note in that paper was a word processing devil. Someone had taken a picture of the comet Hale-Bopp, which (to quote the Gazette): "was visible to the naked above Scotland". I wonder how many people undressed in the skies above Scotland in order to behold that comet.


By 6pm, a new roadsign appeared across the street from me.

It looks as if the roadworks will start in earnest tomorrow, so the diversions are now being signposted. It's a pity though that someone took the wrong sign out, which appears to direct drivers to turn right - into the Newton Basin. Putting two strips of black tape on to rectify the error doesn't really alleviate the confusion, so by 8pm another crew was there to put up a left-pointing sign.

It is really feeling like spring today, in spite of the lowish temperatures (10C / 50F). And the nights are really beginning to shorten: this was the northwestern sky at 9.30pm.