View across the Outer Harbour of Stornoway

Saturday 21 May 2011

Friday 20 May

Although we're moving into the latter third of May, the weather is more like March. I went to the shop around midday to buy a set of rechargeable batteries + charger, and it felt positively wintery. Later in the afternoon, hail and even show lashed against the windows. The cruiseliner that was promised for Tuesday actually did not turn up, and with the gale warnings in force for Saturday, the Lord of the Glens may not appear either.

A man from Aberdeenshire, Malcolm Webster, has been found guilty of the murder of his wife in 1994. At the time, he said he had crashed off the road, and the vehicle had caught fire. He had managed to escape, but his wife had not. In fact he had pushed the car into the undergrowth after drugging his wife, then set light to it. Webster tried the same trick to his next wife, in New Zealand, which proved to be his undoing. She lived to tell the tale of feeling drugged before that particular staged accident.

A pod of pilot whales, which normally roam the high seas, have turned up in Loch Carnan, South Uist. There are about 100 animals in the narrow loch, and some 20 are injured. It is thought that pilot whales beach themselves when injured or sick; and their strong family bonds mean that the others in the group will follow suit. Last year, a similar group was freed from Loch Carnan, but turned up dead on a beach in County Donegal, Ireland a few days later. Donegal is about 150 miles south of the Hebrides.

1 comment: