View across the Outer Harbour of Stornoway

Monday 25 April 2011

Monday 25 April

Easter Monday, but the shops are open and it doesn't feel any different to a normal working day. The lorries full of heavy gear still come flying round the corner - I really hope nothing will go wrong while the diversion from the Sandwick Road works remains in place, until mid July.

A fuel tanker (a relatively small craft) came in this lunchtime, but was unable to dock due to strong westerly winds. Its sheer size acts like a sail, making it difficult and dangerous to manoeuver into pier no 2. The Solway Fisher is presently at anchor, just south of the Arnish Lighthouse.

Today is ANZAC Day, when the people of Australia and New Zealand remember their war dead. Today is 96 years ago since the ill-fated operation at Gallipoli, Turkey, was started. It was wholesale slaughter on both sides, which changed nothing. But that description fitted the bill of the whole of the First World War. Pointless, and sowing the seeds of even more bloodshed in the 1930s and 1940s.