Wednesday 26 October

A nice day, in spite of some spots of rain at 2pm, with nice sunset colours at six o'clock this evening. After Saturday, sunset times will be 5pm. Nice one, not.

Tomorrow, the annual book festival Faclan will kick off in Stornoway and elsewhere in the Outer Hebrides. Authors and publishers will showcase their latest creations, and talks will be held by various writers. I am not going to any of these, but am highlighting this to show that there is a lot going on in this island, in spite of it being the down season.

The mailman brought me no fewer than 4 postcrossing cards today, from the USA, Byelorussia, Taiwan and Turkey. I have now received 60 cards, since enrolling with postcrossing in February; I have despatched 65 so far, 6 in tomorrow's mail. Two of those are taking a long time to arrive; one has been in the system since mid-August, winging its way to Taiwan. I hope.

Tuesday 25 October

Another fairly non-descript day in the Outer Hebrides. In fact, it was overcast, cool and with a bit of a breeze. Following the departure of the Mod, the town of Stornoway appears to have settled into a mode of "onset of hibernation". People going about their daily business, shops full of the usual - including Hallowe'en stuff, and autumnal colours in the Castle Grounds.

Autumn is rather more violent down in Ireland, where several inches of rain caused chaos in Dublin and killed two people in flooding. Across the Atlantic, a hurricane is slowly growling its way towards the Mexican resort of Cancun, which could be struck with winds of 110 mph in the next few days. The name of the storm is Rina, as I reported yesterday.