View across the Outer Harbour of Stornoway

Thursday 17 November 2011

Thursday 17 November

An overcast day which turned rather wet in the last hour before sunset, which occurs at 4pm at the moment. The wind has picked up as well, after a handful of days with hardly any wind. The mercury made quite a jump last night, rising from -1C (30F) at 7pm to +7C (45F) an hour later, accompanied by the wind starting up from the south. Before the rain commenced, it felt very cold, although the mercury was not all that low, at 10C. End of weather report.

At the moment, I am adding portrait photographs to a group on the Flickr.com site for the Imperial War Museum. The IWM has invited all who have pictures of ancestors who fought in the First World War to add their portrait photographs to that group. Since this started on Monday, I have even encountered a picture of a German soldier among the portraits. This is not as strange as it may sound; three years ago, I photographed wargraves at the Royal Naval Cemetery at Lyness in Orkney, which contained 16 German wargraves. Those sailors died when their fleet was scuttled in Scapa Flow in June 1919. Personally, I have no problem with those guys sharing a cemetery with their adversaries in war. In death, all are equal; and it was their adversaries that gave them a decent burial.