View across the Outer Harbour of Stornoway

Sunday 18 November 2012

Sunday 18 November

Today was not unlike yesterday, with good sunny spells interspersed with showers, some wintry - not surprising with a daytime max of just 6C / 43F. Dedicated today to some reading, with my first e-book (read through Kindle for PC), Inner Legacy by Douglas Stuart. As I wrote in my review, it took a bit of getting into, but flowed well for the rest of its 300+ pages. The number of pages on an ebook is in fact irrelevant, as that changes with the typeface and fontsize you select for reading the text. It worked well on my laptop, in spite of its continuing problems with warped colours.

As you will have seen on Writings from Castle Town, I have completed another two writings today. These tend to be based on my own observations and interpretations of local areas, histories and scenes. Two of them will be submitted to a local writing competition; just a bit of fun. I continue to get favourable feedback, so I feel emboldened to enter.

I hope they manage to get themselves a ceasefire in the Middle East before the situation in Gaza and Israel flies out of control, which it could ever so easily do. Both sides are at fault, and neither is right in what they are doing.

Saturday 17 November

Quite cold today, with the mercury struggling to reach 5C / 41F in the afternoon. With the sun now setting at 4 o'clock, the days are getting very short. Just over five weeks until the winter solstice now. It only seems like yesterday that I was out at 11.30pm, photographing the town as daylight was only just beginning to give way to night. This week has seen a good display of the aurora borealis; as I am located on the south side of Stornoway (i.e. with a townful of light to the north) I have not been able to see them, but contacts in Ness and Coll (25 and 7 miles outside Stornoway) assure me that it has been good.

I despair at the on-going stupidity in the Middle East, where the Israelis and Palestinians continue not to realise that they are condemned to live with each other, whether they like it or not. Rather than make each others' life hell, why don't they sit down for some quiet talk, and shove all the noxious influences from outside into the sea?

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