Monday 23 October

The mid-term holidays are over, the Royal National Mod has taken place (in Fort William this year) and the weather has been decidedly autumnal for weeks now. The bus timetables have lost their summer additions as of this morning, so we're into winter mode now. The weekend weather was in fact not too bad, with plenty of sunshine. Not so today; at time of typing, there was just a very heavy downpour. Another indication that summer is gone is the ferry ships going in for their annual overhaul. Our ferry, the Loch Seaforth, has headed off for dry-dock in Leith (near Edinburgh). Her timetable commitments are being taken up by the old Ullapool-Stornoway ferry Isle of Lewis, and the small Hebridean Isles which takes freight back and forth. The Isle of Lewis is slower than Loch Seaforth, taking 15 minutes longer to cross to and from the mainland. Other ferry routes will have similar modifications over the winter months. Daylight hours are becoming short, with sunset at 6pm. This seems to have caught out some walkers, who got lost on the Clisham (our highest mountain peak at 799 metres) and had to be airlifted off by the Coastguard helicopter. Finally, we had an unseasonably late visit by a cruiseliner, the Hebridean Princess, on Friday.

Autumn

October is here and autumn is strengthening its hold in the Outer Hebrides. Summer wasn't much to speak of out here, with a few warm days and / or a few sunny days. Summer 2015 here was mostly cloudy, windy, cold, or a combination of any of the three aforementioned. That has not deterred the visitors, which have come thick and fast. On foot, on their bikes, in their cars, in coaches, by plane or by cruiseliner. The local bus service, which (for the population of 20,000 that it serves) is excellent, will have done very well. Some buses even take bicycles, for those pedallers whose energy is short of the distance they need to cover. When October is over, the bus service will have reduced somewhat, as the requirement is no longer there. Did I mention that a return ticket from Stornoway to Leverburgh, a distance of 55 miles (90 km), only costs £10? That's $15 or €13.50. A single ticket from Ullapool to Inverness, same distance by road, costs £12, just to give a comparison. October sees the advent of the Royal National Mod, which is being held in Oban this year. Next year, it will be in Stornoway, and the participants are already busy with their preparations. The Mod is a Gaelic cultural event along the lines of a competition. The most coveted prize is a Gold Medal in traditional singing. The Mod is also known, irreverently, as the whisky olympics.

I have not posted pictures on this blog since the middle of August, another victim of the easy-posting lure of Facebook. I'll post a selection in a separate post.