Saturday 22 May

The day started with dense fog, which lifted shortly after 8am. After that, it stayed bright (if not overtly sunny) and quite mild today, with the mercury once again at 18C / 64F. No coat required for walk to shop (which was very busy, and the inevitable screaming mites adding to the fun). Cruiseliner Polar Star (1st pic) was docked alongside the ferry pier, but it has now left for the Shiants (20 miles south of here). Better make the best of the nice weather (like sitting outside under the tree), because on Monday we'll lose the "1" on the temperature and go right down to 8C / 46F. It is still May, and we're not having a good spring. Those low temperatures will signal a return of the northerly winds and the Icelandic ash.




Clematis


Dandelion puffball


Early morning fog lifting from the Castle Grounds

Friday 21 May

What a strange day. It rained like I've not seen rain for ages. We certainly get more than our fair share of rain in these islands, but we rarely get vertical rain of monsoonal proportions as we had for hours yesterday. The total rainfall amount is quoted as 0.6" (15 mm).

Tropical cyclone Bandu is moving just north of the Horn of Africa, Somalia, and has claimed a ship. The Dubai Moon, a vehicle transporter, went down in rough seas today. The vessel had been battling heavy seas and high winds of Socotra Island and later sank. The British Royal Navy, in the shape of HMS Chatham, saved the crew. Tropical cyclones are rare but not unheard of in the Arabian Sea; Bandu is moving west into the Gulf of Aden and will dissipate in the next day or so.

After the rain stopped, the fog moved in. By the end of the evening, the lights on Goat Island, across the water from me, had nearly faded from sight.

Picture post - 18 May

Cruiseliner Spirit of Adventure as seen through the Narrows



Cromwell Street Quay


Little and large: cruiseliners Spirit of Adventure and Quest

Thursday 20 May

Today came the news that the Lewis Chessmen will be touring Scotland this year. The figurines, thought to have been carved from walrus ivory at the beginning of the last milennium, were found in dunes at Ardroil, 35 miles west of Stornoway in Lewis. Most of them were sold to the British Museum, about a dozen are kept in a museum in Edinburgh. For the first time in 170 years, the Chessmen will be together again. In September, they will be on display at the Western Isles Museum here in Stornoway, where, some argue, they should be kept permanently. Or even at the wee Uig Museum, across the bay from their original finding place.

It was supposed to be a warm day, but far from it. It has been overcast and not very sunny. Last night, the cloud descended to sealevel, temporarily shrouding the lighthouse from view. It stands just a mile away from my position.

Wednesday 19 May

Rather more cloud today, although it appears to have been quite localised. There were reports of sun at Bosta (Great Bernera), but fog in Uig - just a couple of miles to the west. Although I tend not to complain about 12C, it is rather lower than the 18C of yesterday.

I spent today putting the finishing touches to a new website, which displays all the wargraves in Lewis. It is now live on this link.

Monty Halls Great Hebridean Escape is all about hammering posts into the ground. I feel like hammering my head against the wall when I watch that man behaving like an idiot. Bonny Prince Charlie has been to every blinking island, Benbecula not excluded, and he came there and went - as he did in every place on the map. Argh. I felt sorry for the poor fisherman whose boat Monty Halls used to demonstrate how to leave an island. Although he did some good things, like marking out trails and cleaning beaches of flotsam and jetsam, MH is making an ass of himself.

Tuesday 18 May - PM

A stunning day today, which had the mercury soaring to 18C / 64F, something that is our average in summer. As I type this, it is still not fully dark (10.45pm). There were two cruiseliners in, and the passengers of the Spirit of Adventure were apparently (bag)piped into town. Nice welcome. I went round the Inner Harbour between 5 and 6pm to have a wee look.

A friend of mine here in Lewis, who sits on committees, reported  the subjects under discussion this evening.
1. golliwogs 
2. state of crofting 
3. peeing on socks 
4. embalming 
5. cost of curing sheepskins

In my opinion, there isn't that much wrong in the world if that is all that concerns the citizens of this island. 

Hurricane update - 18 May

We have a new tropical cyclone in the world, Laila. This one is located in the Bay of  Bengal, some 350 miles east of Chennai (Madras) in India. It is at tropical storm strength and will impact the coast as a minor hurricane in a few days' time. This is the first system since 25 April, one of the longest cyclone-free intervals in the four years that I've been following these phenomena.

Tuesday 18 May

Bright and sunny, with a breeze and temperatures likely to soar into the 60s Fahrenheit for the first time this year. The forecast is for 19C on the mainland, but we will not get that high due to the surrounding cold waters of the Atlantic. It is once more cruiseliner time, with the Spirit of Adventure coming in at 8 this morning, and the Quest on its way in from the north.


Spirit of Adventure, 25 May 2009

Have joined a site which collates websites of interest for the Western Isles, and it is gradually filling up with interesting links. And I'm continuing to build a website which shows all war(-related) graves in Lewis.

Monday 17 May

Today was one of those strange days, where I found myself fattening the coffers of the local supermarket no fewer than three times. Apart from that, it was quite a nice day, which started with the appearance of another cruiseliner, the Fram. The below picture dates back to last September, at the time of her previous visit.

The Fram is quite a new vessel, only 3 years old. As I type this, the next morning, she is docked at Aberdeen.

Air travel is once more disrupted due to volcanic ash floating around British airspace. Watched an alarmist programme about the volcano involved, what would happen if its big brother blows, what will happen when the 30 volcanoes on the Kamchatka peninsula in the far east of Russia all go off. Wish people would get things into perspective, and not personalise natural phenomena.

Picture post - last week

11.48 pm, looking northwest


Thursday sunset

Wednesday, visit to Ness

Picture post - 14 May

A walk across the Golfcourse and to the Waterwheel

Sunday 16 May

Quite a nice day outside, with the mercury at 14C. Nonetheless, I've spent the day staring at this wee screen, weeding out more problems with historical data. The 4/6 vs 6/4 problem I alluded to yesterday occurred when I attempted a mailmerge from Excel into Word. I tried to format a date into (e.g.) 12 May 1940, but the computer turned it into 5 December 1940 on adding the formatting code.

I am also going to publish the 450 pictures of wargraves in Lewis on a site that has them grouped by surname of casualty, rather than by cemetery. In other words, that will keep be busy for a while as well. Also, because it keeps throwing up omissions and duplicates.

Meanwhile, the ash is back to haunt us. The Icelandic volcano is continuing to erupt, and its ash is once more disrupting air travel in the UK. Stornoway Airport is set to open as normal tomorrow morning. There are advantages to living on the fringe.

Saturday 15 May

Quite a reasonable day, with some showers and quite a bit of sunshine. We managed 13C / 57F on the thermometer. The temperatures appear to be on the way up in the days to come.

The Icelandic volcanic ashcloud is once again coming to haunt us. With the winds changing, it will now lie over the UK over the next few days, until it is finally blown north. The discussion about the sense behind restricting airtravel due to the ash continues, but after Ryanair found ash deposits in two of its planes' engines, I think the sense is demonstrated.

I've been processing some of my historical data, but tripped over Word's determination to turn 6 April into 4 June, and things like that.

More tomorrow.

Friday 14 May

I'm quite disgusted this morning, after reading an on-line newspaper's transcript of a telephone interview with the 9-year old victim of the Tripoli aircrash. "De Telegraaf", a daily newspaper in Holland couldn't raise itself to a half-decent editorial standard and leave the lad alone. No, he wasn't told his family are dead, thank god. I always thought the British gutterpress were bad. Never thought they'd stoop this low in Holland. But I now know otherwise, after other media outlets raided the Hyves sites of  people, thought lost in the aircrash, for pictures and information.

More later.

Social networking - the downside

I reported in my previous post on an aircrash in Libya, in which 70 Dutch people were killed. One survived, a boy of 9 called Ruben. His full name was splashed across the Dutch media this afternoon, and lists of possible casualties are circulating. The Internet permitted me to watch a newsconference by the Dutch Foreign Minister, Maxime Verhagen, and one thing jumped out at me. It appears that journalists and other media workers have been raiding social networking sites in the Netherlands for information and pictures of those killed, and of the little survivor. It is extremely distressing for the families of those concerned, at a time when the identity of those thought to have died has not yet been confirmed.

I am absolutely disgusted with the attitude of some of the Dutch presspack, and hope the appeal from the Foreign Minister will be heeded.

Further coverage (in English) can be obtained from Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

Thursday 13 May

An aircrash at an airport near Tripoli, Libya, has claimed 103 lives, of whom 59 Dutch. The Foreign Affairs ministry in Holland quotes the death toll of its citizens as 70. The sole survivor was a 9-year old boy from the southern city of Tilburg. I'm dismayed at the lightning speed of commercialisation of poor Ruben's plight, even before he himself is aware of the death of the rest of his family. The cause of the crash is being investigated.

It is not a very good day in the Western Isles, in terms of weather. Overcast with spells of light rain, although it is not as cold as of late - we've managed double figures. Over the next week or so, we should warm up very slowly.

Elsewhere in Scotland, the MV Silver Fjord is in difficulties, 3 miles west of Noup Head in Westray, Orkney. Coastguard tug Royal Sovereign was seen in the vicinity (courtesy AIS), but at the moment, the Silver Fjord is under tow by the tug Harald, headed south towards Kirkwall at 6 knots. At that speed, it will take about 6 hours to reach the safety of the Orkney capital.

Here in Stornoway, there is a discussion about the granting of a license to serve alcohol for consumption on and off the premises of the Golf Club on Sundays. Opening the club for the purpose of playing golf is already controversial, but now voices have been raised against the serving of drink as well. The former doesn't do any harm, the latter can give rise to disorderly conduct as we all know. However, plenty of pubs open in Stornoway on the Sabbath (sic), so one more boozer on the list won't make much of a difference.

Wednesday 12 May

I am now officially fed up to the back teeth with politics. I've suffered weeks and weeks of it and I can't stand another minute. This afternoon, we were treated to the edifying spectacle of Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy PM Nick Clegg standing, grinning (hail feller well met), side by side as if they were the first in written history to invent the coalition government. Let me tell you, as one who has had lifelong experience of coalition governments in continental Europe, that it is not necessary to take a press conference, at the launch of your new administration, practically joined at the hip. Stop yarning and start getting on with the job.

I am satisfied that Mr Cameron won the election, even if not an outright majority. The Labour party lost 90 seats and was not morally entitled to continue in government. However, the political culture in the UK does not lend itself towards coalitions. The last effort, in 1974, came to grief and led to the demise of the Liberal party as was. Its present incarnation, the Liberal Democrats, is the Conservatives' partner in the new administration.

I spent the afternoon in Port of Ness, 25 miles north of Stornoway, having lunch in a new restaurant and enjoying the rollers on the beach below. It felt cold, although at one point we managed 12C. I have not yet uploaded the pictures, but promise a picture post at some stage.

By the way, although I feature pictures on a regular basis, this is not specifically a photoblog.

Picture post - 11 May

Boats under repair at the Goat Island slipway


Anyone lost a box?


Newton


Cruiseliner Hebridean Princess


Cruiseliner Marco Polo

Tuesday 11 May

A nice bright day, but feeling quite cold. Daytime maximum was a miserly 8C / 46F. There were a few showers, but not as bad as yesterday. We awoke to the sight of two cruiseliners. The Hebridean Princess, which had been at anchor overnight off the Braighe, east of Stornoway, came in at 8 am. The Marco Polo was by that time at anchor off Sandwick and discharging passengers ashore by tender. Those booked on bus tours were charged £60 for an all day tour of the sights on the West Side (Callanish, Broch, Gearrannan, Arnol). If I were to do that on the servicebus, I'd be charged about £7. Some on board the cruiseliners were wise to the rip-off charges and had hired a vehicle. That costs about £40.

Political events have accellerated this evening, with the resignation at 7.45pm of Gordon Brown and the appointment at 8.15pm of David Cameron as Prime Minister. Coalition talks between Labour and the Liberal Democrats came to nothing during the day, but seem to be reaching an consensus this evening. After 13 years, Labour is out of Downing Street, and a Conservative PM has taken over. The speed of succession is breathtaking, although the formation of a cabinet will take a wee while yet.

Monday 10 May

Today it is 70 years ago since the forces of Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands. After four days of fighting, in which a third of the German Luftwaffe (airforce) was downed over Holland, the Nazis bombed the city of Rotterdam. As the military situation was becoming more and more dire, and the government had no desire to see more of the major conurbations destroyed, the Dutch surrendered to the Germans in the town of Wageningen. In the five years of occupation, 110,000 people who were marked as Jews were taken to concentration camps like Westerbork and Vught, then taken to deathcamps like Auschwitz, Mauthausen and Bergen-Belsen to be exterminated. They were remembered six days ago. The liberation of Holland followed on 5 May 1945, with the surrender of Nazi forces, again at Wageningen. Three days later, Germany surrendered. Yesterday, May 9th, Russia celebrated its victory day. They, as a nation, suffered the heaviest losses, about 25 million. This fact is little known but should never be forgotten.

As I type this, the snow shower gave us a dense fall of snow (which did not settle) half an hour ago has moved away south. It is only 4 degrees outside, and it's supposed to be the month of May. I've been following the continuing saga of politics in the UK, as in "who will form the next government". Although the Conservatives and Liberal Democrat parties continue their negotiations, the Labour party is dangling carrot after carrot in front of the Lib Dems, this time by announcing the resignation in September of its leader and current PM Gordon Brown. He and Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, do not get along at all, and in fact Mr Brown's resignation was one of the demands of the LD's before they would contemplate serious talks with Labour. One pertinent point: Labour lost 90 seats in the last elections, and are considered to have been voted down.

I am watching our local AIS feed, as the ferry and the small cruiseliner Hebridean Princess converge on our small port. The Princess is the old Calmac ferry Columba.