Remembering

In June of last year, a man of 60 went out canoeing with his youngest son. He was a father of 11, living in the village of Arnol, 15 miles north of Stornoway. That afternoon, the two were seen by a chance walker off the coast by the next village, Bragar. Thinking nothing of it, the walker went on her way, and after a little while came to the beach by the cemetery at Bragar.

Where one of the canoes was found washed up. She immediately raised the alarm, and the Coastguard found the man in the water. He was quickly transferred to hospital, but did not survive. His son was not found for another 3 weeks, in spite of intense search efforts which were carried on quite late in the evening, on account of the long evenings in June.

Whenever I pass through Arnol, I pass the house where the family used to live - I seem to remember they moved away - and feel the sadness. As in all communities by the sea, this is only too common an occurrence. Even in the few years I've been here, several tragedies like this have occurred. Those left behind remain in my thoughts.


View across the walls of Arnol to the next village, Bragar.

Award

I am very pleased to see the resurgence of awards, memes and what have you in J-land. Jeannette (Outside Looking In) passed the Let them Eat Cake award to me.
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I'll think about who to pass it on to, but it's pretty much done the round - also, I'm not fully back into the swing of things yet, so please don't be offended if I pass on this one.

Reminder

Can I ask everyone who needs / wants to email me, please do so on adb422006@gmail.com, and no longer on pharmolo@aol.com? I'm minimising my exposure to AOL.

Conversely, can I also ask everyone who wants a reply from me (some do) to allow mail from above email to reach their email Inbox. Natalie!!!

Front picture

The pic at the head of my blog shows the beach at Dalbeg [Dail Beag] on the west coast of Lewis, some 20 miles west of Stornoway. This is a short video of waves crashing into the shore at Dalbeg.



Dalbeg itself is a one horse town, consisting of about half a dozen houses, a lily pond loch in summer and plenty sheep. This set on Flickr shows more than 150 pictures of the place.

Have a look

Regina (known as wumzels2 on AOL) has started a poetry journal (Somewhere in Time), and I think it is very good. Can't say I'm much of a poetry buff, but would like to recommend this for reading.

Tuesday 18 November

Overcast day with a few chinks in the clouds. Very quiet weather today, but winds will pick up tomorrow to galeforce.

Last night, I lost Internet service after 8pm, but things are back up now. The ISP advises that it is affecting a large geographical area. I hope it stays on up here, suppose I suffer from internet addiction (winks).

I went to the supermarket last night, and saw a bevvy of flashing blue lights near the town centre, just down the road. It turns out two youngsters crashed their car into the busstation. They were slightly hurt and taken to hospital. Their car was damaged in the incident.