Friday 7 May

A bright and sunny day, which dawned the day after the election. As I type, 622 out of the 650 UK parliamentary seats have been declared and no party has an overall majority. This means that the sitting PM, Labour's Gordon Brown, is conventionally entitled to make the first attempt at forming a government. This will require the cooperation of other parties, primarily the Liberal Democrats. They were expected to do rather better than the loss of about 8 seats that the current result shows. Second option is for Conservative party leader David Cameron to have a go, also primarily with the Lib Dems. The situation is still fluid, and I refer to BBC and other news channels for updates. Here in the Western Isles, the Scottish National Party's Angus Brendan Macneil has held on to his seat with an increased majority. Mr Macneil was distracted by a serious road traffic accident in his home island of Barra, in which several youngsters were badly hurt - some are his relatives.

The North Atlantic hurricane season has stepped into the starting blocks this week, with the emergence of the first tropical wave of the year off the West African coast on Sunday. It was only recognised as such yesterday. Up to 85% of all hurricanes and tropical storms in the Atlantic form off tropical waves, which are bursts of moisture in the lower and middle atmosphere, emanating from the African continent.

More later.