The day started bright with some wintry showers, but after the wind dropped away those showers became slow-moving. I still prefer our weather to that on the mainland, where snow continues to be a problem. Nonetheless, you have to exercise care and foresight when you go out and about in the hills. Two walkers decided to ascend the Clisham, our highest hill, today, but got lost when the cloud came down. The Coastguard helicopter airlifted them off the mountain. An Clisham is 799 metres high, a respectable height at this latitude.
The Israelis and Palestinians are entering another cycle of mutually assured violence, with deathrates of 1:10 once the weapons open up. The Palestinian group Hamas has been firing rockets into Israel, and the Israelis have bombed a city in Gaza. Yawn.
One of the many April Fools I came across yesterday was related to the Uig Chessmen. The Stornoway Gazette printed a story that the associated chessboard had been found by an American tourist, Dean Hebever. The fact that the story was not featured on the paper's website was a good give-away that it was an April Fool. The other was that the local historical society did not run it until today - as an April Fool.
