Saturday 29 October

Not a very nice day in terms of weather, starting with high winds and heavy rain. Although the wind slowly abated, the rain took most of the day to die away. Yesterday's cancellation of the evening ferry from Ullapool led to a delay through today's service, but eventually less than one hour. The MV Isle of Arran is covering for the Muirneag on the freight run.

Tonight, the clocks go back by an hour, bringing the 2011 period of summertime to a close. Our American friends have an extra week of Daylight Savings, but the weather in the eastern USA does not pay heed to such artificialities - a snowstorm (Nor'easter) is blowing through the eastern States. There is another debate about Double Summertime in Great Britain, an idea I am strongly opposed to. Here in Stornoway, it would lead to sunrise at 10.15 am in December; and a ridiculous sunset time of 11.30pm in June. The December sunrise time will leave everybody going to work and school in pitch darkness - in Scotland that is. But in England too, sunrise won't be before 9 am.