Monday 20 August

A mostly overcast day with some rain into the afternoon, and a bit cooler than of late. We just about managed 16C / 60F. The heat in the south of the UK and on the adjacent continent has also abated and we're headed for some slightly autumnal weather, with wind and rain moving in off the Atlantic over the next few days. A few thousand miles to the south, tropical storm Gordon has caused some very windy conditions in the Azores. The system is currently dissipating between the islands and mainland Portugal.

I have more or less completed the transfer of my links to pearltrees.com. The site offers the possibility to search for similar collections of links, and an option to form teams of like-minded users. For the moment, my focus is on tropical cyclones as well as on matters Scottish, more specifically Hebridean.

Sunday 19 August

A fairly bright day with good sunny spells. We managed 21C / 70F during the afternoon. Unfortunately, the sun went behind the clouds as I went outside to have some lunch. There was a bit of wind and it got rather cool. I was surprised to see the ferry coming in at 1pm, obviously on its return from a morning sailing to Ullapool. Yesterday's rally will have necessitated this extra sailing, which was in the timetable. On Wednesday and Friday, we still have the customary three sailings a day (departing Stornoway at 6 am, 1pm and 7.45pm, to return at 12.15pm, 7pm and 1.45am). This will continue into September. The tourism season is in full flow. Yesterday saw some very high temperatures in continental Europe. My father in eastern Holland was subject to 34C / 93F, which is the equal to the local record of the past 35 years.

I have continued sorting out links on pearltrees.com, but am having a job bringing order to the chaos. As each pearltree has a limit of 16 pearls (links), you have to order and reorder. Also, when uploading links from delicious.com and diigo.com as well as my browser favourites, the site puts them up in no particular order.