Saturday 6 October

Fairly bright today, but feeling cold, with the mercury only just into double figures. However, we did get some nice spells of sunshine which made up for the lack of warmth. Went for an amble about town to see if anything had changed, but this was not the case. The only exception was at the site of the old Nicolson Institute, which is rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth, as the demolition nears completion. The main tourism season is now over, and the final whistle will go at the end of the half-term holiday, in a fortnight's time, and certainly when the clocks go back. The trees, like in Holland earlier this week, are beginning to turn as well. It's October, and we'll know about it. Tonight, a widespread frost is forecast.

Friday 5 October

After a morning agonising over my missing luggage, it finally turned up by taxi from the airport at 2pm. The tags on it suggested that it never left Schiphol with me, and only my query at Stornoway served to get it to me. It had come via Aberdeen to Stornoway on the Eastern Airways service that gets in here just before 2pm. All was present and correct. Spent the rest of the day catching up with pics and GPS trails. Nights are closing in now, it's getting dark before 7 o'clock. At the end of the month, the clocks will go back, leaving us with darkness at 5pm.

During the afternoon, someone was spotted walking down to the tideline in the basin across the road with a canoe. They put it into the water and proceeded to paddle away at a rate of knots. Unusual. It was low tide at that point, but fortunately we're at neap tide, meaning the low tide is not very low.