Sunday 3 March

A fairly bright day with good spells of sunshine and a decent 9C on the thermometer. Further south, the mercury is expected to shoot up to about 15C later in the coming week, but we shall stick by the early March norm. I'm always pleased to be in a moderate climate with a limited range of temperatures.

I just want to say something about events in the island of Raasay (shown below) last week.

Raasay, which lies just east of Skye, and some 55 miles south of Stornoway, was taken off its absentee landowner a decade or two ago. The shooting and fishing rights on the island were in the hands of the local residents - until a tendering exercise put them in the hands of an outside company. Raasay is managed by the Scottish Government, and there was an outcry over this tendering exercise, showing that the Scottish Government 'overlooked' the sensitivities in the island. The previous landowner, Dr Green (aka Dr No) did nothing and would not do anything for the islanders. I'm not impressed with the government's laxity and carelessness in this matter. It is on their watch too that the Pairc buy-out here in Lewis has dragged on for 10 years now.