Wednesday 24 April

A bright day, with good sunny intervals but a keen wind. Went out for a drive to Point, visiting the harbour at Portnaguran, 10 miles northeast of Stornoway, and the beach at Bayble, 5 miles to the east.

Portnaguran


Bayble

Tuesday 23 April

Monday 22 April

Once more, the news is dominated by ferry woes. The MV Hebrides, which served the ports of Uig (Skye), Lochmaddy (North Uist) and Tarbert (Harris) has broken down, and its repairs have thrown the timetable into disarray. Worse than that, the newspapers for Uist were left stranded at Uig for longer than normal, so people down in Uist were left deprived of their daily reads.

At the moment, NATO is holding a military exercise in the Minch, which involves the use of fighter jets, warships and the jamming of GPS signals. The latter is of significance to mariners, who are therefore having to rely on traditional methods of finding their way around. The RNLI lifeboat went out in early evening, responding to a shout to Loch Grimshader, 5 miles south of here.

Sunday 21 April

Started the day by watching the London Marathon, in which 37,000 people participated. It was run in sunny, and, later warm conditions. As always a colourful and uplifting spectacle, particularly in the light of the awful events at Boston 6 days ago, when two bombs killed 3 and injured nearly 200. One of the culprits has since been killed, another seriously injured.

Here in Stornoway, it was bright and sunny, but with a number of showers around.