Saturday 25 January

Burns' Night tonight, commemorating Scotland's National Bard. At formal occasions, the haggis (a sheep's stomach stuffed with various bits of sheep offal) will be piped in, served with neeps and tatties and washed down with copious amounts of the water of life. One of his poems can be read here, there are hundreds more songs and poems in Scots and English.

Today is a much brighter day out here, very welcome after yesterday's dreich conditions. However, it is not much of an improvement, as we have heavy showers of rain, hail, snow and thunder. At 5.30 this morning, a good booming thunderstorm moved through. We normally only get thunderstorms in winter, strangely enough. After tomorrow's gale, the weather will turn colder next week.

Went for a 5 km / 3.1 mile walk along the quays of Stornoway and into the Castle Grounds. Not much had changed there; the old Monaco is slowly being demolished and they have installed new pontoons for pleasure craft.