Friday 28 February

Morning all, it's grey here, but the rain has stopped and it's getting slightly less dreich. Very worried about the situation in the Crimea, where a Russian (backed) intervention in all but name appears to be underway. Actions speak louder than words.

Spent a wee while in Stornoway library, browsing the columns of the Inverness Courier and offshoot The Highland News. I was looking for an obituary or a death notice for a South Uist soldier, who had died of TB in February 1917. A death notice in the paper costs money, and people in the South Uist of 1917 did not have money. There is no gravestone over the grave in Hallan Cemetery, Daliburgh, mute testimony to their poverty.

I was pleased to see they are finally widening the right-hand pavement (as you come up from South Beach) on Kenneth Street, outside An Lanntair. It was so narrow that two people could not pass each other without one having to step into the roadway. A disabled parking bay? Don't make me laugh. It'll be a free for all parking bay.

This weekend will see another springtide, with the highest and lowest tides occurring on Sunday and Monday. I'm pleased that here in SY the ebb tides occur in the afternoon, giving me a chance to go down and look for shellfish.