View across the Outer Harbour of Stornoway

Friday, 29 August 2014

Sunday 24 August

Quite a nice morning, with fewer showers than yesterday. A nip in the air after an overnight low of 5C / 41F, but we've since gone up to 14C / 57F, so no complaints. We'll get the best weather in the country tomorrow. Whilst hurricane Marie is headed steadily for category V status in the Eastern Pacific, surrounded by the remnants of Lowell and a decaying Karina - which nobody mentions, a huge fuss is being made over another sloppy tropical storm (Cristobal) over the Turks & Caicos Islands, southeast of the Bahamas. Granted, 4 to 12 inches of rain is not to be laughed at, but we in the Outer Hebrides get far worse winds in winter.
 
The downing of flight ‪#‎MH17‬ continues to reverberate, even in the communities in Holland where I am from. A girl of 12, who was killed along with her family, is to be commemorated by her classmates in a local secondary school; a family from another town, 12 miles up the road, was also wiped out. Nearly 200 Dutch people were killed when MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17th. More than half of the victims have been identified, and the remains of those from other countries have been repatriated after identification.
 
I'm taking another look at the panels on the Lewis War Memorial. There are 23 panels, with about 1150 names from WW1 and about 450 from WW2. I'll endeavour to match names to the ones I have on my tribute sites. The stories behind those names are being gathered by the likes of Comunn Eachdraidh Nis (Ness Historical Society), thereby bringing them back to life. Many's a time I was putting portraits on my Faces from the Lewis War Memorial site and people looking over my shoulder thought they recognised a face - as someone they know today. Having the stories will bring them back to life closer to home.

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