Monday 19/02/07

A cloudy day dawns, which sees the return of the Isle of Lewis ferry from refit. She comes into port just before 9 am. I go to the shop rather earlier than usual. At midday it was quiet in Somerfields, but the shelves looked a wee bit bare. The Clansman ferry continues to run the Ullapool service for today. It’s cloudy, but not cold. 8C is quite acceptable for February. Favio has now turned into a hurricane, 700 miles east of Maputo. It will pack winds of 85 mph when it strikes land on Thursday. Mrs B’s long-stay guest returns from an absence of 2 weeks, to join us for a bowl of minestrone soup. Also in attendance is one of mrs B’s grandsons with a friend. They have the day off because of the communions. These also occur in November and May. Filming the sparrows, starlings, greenfinches and pigeon doves. Rain and wind is on its way in from the Atlantic. Darkness falls by about 6pm, and a quiet evening follows. Find out on the Net that there are plans afoot to build a tunnel from Stornoway to Ullapool. Really? I think that story got garbled in transit. It should have referred to possible links between Harris and Skye or North Uist and Skye. Found a few interesting blogs which told people’s experiences in Lewis. One was by a German blogger over in Uig, the other by a guy who decided to sleep in his car at Cameron Terrace, using the road verge as his private loo. He kept driving up and down between Carloway and Stornoway, waffling incessantly about the Callanish Stones and for all I know he might still be there, beating the nocturnal trail and weeing in the verges at Leurbost.