Wednesday 28/06/06

Awake to the sight of a large barge over at Arnish, loading a 60 m segment of pipe, which looks suspiciously like part of a windturbine tower. Very bright morning, but the clouds indicate the approach of a weatherfront from the Atlantic. Temperatures rise quickly to a maximum of 18C / 64F in the afternoon, which is very respectable for Stornoway. Clouds close in by 4pm, winds pick up and it cools down. Rain commences at 9pm. Mrs B's nephew comes to call, and he is not a happy chappy. Personal problems on top of his health ones. He takes his auntie over to the Coop for a shop, and the saying "shop until you drop" takes a different meaning there. The place bears more resemblance to a building site than a superstore, with ladders, open ceilings, trailing wires and what have you all over. Not to mention the fact that tiles are being cut with an angle-grinder (this generates dust), and there is open food like bread and meat on the shelves. This is the first week that Calmac put on 3 sailings a day on Wednesday and Friday, which will continue until September 1st. Ferry leaves at 6.15 a.m., 12.45pm and 7pm, finally to return at a quarter to one in the morning. On mrs B's behalf I welcome a gentleman from Switzerland who is here until Sunday. His luggage had gone walkabout on Monday, but he is just nipping down the airport to pick it all up. Later in the evening, he comes down for a chat and some information on his trips in the days to come. Yes, I'm turning into a bit of a tourist office here LOL. His English is not very strong, he can't follow the presenters on the weather news on BBC. They admittedly gabble. Dinner consists of a nice stirfry from the butcher's, with a caramel custard afterwards. I hop out at 8.30 pm to picture two 2-masted yachts which are coming in. In the afternoon, I went into town to buy a new notebook. Had to go through 3 shops to find what I wanted. My old one will run out in 35 pages - I'm now on page 1165.