Friday 08/09/06

The hole digging out the back encounters some problems in the shape of a possible drain. Hopefully, fence posts and panels will follow next week. It's a nice sunny morning, cool and breezy. The first really low tide occurs at 2pm, although the next one, at 3 am tomorrow, will be even lower. Spoke to the chap we have in at the moment, who hails from the West Midlands [England]. He quit his job at age 40 and went out to Australia to work for only a few weeks - which turned into 12 years. He has just come up out of Harris, where he was for 4 days. Although we sent him round the West Side, he found it boring. Fine, each to his own. Later this afternoon, at 4.30pm, a serious car accident is scheduled to happen in South Beach Street, outside the Town Hall. This is a mock-up, to demonstrate to the public how accidents are dealt with by the emergency services. It is also intended to shock learner drivers into a sensible frame of mind behind the wheel. Not. I arrive on the scene at 4.30, as a chap from the police talks us through the procedures. One car lies on its side, the other on its roof. There is one "fatality" and it is shown how victims are cut free from the wreckage of their vehicles. The helicopter comes in to the ferry pier to transfer the "casualties" to "hospital". It is a warm and sunny afternoon. The tide is quite high, 5.5 m, at 8pm, but it's a calm evening. A beautiful Harvest Moon rises later in the evening.