Stornoway Sundays

 On November 17th, our Tesco superstore will open its door for shoppers at midday. The latish opening hour is designed not to disturb those who wish to go to church. The store will close at 8pm, and only those members of staff who wish to work on Sundays can do so. 

After the Sunday ferry came in 15 years ago, eventually few people noticed it. I believe it is quite a busy service, although it is 7 years ago since I took the ferry on a Sunday. 

Will it make a difference to Stornoway on Sundays? I'd imagine so, with people coming in to shop who might otherwise have had to do it on Fridays and Saturdays, days of the week that I know to be very busy. On the other hand, I've always appreciated the quiet of a Sunday, and a little bit of that will be lost.

9.13 am

A clock.

Its hands pointing at a little after 9.13
This was in the morning
The morning of 21st October 1966

The clock looks a bit battered.
It looks grimey.
Encrusted with black soot... 

The clock stopped permanently at the above time, when it was engulfed in an avalance of coal dust, which had come crashing down from a 111 ft high spoil heap, outside the Welsh mining town of Aberfan

The collapse claimed the lives of 116 children and 28 adults.
109 of the children were killed when their primary / elementary school was engulfed.

Lest we forget

Blogoversary #20

A sunsplashed photograph of the village of Kyleakin in Skye, 75 miles south of Stornoway. It dates back 20 years, when I was based there for a week or so. Although I had set up a blog some ten days before, it was in Kyleakin that I commenced to blog my activities on a daily basis. 

On October 8th, 2004, I went on a hillwalk in southern Skye, to reach the beach of Camasunary. I post a photograph I took 12 days later.



Nineteen years of blogging has seen me change blogs a few times. I first posted in Northern Trip, which I had to close after AOL ditched its blogging service in October 2008.

I wrote in Atlantic Lines for ten years, before opening A Cobbled Road six years ago. The change always appears to have happened in October, for some obscure reason.

Anyway, over the years I have encountered some great people through AOL, and what we came to call J-land (journals land). Since 2004, some seventy bloggers have passed away; they are remembered in Silent Keyboards - Jland Angels, originally set up by the late Jeannette Oatley. 

Apart from blogging about my own exploits, I have about 70 blogs on my account related to local history and other matters. I hope you have enjoyed reading thus far, and will stay with me for this journey. Here's to year 21.