Kilchoan Sunshine

I don't get many comments on the Diary's entries - so few, in fact, that if it weren't for the 'Flag Counter' which purports to keep a log of everyone that visits this site, I might start to worry that I'm doing electronically what I'm quite accustomed to doing vocally - talking to myself.

But today I received a very welcome comment on Sunday's entry, from a visitor to Kilchoan from that lovely county of Norfolk, the home of my paternal ancestors, seafarers who, when they weren't pillaging ships which had wrecked themselves on the Caister coast, were up here off the west coast of Scotland stealing the local herring.

The visitor describes how he saw a strange light in the sky. He was so excited he took news of his sighting down to the Kilchoan Hotel, where someone told him it might have been the sun. It can't have been anyone local, because, as far as Kilchoan is concerned, there's nothing strange about sunshine - we always have plenty of sunshine here.

It comes in two varieties: sunny sunshine and Kilchoan sunshine. We have rather more of the Kilchoan type than the more normal - to Norfolk - type, but it's just as nice. It may be a bit wet, it does have a habit of being accompanied by rather strong winds, and the sky does have a nasty habit of being grey when we're enjoying it, but it's sunshine.

So Kilchoan can probably boast a sunshine record to rival that of the central Sahara or the Atacama Desert - getting on for 100%. And when you consider that, because we are much further north than Norfolk, in summer we get almost 24 hours of daylight, we probably get almost twice as much summer sunshine as those more dismal places in southern England.