A Bright, Sunshiny Day

The day dawned a wonderful Kilchoan Sunshiny day, pure sunlight arriving horizontally by the bucketful at input speeds at times exceeding force 7 on the Beaufort Scale. So we were pretty disgusted to find that certain Ormsaigbeg residents were still abed when we walked down to the shop at about ten this morning. Yes, there are seven of them in there.

Mind you, the Kilchoan Pig Syndicate's animals are doing a good job with the eastern side of Ivor's field - too good a job, as rumour has reached The Diary that, once this field is clear of bracken, they'll be moving west again, deep into Ormsaigbeg territory. What's wrong with them cleaning up some Kilchoan fields for a change?

We were considerably worried around eleven this morning when four strange ships began to emerge out of the sunny haze, ships which, while evidently naval in design, didn't look at all like Royal Navy, not with big numbers like that so clearly painted on the side. Our immediate reaction was that this was a Russian invasion, but A432 is an Estonian mine countermeasures ship, the EML Tasuja (Wikipedia reference here), and the wonderful AIS System revealed that one of the others was Norwegian - the other two passed as vague shapes and couldn't be identified. So these were our European friends doing the job RN ships used to do so well before they were all sold to China, steam around and show the flag.

Meanwhile, on shore, as we basked in the rising warmth, the power went off. This was a scheduled power cut, to allow Scottish & Southern to attach a cable for one of the new houses being built along Ormsaigbeg. Give the lads their due, they shinned up the pole despite the conditions, and had the power back on in far less time than they'd predicted, leaving them plenty of time to relax in a couple of deck chairs before driving off down the peninsula.

As far as we're concerned, it's great to arrive back from holiday into so much sunshine. As we left Tanzania, they were starting what they call a 'rainy season', over a month early. Had we stayed longer, we might have got wet.