Brisk November Weather

We've been knocked around a bit in the last week by the weather, with west to southwest gales and a fair amount of rain - 17mm in the last 24 hours, of which a good 15 fell during the night, much of it shortly after 9pm when we suffered such a heavy deluge it sounded like hail. This followed immediately after a lightning strike which took out the electricity to some 300 homes in the area - apparently a power pole was struck. Scottish Hydro engineers had power restored by about 11pm. Being at the end of a power line, we suffer a number of outages, but our local engineers do a great job getting us reconnected. We've also had problems with the internet, with the whole system in this part of Scotland going down twice.

The wind has now swung round into the north, and a watery sun is shining, so, with a bit of luck, we might have a fine evening for the annual bonfire.

With the changing of the weather the birds are on the move. Skeins of geese have been migrating south, and yesterday we saw a flight of swans travelling low along the Ormsaigbeg shore.

The small birds are taking up their winter quarters. We haven't seen coal tits for some time but there are now two in the garden visiting the peanuts and fat cakes. They're the devil to photograph as they never seem to stay still for a moment. At this time of year they're busy collecting food and hiding it ready for the winter.

We've had big flocks of goldfinches in the fields all summer - their favourite food seems to be the seeds of the thistle - but they have now split up into smaller groups. Their colours are magnificent - little wonder that, in the old days, these pretty birds were caught and kept in cages to brighten the house.