A Month Ago....

This picture, taken almost exactly a month ago, shows a small burn running down Iain Cameron's croft in Ormsaigbeg. The Diary has a particular interest in this burn as the year's most reliable primrose flowers by a pool at the bottom of these little falls.

This is the same place today. The main change is the green that has come with spring, but, with the drop in rainfall, the burn is reduced to a trickle. The other change is the arrival, from an adjoining plot, of the electric fence which keeps the pigs in. It's a relief to note that the pigs seem to be migrating eastwards, back to where they belong.

Yesterday's skies were almost cloudless, as can been seen from this picture of a yacht entering Kilchoan Bay in the evening, with the Coastguard station and Ben Hiant beyond. Today's weather shows no sign of change. The temperature in the shade at midday in Ormsaigbeg was 18C, which doesn't sound much, but this is an air temperature and takes no account of the fierceness of the sun.

There have been reports of fires across the Highlands yesterday, with a hundred acres of heath on fire in the Acharacle area which were put out by beaters, and more severe fires around Torridon to the north of us which have been burning since Saturday. Once these fires get down into the peat they are the devil to put out.

There's little sign of any let-up. The rain which was forecast for the middle of the week has disappeared, and the earliest suggestion of a break in the weather is next Saturday.

For some, the best place on a hot day is the shade.