Wind, Sleet and Rainbows

We know we're really back into winter when we sit in our warm conservatory and watch the Raasay battle her way across the Sound through driving sleet and a near gale. The Raasay and its stalwart crew keep the service going when most other CalMac boats are tied up, but we're told that, this winter, our boat will be the Loch Linnhe, currently on the Iona service. While she's a more pleasant boat to cross in - you can look out of the window - she doesn't have the seaworthiness of the little Raasay, so we'll have to be prepared for more services to be cancelled.

It wasn't all wind and sleet today. Many thanks to Gael Cameron for this picture of a spectacular rainbow over the parish church. Sadly, the end of the rainbow and its pot of gold wasn't in the church, which is still in need of extensive funding to deal with repairs.

Many thanks too to Kilchoan Early Bird, who found this seal pup hiding behind a boat having been driven in on the very high tides occasioned by the supermoon and a following wind, while we had....

....a rare visit from a greenfinch which joined the heaving mass of damp chaffinches, sparrows and dunnocks around our seed feeders.