Sunday notes

Quiet Sunday here in the Isles, as per usual. The odd hail shower passes through, indicating it is quite cold today. Latest report mentions 5C; our weather will be coming from the far north this week.

Molly Campbell's mother has spoken about the anguish over having to abandon the custody battle for her daughter. She has had to come to terms with the fact that Molly / Misbah wanted to be with her dad, rather than with her. Molly was fairly happy in Lewis though. Mrs Campbell has said that a visit to Pakistan is not on the cards in the near future. Louise adopted the Muslim faith during her marriage to Molly's father Sajed, but reverted to Christianity. She has received death threats over this, and claims she needs 24/7 police protection if she goes to Pakistan. The other consideration is that she will not leave her young baby daughter behind.

A casualty of last week's storm, the container carrier Napoli, was deliberately beached off the Devon coast in southwestern England on Friday. The ship has developed a 25 to 30 degree list, and is in danger of capsizing. 150 of her container cargo have already washed overboard, some of which pose a danger in terms of marine pollution.

Closer to home, a fishing boat put out a Mayday at 6.40 this morning, saying they were taking on water off the Isle of Soay, just south of Skye and west of the village of Elgol. Stornoway Coastguard scrambled the helicopter, which flew pumps to the FV Our Heritage. Meanwhile, the Mallaig lifeboat was launched and took just 40 minutes to reach the casualty. The pumps helped to bring the situation quickly under control, and the lifeboat towed the stricken vessel back to Mallaig. Stornoway Coastguard stated that the relatively calm conditions had been helpful in the situation.