Tuesday jottings

Last night was very disturbed, as heavy showers barrelled across accompanied by strong winds. One shower pelted the place with hail on some very strong squalls. At the moment, things have quietened down on the windfront, although the showers are still going.

Next Friday, the Galson Trust will take possession of the northern tip of the island, following a successful buy-out bid. The formal take-over will take place at Galson Farm, 20 miles north of Stornoway, after which an exhibition will be opened in Dell, just up the road, and a ceilidh (party) will be held at the Ness Community Hall.
This buy-out was made possible under recent legislation, which would allow residents to buy the land they live on from their landowner, even without his consent. In the end, the Galson Trust reached an amicable arrangement.

Another buy-out in Lewis has been bogged down in legal quagmire after the sitting landowner resorted to legalistic sleight-of-hand. He leased the land in South Lochs, 12 miles south of Stornoway [in a direct line] to one of his own companies, and the legal wrangle that ensued will take several years to clear up.
As in the case of the Galson Estate, the Park Estate (in which South Lochs lies) will see the building of a windfarm, which promises to be highly lucrative for the landowner.

Meanwhile up in Orkney, the Master of the Queen's Music, the well-known conductor Sir Peter Maxwell-Davies, wanted to get married to another man. He had asked a local registrar to conduct the ceremony, but Orkney Islands Council (PMD lives in the island of Sanday, in Orkney) forbade the registrar from doing so. Maxwell-Davies has now called for a boycott by tourists (both straight and gay) of Orkney, and he has set his lawyers to work. His partner-to-be, who built a private railway in Sanday, has closed this down and will leave the island, never to return.

When same sex marriages were made legal in Scotland over the last year or so, the row focused on the Western Isles (where I am), because registrars weren't happy to conduct the ceremony, although by law they have to do the necessary to formalise the same-sex partnership. I think it's quite unfair to come down so hard on Orkney over this. However, bearing in mind the publicity this case has attracted, I won't comment further.

Technorati Tags: wind, same+sex+marriage, galson, buy-out