Wednesday jottings

Nice bright day today with good sunny spells. It's not too cold, with a temperature of 5C / 41F. Down in Devon, the looting of the cargo of the MSC Napoli, which was beached off Branscombe Bay late last week, has been stopped. Police and Coastguards have secured the beaches and restricted access to nearby villages to residents. It is bad enough that cargo was illegally removed; seeing people's personal possessions strewn across the beach was distressing for the owners.

There was a man in Inverness who bought a plane 10 years ago - a DIY plane. He got all the bits and put it together himself. After acquiring a pilot's license, he flew in it within the last few weeks. Well done to this 74-year old.

Up here in Lewis, a consultation has started into the future of our ferry and the Ullapool service. Over the past weeks and months, there were numerous cancellations and much disruption of service. Complaints about the vessel MV Isle of Lewis are frequent, and even more so about it freight counterpart MV Muirneag. This is not just from users, but also from those sailing the vessels. The latter boat was involved in an infamous incident in November 2005, when the captain decided to sail in the face of stormforce winds, and ended up 60 miles off course, battling force 12 winds.

The Health Board in the Western Isles remains in the news today, after the Finance Director announced a cumulative deficit of £3m. Over the current financial year, the shortfall is £800k, but deficits of preceding years raise the total to £3m. Stringent measures have been put into place to curtail spending, and staff have been asked to cooperate with management. Let's hope the new management team do manage to get their personnel on board; the previous lot got a vote of no confidence from staff last March and lost their Stornoway posts five months ago.

As I went out for an amble over the last hour, I came across the MV Sava Hill, which is discharging a cargo of coal. The town is being painted black by the lorries carting it away. I walked round the water's edge to the new build of the Bridge Centre and on to the Coop on Macaulay Road. After getting the papers and the lottery tickets from there, I returned down Matheson Road.