Boxing Day 2011

A grey and overcast day, rather a contrast to the severe gales that continue to lash the Western Isles of Scotland. Very mild, with the mercury at 11C / 52F this afternoon. I spent most of the afternoon and evening visiting relatives in a town 7 miles away, during which we had a good chance to catch up. Apart from at my mother's funeral in 2008, I basically hadn't really seen them for yonks. I had not even been in their house, where they had been living since 1987. Don't get me wrong: I have kept in touch, but just not face-to-face. Have done a lot of catching up in that respect over the past 11 days or so.

Just a wee note to say I am not posting on here until New Year's Eve, as I'm off internet until Saturday. I'm away on a journey to one of the Dutch northern isles - I'll be posting a number of back-dated entries to catch up with pics and the like.

Christmas 2011

Darkness has fallen on Christmas Day. The past 24 hours has seen me in church twice, first with the Watchnight Service last night at 9.30pm, and this morning again, at 10 am. I participated as a chorister with the church choir - they're always short of tenor singers. The parson made a direct and stinging reference to the recently emerged scandal surrounding the abuse of children in the Catholic Church in Holland, although she did not referred to the Catholic church by name. The implication was clear though. The Pope has not referred to the issue at all - to my knowledge.

Queen Beatrix, in her annual address to the nation, called on all Dutch people to bear in mind the environment and the limited resources of our planet. She also expressed her opinion that material wealth should not be such an overriding consideration in our lives. A noble aspiration, but not entirely realistic.

This afternoon, we went for a walk of just over two miles round the immediate area. It is quite mild at the moment, with the mercury at 10C / 50F. It is even milder in the Western Isles, at 12C, but with a howling gale, with winds of between 65 and 85 mph.

Christmas Eve

The sun went down an hour ago, and only a little light remains in the west. Today was bright and sunny, although not very warm. Went out for a walk to the Heathlands, to the north of here, and the chill wasn't noticeable until we left the forest behind and climbed the old moraine to the Watch Tower. This stands 350 feet above sealevel in an exposed location. The total distance covered was 10.00 km, just over 6¼ miles - measured by GPS. I have found my GPS not very reliable over the past week or so, sometimes going off track by as much as 200 metres (700 feet). It kept the trail beautifully today, but it tends to go wonky in amongst trees.

Later this evening, my father and I will join the church choir for the Watch Night service in the church, which starts at 9.30pm. I refer to the Christmas Eve service by its Scottish name, well, having lived there for seven years now, it does tend to rub off.

I have added the first picture in the below compilation to the sidebar of this blog - the Watch Tower being an integral part of the Shell Gallery remit.

Friday 23 December

Like yesterday, a wet day, but it did clear up a bit later in the afternoon. Went out for a walk in the woods, 3½ miles to the viewpoint at the Emma Pyramid. This was a work creation project in the late 19th century. However, in recent years, the trees around it have grown so tall that you can't see anything from the top of the original hillock. When I was small, you had a view all the way into Germany (about 15 miles away) from the top. Now you need to climb a 40 ft tower to see that far. I don't have a head for heights, unfortunately.

Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers has reached the International Space Station on board a Russian Soyuz space-craft. The Soyuz has docked successfully on to ISS, and Kuipers, preceded by his commander and one other cosmonaut, has drifted on board. He was shown on Dutch TV this evening, communicating with his family. His young daughter sang a song for him, which left his fellow astronauts a tad bemused, I think.


View from the Emma Pyramid (into the forest)


Commemorative stone for young men summarily executed by the Nazis in December 1944.

Picture post

This austere exterior belies the rather more genteel interior of the village church here.


This is the Christmas tree, as pictured last night.


This Jugendstil fireplace can be found in an adjacent part of the church buildings.

A few more notes on yesterday

December 21st 2011 also saw the launch of a Dutch astronaut, Andrew Kuipers, into space on board a Russian Soyuz rocket, bound for the International Space Station. Kuipers, a medical doctor, is scheduled to spend nearly 6 months on board ISS, conducting 57 scientific experiments during that time. The hours leading up to launch revealed some interesting rituals, some of which date back 50 years to the launch of Yuri Gagarin as first man into space in 1961. These include signing the door of the hotel room with his signature, urinating against the right rear tyre of the bus that takes the cosmonauts to the rocket and not watching the rocket being wheeled out to the launch pad as that brings bad luck. At 13.16 GMT, the rocket blasted off into the night sky of Baykonur (Kazachstan) and within 10 minutes had reached cruising speed of 17,500 mph at an altitude of 220 km (128 miles). The ISS orbits the earth at an altitude of about 250 miles (400 km).

Rather less salubrious was the crazy incident during a football match in Amsterdam. A drunk hooligan ran onto the pitch and tried to tackle the goalkeeper of one of the teams. The goalie instead floored the hooligan and kicked him twice, before stewards intervened. The hooligan was arrested, but the match was abandoned. The goalkeeper was red-carded for violent conduct. The Dutch FA (KNVB) will decide on the eventual outcome of the match and the red card.

23 years ago yesterday, flight PanAm 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, leading to the loss of more than 200 passengers and crew, as well as 11 innocent townspeople in Lockerbie, a small town 30 miles north of Carlisle. One man was convicted for the atrocity, but he was repatriated to Libya in 2009. Although Abdulbaset al-Megrahi was not expected to live for more than 3 months, he is reportedly still alive. His paymaster, Muammer Gaddafi, was killed last October.

Wednesday 21 December

The shortest day of the year has come in suitably December-like: misty and grey. Not feeling really cold, but there was some light drizzle at times. Went for a walk in the Castle Country Park, and I'm posting a handful of pictures. Previous readers of this blog will be familiar with the images.






More images here