Saturday 31/12/05 - New Year's Eve

A fairly late start after the equally late night before. After breakfast, which ended after midday, Kenny "There you go" MacLeod from Isles FM calls in to sell tickets for a raffle. They are expanding services to the other islands, as far as Barra, with coverage to Inverness and the west coast. Six transmitters are planned. They have so far this year raised £150k, but need £500k in total. Kenny sells us about £30 worth of tickets. Mrs B's son + girlfriend take me down to Grimshader for an hour or so. I already noticed at breakfast that steam was rising from the walls, and that is now condensing into fog patches. One drifts past Eitsal, another obscures Loch Leurbost - only to disappear at the blink of an eye. A stack of timber indicates the place where a house once stood. It blew apart in the hurricane last January. A nice garden path, the council bin, a phoneline, a toilet bowl and the barbecue - it's all still there, but no house. Return through Crosbost and Leurbost. A fog patch drifts across the road back to Stornoway. Everybody goes shopping on return to town. The sun sets on 2005 for the last time at 3.35 pm. Supper consists of sweet and sour chicken. After that, we're in eager anticipation of "the bells". We won nothing on the Isles FM raffle, or the National Lottery. At 11 pm, mainland Europe lets off its fireworks. One hour later, it's "charge your glasses" for the strikes of Big Ben at midnight.

2005 is history

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