It’s when we have really rough weather like this that I always think of the song The Road to Dundee that Calum Kennedy sang in the 1950s and many others have since - but not so well.
Despite this awful weather, I hope you all had a good new year because I have a feeling it’s going to be a rude one.
This is the best time of year to be a columnist for The Press and Journal. Everybody else is having to go out to their workplaces, but I can work from home. My cousin Ann said to me the other day that she suspected I was sometimes at my computer in my dressing gown. As if.
As this is the second last column of the year, nay, the decade, I shall wipe away a tear and think back to these days when I was a kid full of mince pies and expectations about the payback for being such a good wee boy all year long.
Holidays are coming, holidays are coming.
Growing up in God’s Country - the island of Great Bernera to uneducated plebs - I did not particularly like sheep, our fabled caora dhubh-cheannach - the blackface sheep.
Free internet by 2030 if the Labour Party gets in and it could cost the country £29 billion or up to £100 billion if you believe someone at BT.
People nowadays are constantly making out they are talking about a curiously rare event and then they talk about it non-stop.
Whether it is because some people in this area are becoming very posh or because the youngsters are becoming tech-savvy, we got a shock the other night.
Before we headed back to Scotland, we went shopping in Gloucester.
When Mrs X said that someone we knew from a long time ago wanted her to do the clicking at his October wedding, I thought good for her.
Brrr. It’s beginning to feel a lot like... no, I won’t say that word.
When you live in a place like the Western Isles, which is such a magnet for global nosey parkers, er, I mean tourists, you have to sort of fit in with what they have read.
You know when you want to say something but you cannot say it out loud? That can really be difficult.
What happened to Donald Trump? He had such lovely parents.
It is not that my eyesight is worse. It is just that I need new glasses.
There are online and telephone scams being attempted everywhere all the time.
Sometimes I see stories in certain newspapers and I think that’s a daft one they had left over from the beginning of April.
All I did was tell people to take a little time out of their busy lives to fill in a form and they may get some cash back from their bank if they were oversold PPI. That’s all I wrote here last week.
It is so wonderful to receive a gift. It just makes you feel so special.
When you tuck into a nice bit of haddock and chips with extra salt and vinegar, and green peas with tartare sauce - or maybe mayo if it is near the weekend, do you wonder about the sustainability of the fish stocks in the Atlantic and the North Sea?
With World Music Day coming up last Friday, the organisers suggested we should explore YouTube for music from different cultures. You could can explore all cultures and then start digging into the folk music, they said. I hadn’t heard many when I came across Last Train To Clarkesville. A masterpiece? Maybe. Then A Little Bit Me And A Little Bit You. I was hooked once I got into the groove.
Should the people of North Uist remember a daring and hungry young spaceman who broke the rules and smuggled a sandwich aboard his rocket in 1965?
People are so pernickety. Some put their washing on the line in a certain order so it looks better if any neighbours are having a peek.
Before he went for his scoff of steamed halibut and Windsor lamb with herb stuffing at Buckingham Palace on Monday, the President of the United States and Potential Hereditary Shareholder of the Common Grazings at Tong, near Stornoway, had a chinwag with the Foreign Secretary about Brexit and mobile phones.
Mrs X has always loved the Eurovision Song Contest, from the days when you could win by just having an easy-to-remember name like Lulu or Dana or Dana International.
The other day I commanded Mrs X to make me one of my favourite meals – meatballs Italian-style.
![From ITV
STRICT EMBARGO -TV Listings Magazines Tuesday 8 October 2013, Newspapers and other media including ANY websites Saturday 12 October 2013
Coronation Street - 8234
Monday 14 October 2013 - 1st Ep
Tina McIntyre [MICHELLE KEEGAN] react when a fiery Kylie Platt [PAULA LANE] comes storming into the Rovers all guns blazing? Will Tina spill Davids secrets? Liz McDonald [BEVERLEY CALLARD] comes in and puts a stop to the fight.
Picture contact: david.crook@itv.com on 0161 952 6214
Photographer - Joseph Scanlon
This photograph is (C) ITV Plc and can only be reproduced for editorial purposes directly in connection with the programme or event mentioned above, or ITV plc. Once made available by ITV plc Picture Desk, this photograph can be reproduced once only up until the transmission [TX] date and no reproduction fee will be charged. Any subsequent usage may incur a fee. This photograph must not be manipulated [excluding basic cropping] in a manner which alters the visual appearance of the person pho](https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/5bc641a3e4c04-127x84.jpg)
If you need a good laugh, just go to a supermarket at a busy time. Friday teatimes or Saturday lunchtimes, for example. Go in but don’t stray too far from the door. Then just hang around, looking all unconcerned and non-suspicious until you spot a target.
Someone has sent me their phrase of the week. It is in Latin. Oh help. Something by that great Roman philosopher Cicero, apparently. “Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit.”
It’s only the beginning of October but it is much colder already. Mind you the chilling wind of Brexit could be the cause. It makes my blood run cold.
There was a day that you could go to the pub, drink your fill, talk utter nonsense about politics and politicians, pretend you were an expert about sport and motorcycle maintenance and burp loudly. That was it. A great night.
After another hectic day in Inverness, I was on the ferry back to Stornoway on Monday night when I had a call from The Hearach. He was jubilant. He was aglow. He was dancing.