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The military are back doing war-games. My peaceful bath was interrupted by a swarm (?) of jets practicing their turns. They use Tiree airport as a target for their bombing runs. I suppose ours isn’t on the map yet. Last night we were tempted to leave a giant message on the runway (which is still too short (allegedly)) so it could be seen by Google’s satellite. ‘Real ale here’ was the favourite, no prizes for guessing who was in. HMS Gloucester was cruising about a couple of days ago at breakfast time. She puffed out a lot of red smoke at one point. When it comes to ships she must be the kind that would be a tower block. Seen from the front she was very tall and thin, if the wind had got up I would have expected her to fall over.

The Dalmally boys have finished and gone. They were here right at the start just before Easter, it will be strange without them. They didn’t win the quiz but we let them take a small temporary reminder of Coll home with them. Only on Coll can you get a haircut on quiz night – beware of late nights on Carnan Road!

The Islay boys are away for some r & r, possibly even to dry out but they will be back next week. I’m not sure what has happened to winter but Coll isn’t getting any quieter. The terminal building has reached ground level. Apparently there is enough reinforcing in the foundations to build a 7-storey hospital, not a small timber ticket office. Next week the scaffolders come in.