Home Again (Again)

I arrived home late on Sunday evening after a good journey up the road and a remarkably calm ferry crossing given the huge storm on Saturday. 

Sailing out of Ullapool and down Loch Broom to The Minch

It had been a Good Week. The scans were clear and I'm continuing on the drugs trial. I've spent a couple of days getting back into my daily 'routine' (a silly term because I have few actual routines). I'm up at crack of dawn in the morning to take Gaz to the airport and his return to Italy.

Settling back in wasn't helped by the fact that the internet had, once again, disappeared in my absence. This time it was because the box on the telegraph pole had been destroyed in Saturday's storm. I was reinstated yesterday.

An Engineer up a telegraph pole. He's spent a lot of time mending my phoneline one way and another

My last day in Glasgow included a visit to one of my favourite (and much blogged about) places: Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery. A visit is never complete without seeing the Glasgow Boys exhibition.

Old Willie - The Village Worthy -  Sir James Guthrie 1886

The Last of the Clan -  Thomas Faed 1865

A Highland Funeral  Sir James Guthrie 1882 
The cottage in the picture still stands but is in a derelict state.
It can be found alongside the Black Water river just up the lane from The Byre Inn public house in the village of Brig O'Turk,
As can be seen women did not generally attend funerals at that time

A Dawn Journey

Last week Gaz and I went to Inverness on Monday morning and returned on Tuesday evening. On the outward journey across The Minch at dawn the weather was idyllic and I managed the following photos as we sailed into the mouth of Loch Broom towards Ullapool.

Then as we exited Strath Garve by road and  saw the lower slopes leading towards Ben Wyvis the mist and frost gradually got thicker and colder.

Away For A Few Days

I left the Island yesterday at the crack of dawn for a few days on the Mainland: principally to attend the funeral of the mother of a friend of many years standing.

As the ferry was preparing to leave Stornoway I managed these photos (I'm afraid that the last one is very 'noisy'):

As we were entering Loch Broom I couldn't resist the inevitable photo of the ship's wake:

The hills had a very watercolour look about them:

and some of the very remote crofts were emphasised