Strangers

Today was tremendous. What an incredible contrast to yesterday's weather. 

We woke up to a fair amount of clear sky and headed up to walk to the Quiraing from the northern, quieter side. We met no-one. It was frosty and quite still. When the early sunlight broke through the clouds, the golden light on the rock pinnacles was magnificent.

Eventually, near The Needle, we started meeting people coming the other way but had had much of the extraordinary landscape to ourselves. 

We headed up the steep slope to The Needle, again on our own, and then worked our way back to The Table. When we finally found the top of it, the low light streaming through on the green landscape in front of us took our breath away. Another moment beyond words and a real weather treat in the midst of the passing storms.

As we headed back, we met an artist carrying a large canvas who had been painting. He was from London and reckoned his gloomy but beautifully moody interpretations sold better in the south where they all thought that that was all the weather we got up north!

After lunch at home, we headed into Portree for supplies, a coffee and a few New Year messages in some coverage. The lady serving the customer she knew in front of me in the Coop was commenting on how many strangers she'd seen over the last few days. Not tourists, nor visitors. It gave me a wry smile. 

We met a lovely man in the cafe who drove a Stagecoach bus and was on a five hour wait before his scheduled journey home to Inverness. He loved dogs and we enjoyed sharing a few stories between us.

We've had a New Year dinner and are hunkered down with more gales blowing outside for our last DVD night of 2015.