Sunset over Gruinard Bay

It's a hard job to choose a blip from several photographs of beautiful Scottish scenery in the sunshine, but I have eventually plumped for the sunset over Gruinard Bay, taken from the cottage garden this evening. My extra is of our 'beach du jour' at Mellon Udrigle, with the mountains of Assynt and Coigach beyond Ullapool in the far distance.

We had planned to join a ranger walk today but changed our minds. This was for two reasons. First the ranger, who we rang on Monday to ask about joining the group, did not return our call. Second, we didn't fancy making an hour's journey, much of it by single track road, only to find at the meeting point that the walk was cancelled, or that there was not room for us in the group.

Instead we drove to Mellon Udrigle. We took a short walk along the cliffs and back, with a long stop at the headland for sunbathing, reading, and looking out for wildlife. We ate our picnic lunch in a wee 'private' cove back on the main beach.

When we returned to our cottage this afternoon, we found that the tide was completely out, so we took advantage of our private access to the beach to walk down to the distant shoreline. This brought back many happy memories of family holidays here in the 1970s, including 1976 when the beach looked more like a popular holiday destination in Cornwall at the height of summer than a remote Scottish bay.

Also today I finished reading The dutch house. What a wonderful book! I have now started Educated by Tara Westover. As expected, Mr hazelh and I have played a few more games of Azul and Scrabble.

Exercise today: walking (12,313 steps).