Contrasts

With thanks to Mr A for putting the two photographs together.

We are very happy with our decision to take advantage of relatively clement weather to shoot up to the Highlands yesterday. Today has been worse in terms of the impact on Perthshire, with the A9 blocked for a long time at Dunkeld, and tomorrow will continue to be bad in terms of rain even if the wind starts easing at a certain point.

It hasn't been too bad here today. There have been squalls of rain, and I got caught in one heading back from the supermarket with some Friday wine (not that we are actually drinking it...we're in fact drinking some beer). There were hailstones. Most unpleasant.

Earlier on, we popped across the Easter Ross peninsula to see what the waves were looking like at Balintore Harbour. Very big, as can be seen both here and in Mr A's blip. The tide is incredibly high, with a storm surge, and there is a high risk of damage to the beach car park and the beach itself. Heaven knows what it will look like after this.

We then headed back across the peninsula to Inver for a high tide swim in relative calm, although of course there was a brisk wind. But no real waves from the easterly gale. Three other people were swimming there in our group.

The more bonkers members of the swimming group, including the one who is doing a "365" so *has* to "dip", had gone in the water yesterday morning for a rapid dip and a bit of wave jumping before the worst of the storm arrived and then this afternoon went to The Port for another session of wave jumping, so that the streak was maintained. Although The Port is westerly facing, and thus getting nothing like the waves that Shandwick and Balintore are getting, it was none the less quite lively from the pictures and videos I saw. We could see that from the road as we drove down to Inver.

As ever when up here, work went well in the sense that I found it really easy to concentrate hard and to focus on tasks.