After the storm has passed, many missed phone calls and text messages – I am popular!
My anonymous faraway host is checking to see if the Airship took off during the night, amid the gale-force gusts, and am I alright?
I reply back to say that I’m fine and thank my host for keeping everything weighed down … and more importantly for the complimentary bottle of wine.
With eyes open, I can see the view has now arrived, and through it is a glimpse of civilisation on the other side of the water – Tobermory.
This should be presented in bright vibrant colours, yet the reality today is varying shades of grey.
Out on the sound, a Calmac ferry is going the wrong way, I swear. Slurping my tea, I wonder if someone has taken it for a joyride.
And that shelf of sky is about to collapse into the landscape again. Maybe it’s not over yet …
Drama through the round window.
Shortly afterwards, Mull sinks completely into the mist, disappearing again for a few hours.
Over here in the mainland Morvern wilderness, now it’s just me and the trees for company. They don’t say much, unlike the rain, which tends to shout the odds – drowning the submissive scenery as it does so in a blanket of murk and mystery.
Difficult to imagine, but a different Mull emerges from the soup – this one greyer than the last.
The island sure does not want to be seen today – but then it was one hell of a night.
Impeccable timing is laid on for my woodland walk into Drimnin CBD, with the incessant rain now starting to finally fizzle out … headed south to bother some other remote parts.
Along the boggy path, I encounter four startled deer, three chirping birds, two human beings (I get so close to one of them that I feel compelled to nod in their general direction), and one furry otter.
At least I think it was an otter. It could literally have been anything, for all I know.
Back at the Airship, everything suddenly seems clearer and calmer than it was before.
In celebration / relief, I take my early-evening beer on the balcony.
This is right now the very best free house on the British Isles, and I absorb the silence and hushed beauty in front of me with both my eyes and the camera on my smartphone.
As the charcoal clouds play havoc with the sunset and rough it up, Tobermory turns itself on, and electric lights flicker in amongst the strengthening colours – life is returning.
The world’s slowest boat enters stage left, and takes a dog’s age to exit stage right.
I think of the deer, who are going to get wet tonight (again). They will follow my misplaced footsteps through the woodland bogs.
It’s too easy to curl up in the warmth with a can of beer in the captain’s chair, fixing my gaze on the semi-sparkling lights of Balamory; and all the while, I’m willing the sky to not darken tonight.
Inevitably, darkness descends.
Above me, the cloud nothings, the blurry stars; a half-moon, haunted.
Nothing’s real.
An Outside World 