Breakfast is a power cut on toast, taken in darkness and silence … as it regularly is.
My black pudding doesn’t appear to have won any awards, which is disappointing and leads me to ignore it for the duration of my stay; or at least until it disappears into the bin.
In the dining room at the Lochailort Inn, there is a square window behind me, and through it is both the weather forecast and a slightly obscured mountain view.
Everything grey and barely there.
Up the coast and around the bay, a huge black cross has been placed on the hillside directly above the yellow library van, just as the khaki convoy of army trucks roll into town. It’s a weird scene.
The dogs on the beach aren’t remotely bothered, although I guess that’s because they’re free and happy.
I can’t help but watch them for several minutes, mesmerised by the playful darting in and around the water, with intermittent barks and yelps which carry on the breeze like lucid canine prose.
By the time I glance back to the hillside and the coastal road, the queue of army trucks has disappeared and the yellow library van has sunk without trace.
I arrive in Mallaig at roughly the same time as a steam train full of Harry Potter fans.
I would curse my luck, if I had any.
Thankfully, none of them seem to know that the Bakehouse at the Old Quay is where someone left it, in the 1800s.
It’s right here that they feasted on chunky sausage rolls and custard brioche back in the day … it was all very civilised.
All of which brings in a better breed of bird as well, who wait patiently for scraps – unlike the enormous gulls who relentlessly pester and divebomb the tourists outside the chip shop, mugging some of them, too.
As Colonel Sanders drummed into me last night, it’s lawless around here; yet what he didn’t mention was … it’s the damn birds running the show.
Where is the avian gaol?
Up on the far hillside, no doubt, along with an unbeatable view of Skye that no-one off the Hogwarts Express knows about.
All except for the solitary cider-drinking woodland-dwelling graffiti-scribbling muggle … who has made it further north than I expected.
But you can’t camp at the beach, with or without magic!
At the harbour is the ferry terminal. The staff are busy attempting to pacify an irate Kiwi in a vintage trannie campervan.
Proper lawless, this place … Crimewatch with a wink and a wee dram.
The bearded man pointing out to sea is anchored, and whitewashed … striking a bird-shit pose. I take this as a warning of sudden airstrikes, and swiftly pull up my hood.
In reality, what this warns of is the strength of the water and the power of nature, and I mildly chastise myself for silently making light of it.
We queue for the ferry in our rented SUVs and brand-new lease cars, busy posting updates and look-where-I-am selfies on social media in a bid to persuade people of how adventurous we are.
The ferry smells of home-cooking, which briefly knocks me sideways with the unexpectedness of it.
A young couple are so wrapped up in each other that the scenery for them becomes wallpaper.
I stare over towards the Knoydart peninsula, and wonder – why would you live there?
And then I immediately interrogate this line of thinking, by wondering – why wouldn’t you live there?
Inverurie CBD is a fantastically picturesque row of houses with a post office and a cafe. And mainland Britain’s remotest pub, apparently … even though it’s only a 15 minute boat ride from Mallaig, which up here seems to be the centre of the universe.
The ship stops at a ferry terminal on Skye, which I’m glad about … I didn’t fancy swimming ashore and have my blue car sent on for me.
On cue, we all bunny-hop off the boat, in a weird kind of automotive highland fling.
Everyone seems to have forgotten how to drive in the space of half an hour, yet the cheery ferry stewards still wave us off and wish us safe onward travels.
I spend the next half hour following Rabbie about in his van – he wants me to be a part of it, and I increasingly think I am becoming a part of it (whatever it is), as the driver won’t let me pass.
On the stormy beach at Tokavaig, a man in a camper is taking photographs, before abandoning the random person who he may or may not know. I’ll never know. The random human he might be leaving behind seems not to care.
Up at the beach at Ord is a Frenchman who is busy talking to himself. He’s also abandoned his companion, which in this case appears to be his wife of many years.
Lots of casual abandonment going on over on the west coast of Sleat today, that’s for sure.
I might abandon my feelings here, in among the shifting moods of the stunning scenery.
Behind me, some other human beings are sitting nonchalantly on the balcony of a holiday home over there, wondering how they got into this situation.
Perhaps their bottle of wine will help them to find the answers; however what they don’t know is that they’re already slowly becoming a part of the drink in front of them … as we all will be in time.
It’s a right old predicament, and I leave as quickly as I arrived – which is to say fairly slowly.
At Broadford, folk like to stand still for long periods of time, primarily in supermarket queues.
Ten dead minutes. And we wonder where our lives go.
Now, all of a sudden, I’m unsure of where I’m going, and who I am. This often happens at this time on an afternoon. As well, I need a wee.
And I absent-mindedly speed past the Sconser ferry terminal, which quite obviously has top-grade toilet facilities.
At Creag an Loch, my semi-isolated retreat, I awaken.
The key is in the hedgehog, as I always said it was.
Inexplicably, and in a bizarre twist of fate, I become a Man of Arran, gulping down a good few bottles of ale while taking in the amazing loch-side view in front of me.
After which, I feel a compulsion to eat beef, and I do.
Although only once me and the unnecessarily futuristic oven have spent half an hour dancing around each other, trying to figure each other out.
Tension spreads, darkness descends.
I should be used to this by now.
An Outside World 