In the sky is a bright disc of light which illuminates the landscape sometimes … something I’d very nearly forgotten about, after all the dark and gloomy and opaque scenes I’ve been passing through.
My full Scottish breakfast is taken by the Hebridean water, with the professional photographer and their partner at the next table.
Thankfully no serious camera equipment is present. Although at various points, I strike a long-distance pose over the Atlantic waters, in order to appear thoughtful.
We talk the same talk, because we’re driving our cars to the same places.
And all the while we try to persuade ourselves that we’re adventurous.
(I am not adventurous)
It’s an enjoyably relaxing start to the day, this slow divide over plates of bacon and black pudding and fried eggs on one side, and fresh smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on the other, all served up to me and my breakfast companions by the innkeeper who insists on calling me ‘pet’ … which I briefly flinch at every time, yet in reality I secretly love.
All of my doubts send me back to the beach at Howmore / Tobha Mor, where thick cloud has descended again, yet the birds still manage to put on a spectacular performance.
I park up by the churches – all six of them.
Folk have got to worship nothing somewhere, I figure.
Although they realised in time that six sanctuaries in one field was possibly a few too many – and the first to go was no doubt the one that could only fit three humans, two sheep, and one cow.
I drive on over the Uist waters to the Trinity Temple, a bedrock of ancient philosophical learning, while also kow-towing to the religious peculiarities of any given invaders.
To get there is to follow the shit-strewn path, past the empty church that’s being sold and marketed by two dodgy sheep, who share the one stolen mobile phone between them and stare at me ceaselessly.
Island mafia, full control.
Beyond the church boundary is the field of blood on the other side of the wall and I feel uneasy as these two sheep follow me around, silently shadowing my every move.
Needless to say, I carry their crap into the footwell of my car, and take it to the end of the road sculpture – a singing bench by the water, a place of rest and contemplation for weary travellers and doubting pilgrims.
With no-one around, I break out into song, into an invented sea shanty of jumbled words.
Mercifully, no-one hears me. Not even the random fisherman semi-submerged on the far side of the water. Although he might not be real, I can’t be sure.
When the clouds briefly part to throw some shapes, I suddenly feel at one with the surrounding nature … me and the scenery sculpting the sky.
I linger here for far too long, content in some kind of nothingness and enjoying my nonsensical made-up songs.
The flipside being … this forces an increasingly frantic dash to the ferry, although I’m amazed to arrive at the pier with a good half-hour in hand … allowing me plenty of time to snaffle a fully-loaded sandwich from the cafe (and a slab of homemade cake, obviously), while checking out the weather forecast nailed to the fence outside.
The stone is wet, the stag trotted along, the boat sailed.
The skipper up there on the bridge is busy engaged in a rock avoidance scheme, executing handbrake turns and a bit of casual drifting … the works.
Talk about showboating!
I read words that have been written down for me in a book that I paid for, on the upper deck, in relative peace – albeit frequently considering how it is that we’ve not yet run aground, as I glance up every now and again to see jutting pieces of land bobbing up and down on either side of the ship.
Instead, the boat runs into a pier, which is next to a road which leads up a hill and then down a hill to Rodel, where I find a long-distance lorry and a one-way system.
And St Clements Church, which is a fantastically well-preserved building, complete with walls, a roof, intricately-carved stone and a few centuries-old tombs.
Outside, high up above an entrance, a sheela-na-gig.
(uh huh her)
It’s a peaceful place, yet brimming with a slightly intense atmosphere I can’t quite put my figure on.
Although I’m grateful that when they built it, someone had the foresight to put public loos outside, complete with supermarket soap dispensers.
Back on the high road, a digger is digging for victory.
I wait patiently until instructed to pass, which I do with a smile and a wave, which surprisingly is not returned.
I go around some spectacular mountains and across stretches of water and through Tarbert and up north to Stornoway, where it appears everyone has congregated.
I live past the airport, up the hill, with a view of the town below.
Sitting outside on a deckchair in the late afternoon / early evening, eating pasta and drinking beer, expectantly waiting for a colourful dusk display in the sky overhead.
Yet inevitably sunset is a non-starter: angry clouds slowly gather and shortly afterwards heavy rains fall again, bleaching the landscape and immediate atmosphere in varying shades of grey.
I huddle inside the porch of my glamping pod, wrapped in a thick woollen blanket, downing a stout.
An Outside World 