JOURNAL
| Window into Scotland
Notes from the Isles
Why does anyone ever want to go abroad when they live in the magical Highlands? Words by KATE FRANCIS
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his morning, as I watched an oyster catcher strutting along the beach and a heron eyeing the water for fish, a fellow dog-walker approached. His summer had been ruined, he moaned: Covid restrictions meant he’d had to cancel a Mediterranean holiday. I commiserated, refraining from comment. Cronie and I then climbed the hill from the shore, up across a meadow carpeted with foxgloves, speedwell, buttercups, daisies, violets and vetch, into woods vibrant with birdsong. We didn’t see the osprey today, but red kites hovered above the trees and a chevron of honking geese flew overhead. I managed to grab Cronie before she spotted the family of roe deer cantering through the trees, and again when a red squirrel ran across the path. At the top of the hill, I stood among the jumble of rocks, which are all that remain of a Pictish fort – one of many relics in the area of those ‘Painted People’ who caused the Romans to build Hadrian’s Wall to keep them at bay. Although it was inhabited by Picts, the fort dates back to the Iron Age. History lay all round me. To
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the south, Loch Ness with its famous inhabitant, who was seen off by St Columba in the 6th century after attacking one of his companions – an act so impressive, it is said, that the Picts converted to Christianity. The battlefield at Culloden Moor to the east, where Bonnie Prince Charlie met his fate, is still preserved, with an excellent visitor centre that offers a
