Haar

We've spent today bathing in Kilchoan sunshine hurried along this morning by a force 6 wind from the southwest; one of those days when the haar never lifts long enough for us to see the passing ships or the coast of Mull four kilometres away.  So, by way of exercise, we zipped ourselves into waterproof clothing so only our eyes were showing and took a walk along the seaweed-slippery pebble beaches of the Ormsaigbeg shore....

....seeing nothing in the way of wildlife except some bored gulls, a curlew, and a couple of oystercatchers....

....though a passing otter had left a reminder of his presence, his spraint including the crushed carapaces and legs of the crabs he'd recently eaten.

Our only other company was a camper on Trevor Potts' Ardnamurchan Campsite, who'd pitched his tent right by the shore and was sitting in it, looking disconsolately out into the mist.

The warm summer of 2012 already seems an age ago, a time when children crowded the foreshore and even a one-eyed pair of sunglasses might have been of some use.  The children are back at school, the crofters are busy getting their lambs to market and buying in the beet pellets that will keep their flocks healthy through the winter, and we have the annual bikers' festival in the Community Centre at the weekend.

Today may have been gloomy, but for many of us we're moving into what is the best time of year, when the bracken and heather glows across the hillsides, the sky burns with rainbows, skeins of geese fill the sky, and we often get some of the year's most dramatic weather.  After all, this was the view looking back along Ormsaigbeg only two days ago.