Winter Chill

We're enjoying what may seem the worst sort of winter weather today, a chill southeasterly wind bringing in sleety showers at ground level and snow on the hilltops.  Mostly the sky is grey.  The atmosphere is damp and dreary.

But walk out into the outdoors and everything seems to change.  It's not too cold, and the sun really is doing his best to break through the cloud cover.  When the showers come they're heavy for a few minutes, but then they clear quickly and the colours flow back into the land.  This picture shows Braehouse Cottage, available to rent from the Ardnamurchan Estate, looking up the hill towards the main road - the single-track B8007 - with Ben Hiant in the distance.

From the hill above Kilmory one can watch the weather, the dark clouds rolling away from us towards Eigg and the occasional spotlights of watery sun touching the island.  One little ray has picked out a lone croft house at the western end of the island.  Lost in the murk behind is the island of Rum.

It's very quiet around the place.  On the drive from Kilchoan to Kilmory this afternoon there wasn't another car on the road.  There are still one or two visitors around, but the shop is very quiet.

At home there was one event that really brightened our day: the siskins are back.  Last year we had at least two pairs coming to the feeders for most of the winter, but this winter we haven't seen them.  We wondered whether the sudden proliferation of very busy coal tits had chased them away, but the coal tits seemed to ignore them when they turned up around lunch time.  We hope they stay.