This morning the fog was thick, no sign of life over the sea wall, but I could hear the hoot of the Royal Scotsman crossing the bridge on its way north.

Not for us the luxury of sitting back and enjoying the scenery as it unfolded… our trip was more hands on, walking through bracken and wet fields at dawn with glowering mountains as our backdrop, for we have just come back from our own Highland Odyssey.  In some parts I felt we were emulating the steps of the great Dr Johnson and his companion Boswell as they headed to Skye and beyond.

I do love the feeling of entering the corridor of majestic mountains that make up Glencoe, and it felt like meeting old friends as we drove past the Buachaille Etive Mor and saw again the Devil’s Staircase.

Our destination was Skye, and the campsite at Edinbane, not so far from Portree. The sun shone, and we feasted like kings on steak and vedg cooked on our little barbecue, relishing the quiet and the dark loch in front of us.

The next day we decided to re-explore the sights of the north of Skye, and came upon Flora MacDonald’s grave in Kilmuir. 3000 people attended her funeral, and she lies with some fine company. One fellow dragged up a King’s headstone he found on the beach and ordered it to be his stone for when the time came. Another had a stone that had killed him on the mountain. Here lies… killed by a falling boulder. And there it was. The air was so clean, so pure, the lichen just grew like a fairy coat on the gravestones.

The  Quiraing, the Old man of Storr were lost in mists, but tourists were parked nose to tail, looking at where they might have loomed. We headed for Portree and a cup of tea. We may have missed the sights of the Black Cuillin range that day, but Runrig’s singer Donnie Monro had painted  a fantastic mural on a wall in the town, so we enjoyed the view at close range.

Sorley Mclean, the Gaelic poet wrote the beautiful poem Hallaig on his home island of Raasay. I felt after all these years it was time to see the woods that had inspired his haunting words. John and I drove to the ferry at Sconser only to see it leave. ‘Oh well, that’s that,’ we thought. But no! The ferry turned back especially for us, the side dropped down and we were ushered on. “You don’t get this kind of service with busses and trains!” our attendant shouted. And they didn’t charge us!

It was early afternoon. The MacLeod’s table stood proudly awaiting us to climb. We thought of the stalwart Londoners, Boswell and Dr Johnson, so we decided to climb up this table top landmark.

Taking water and waterproofs we set off up through steep woodland, and for seven miles we ascended 682m. Often the approach was through rough moorland and the day was hot and the bog myrtle was alive with black butterflies. John searched the skies for golden eagles, but to no avail. Approaching the summit, imagine our horror as the sky changed and a heavy mist swathed us, and we lost our vision. We posed on a rock, took a snap and decided to call it a day before we retreated safely away from the dangerous white-out. No fabulous views of the Cuillin or distant Dunvegan. Not this time. Instead we ploughed through bracken and John was rewarded later with four nasty little ticks on his lower shins. They obviously hated my body lotion.

Our treat that night was to stay in the baronial Raasay House Hotel, once a great stronghold of the Jacobite cause, and later razed to the ground after Culloden (1745). It was rebuilt, and over time modernised and refurbished.

The setting was glorious, and I dressed for dinner. What a difference from the campsite, chopping vegetables and marching over to the common facilities for water etc. We entered the dining room. No white linen, no napkins, only cheap cutlery that might bend if you pushed, and the menu no better than a roadside coffee shop. What a disappointment. The staff seemed under-trained and saw the job as a good summer holiday.

Later we walked in the grounds, and I gingerly touched the standing stone -an ‘Outlander’ moment. Where would I end up, in the mists of times gone by?

We took the ferry from Uig over to Lochmaddy in North Uist. We were back in the Outer Hebrides. It was such a good feeling, almost like coming home. It was evening, the gloaming time of day as the ferry berthed and we settled in to the same hotel that we stayed in two years ago. We were ready to go searching for beaches and lapwings and skylarks. I was also on a mission to find the resting place of Margaret Fay Shaw Campbell. We drank brandy and whisky in our room and looked out to the sea and the black shape of a cormorant.

We did find a coffee the next morning, not in the Dark Island Hotel (sorry we are closed to casual visitors … have you booked?) but from following the advice ofthe lady in the Co-op. ‘Well, you turn off when you see the sign for the Jewellery shop, drive up that road till you hit a wall, well I don’t mean that, you understand. But the wall is where they are building a horrible house, I don’t care for it at all, well keep going and it’s behind that. You can’t miss it.’

And that’s what we did. The ladies gave us coffee, but to take out: ‘We are rushed off our feet, all the tables are full.’ (There were three). Then they chatted about cooking fish for their tea.

Two years ago we stayed in a hostel in South Uist, quaint and welcoming, so we decided to revisit it. It was closed and locked, unsafe in these Covid times. The man in the jewellery shop told me that if I was going down that way, to be sure to look over the brown bridge that spans the river leading into the sea.

‘The salmon are just queuing to get up, rows and rows of them, you can’t miss it.’

We walked along the sands, and did indeed look over the bridge. Alas, it must have been the wrong tide or something!

South of Loch Boisdale in North Glendale, where Margaret Fay Shaw came to live, and where we drove around looking for any signs of the old croft house where she lived with the MacRae sisters, Peggy and Mairi Andra. She wrote that she lived on porridge and potatoes and fish. The only Vitamin C she got was  from marmalade! We did find her grave. She was not buried with her husband John Campbell but chose to lie beside those sisters in the graveyard near St Peters Church in Daliburgh. John and I found it, with the help of two grave diggers. The earth was mainly sand and easy digging, and we watched them prepare a grave. Rabbits had burrowed many of the surrounding graves. The land is reclaimed from the natural machair, mostly sand, and dotted with buttercups and wild daisies. Finally we found her. 1903-2004. 101, not bad for whisky, fags, no vedg and a lifetime of music!

We stayed that night in the Polechar Hotel, sitting out on the edge of the world and flanked by pure white beaches. We were served scallops and lobster in the most exquisite sauces. I think I died and went to heaven. Oh my! It was so good.

And then it was away to the ferry again and over the sea to the Isle of Harris and a new campsite sitting on yellow sands with a dramatic brooding backdrop.

It was there we met up with Natasha, Leo and Bonnie and Hazel. They had just arrived from Eriskay, so we joined forces and John and I took the little girls down to the beach where we re-enacted The Olympics, which were very topical at the time. Bonnie tended to win Gold all the time, Hazel – Silver, John – Bronze, and Granny – a lump of coal. I am not as good at star jumps as I once was, or handstands or running VERY fast.

We explored the island and went for a long walk to the lighthouse at Scalpay.

Over the moor lands we tramped, the going was heathery and scratchy. Bonnie miles ahead with John, ‘ I hate having to wait, whoever has Hazel has to go really slow, I like it when we get walking again.’

We got tea at the lighthouse, which was very welcome and learnt about Alexander Reid. My, what a man. What a hermit with dedication. 35 years he tended his wick, his garden and his lazy beds… wanting for nothing, no greed for gold, nor burning ambition.

The day was ending and we had the long drive up to Lewis, and over to Mangersta on the West Coast. The road from Stornoway to Uig is like a runway, it was tempting to ‘hit the ton’ as they say in motor shows. Didn’t fancy being caught by Stornoway’s PC Plod though.

Mangersta is like Shangri La, you come over the hill and there it is, soft croftland, magnificent beaches, and a meandering road that takes you round. That night we heard the wind, and that was all.

We explored the rocks where the bothy of stone is built into the sea wall. It is built exactly like a Mongolian yurt, and inside it is snug and warm with an open fireplace. We wandered around and finally got back to our pods. Natasha spirited up curries from her magic ingredients. A little of this, a little of that. No packets or bottles in sight, all ground and mixed and stirred. Delicious.

Beaches and Lewis Chessmen, and sand dunes and threatening dark clouds. Amazingly we had no rain, so we walked and talked and Tasha and Leo fell in love with the crofting life.

I taught Bonnie and Hazel to sew. It was quite special. They did lots of stitching and eventually finished their mats at Badrallach campsite beside Little Loch Broom where we could see An Teallach in the distance.

We barbecued fresh mackerel and played games. The weather held and Bonnie, Hazel and I collected wild flowers from a meadow that potentially held adders!

We parted and they went south and John and I made our way to Applecross, over the pass of the cows. Terrifying, especially as one car had gone over the inside verge and the rest of us had to manoeuvre our way round him, trying not to look down the steep drop.

Applecross is magical, with a beautiful walled garden, and the lovely pod we stayed in, and lichen draped trees.

And finally we called into Glenelg and met up with Catriona and Mary and Bo. John wisely excused himself as the chatter went on and on till the early hours.

I met Mary in the morning and she gave me an orchid that her husband Iain had found on the Galtair hill years and years ago. Somehow it had seeded itself, so she dug up a prime plant and now I have a bit of her garden safely in mine. Long may it flower!

So, we got out of our Covid cage and tested appropriately and all was well. It felt good to see people again and hear their stories, and share for just a while their lives. Good to intertwine, go home and reflect.

By the way it is finished!