Saturday 25 February 2012

A February Evening on Skye

It was my turn for evening dog-walk-duty today, but this afternoon, I became a bit involved in my work revising our B&B website (more news about that soon) so by the time I set off for Dunvegan Woods with Cupar, daylight was already beginning to fade.

We've had a delightfully calm and fairly mild and dry day here today, with occasional sunshine. Our walk up through the woods was lovely - a few shrubs are actually beginning to show green shoots of spring, though the leaf buds on the trees are still tight shut. Once out of the woods at the top of the hill, our path crosses open moor, with a wonderful view back to MacLeod's Tables - tonight they were mysteriously shrouded in swirls of cloud.

Cupar was having a great time sniffing for rabbits and deer (or whatever other imaginary creatures he sniffs for), but I eventually became aware that it was actually getting rather DARK, and we still had a mile or so to walk back through the woods to the van in the car park. So we came back down the path pretty briskly - it would not be fun to be in the woods in total darkness. There is a path - but there are some significant boggy patches to negotiate!

As we arrived back at the van, a distant insomniac blackbird was still singing, but the owls were beginning to hoot. However, Cupar insisted on having his usual game of 'fetch' with a tennis ball, so we played for a while, until the owl hooting became a chorus, and bats were silently fluttering about above us.

I still have to pinch myself sometimes to remember that the dream we live here is real.

2 comments:

Jill said...

Ooh, bats! ;o

So glad your dream has come true! Thanks for giving us an idea of what it's like there this time of year. :)

Richard Dorrell said...

Bats are lovely!

Yes, we do love living here, though the mostly wet weather we have had this winter has been a bit of a trial. Yesterday was quite a treat!