Views

One of the reasons we lasted such a short time living in Suffolk was that I missed the spectacular views of the Highlands and, while Golspie does not match the views we had from our homes in Kilchoan, it was still has better than anything we found 'down south'.

It takes but twenty minutes to walk from our house to the point where I have this view, with Loch Fleet in the middle distance, and...,

....a few minutes further to be able to enjoy this. Both, however, are blemished, the upper picture by the power lines which, if you look carefully, run from right to left across the loch, the lower by two large pylons.

The impingement of pylons marching across our landscape isn't the only blemish on our views. To me, a view includes what might be called the 'aural' view, for the silence of the Highlands local to Golspie is spoiled by the sound of traffic on the A9 and the 'blah! blah! blah!' of heavy plant backing on the building sites.

So I walked up to my blemished view this morning and sat on a rock determined to enjoy it. In our Kilchoan days, when we were much younger and fitter, we could walk to numerous points on the peninsula where, other than the sounds of Nature, there was that precious commodity, utter silence.

No doubt, even if we had stayed in Kilchoan, we wouldn't have been fit enough to walk to some of the remote silent spots. Age gets us, age limits us, however hard we try to run away from it.