Driving the switchback to the harbour town, to where the Co-op’s shelves are diminished,thank you, hackers, I coast down the brae. The town is buzzing and there is nowhere to park. This island harbour creates a welcoming curve of safety for its people and the fisher boats which, once, filled the pier, canting together, double, and sometimes triple parked (sorry, moored) as they unloaded their catch. I remember, way back in the days of Tapselteerie, driving in to negotiate a box of prawns, crabs, lobsters, to feed my guests. Fresh today. No better selling point. A load of work for me indeed, but I felt engaged with a process. These fishers spent many hours out there, in all conditions, hauling, hoping, moving here, moving there, searching for their income, the cash to feed their families, their sense of self, of success. The winter months are long and lusty, no chance for a slide into a kindly Atlantic, not then, for she is in a frickin tantrum and all the way up to May. Respect.

I was going for a Covid booster. To be honest, I dithered like a fairy in the wings dying for a pee. for days before. I don’t know why, still don’t. I set off anyway, lacking any answer to my swither/dither, meeting the usual. Cows, lumber, chestnut bodies, slow, pink tongues, road block. I actually love that. These cows are beautiful creatures and their calves are just gorgeous, prinking and bouncing and all over the flipping place. The mamas can fill a single track road, sidey-on. And, they don’t budge. Oh, they might slink you a look, as they cud on, but that’s it on acknowledment. You can hoot, as someone did, as my eyes rolled, as I turned off my engine, but hooting is for owls, not for cows. Wrong language. Me no understand…….

In the Booster Lounge, aka, the scout hall, I went for a pee. No paper. Oh, to hec with that! I went on a hunt, pushing open doors, finding a kitchen, checking cupboards, grabbing loo roll, sorting the situation. Well, isn’t that what you do, when you think of the next person who might feel very upset about the no loo paper thing? Into the Booster lounge, a line of awaitees, no speak…..nurses ready, positioned around the hall. These are people, but everyone is awkward inside weirdness. I know this. I sat in a seat. The last time I was in this hall, I said to a complete stranger, was when I delivered my son, who now is the father of two, to Tai Jitsu. She laughed, but asked no questions. I must be scary, I thought, but no, not that. People just don’t ask questions.

When I got back to my Spinny Mini, she was completely stopped by a delivery van. That’s ok, I thought, I know he is on a schedule, wanting to get his deliveries done so he can get home across the sea to his family, his home, his rest. The sun was a beat, the soft warmth of a hug right around the harbour town. Smiles were everywhere, shorts, sunglasses, bare flesh abounded, folk dondering along the single track road, laughing, easy, happy. It is rare here, this longevity of sunshine warmth, but we’ll take it, we will definitely take it.

Homing…..I get behind a driver who slows, brakes, at every passing place. My eyes, not under my kind-gene control, roll. I pull back, but just for now. I won’t do this all the switchback way. Various diversions and limitations abound at this time and I get it. The Road Boys are doing Road Things, and the result, I just know it, will be a marvellous thing. But, I know this single track, every single wheech and slide, the places to peel off, the safe landings when anyone meets a terrified tourist who knows none of the above. We can be kind. I am kind. I have a sporty mini, I adore her. She can wheech like no other car and can park in a bird cage. Just saying.

Almost done, almost home. Sliding around the multiple bends, coming down from the lift of the high lochs, the sun hits my face and the view out to the Isle of Coll sharps me. I can touch it, this Long Island, this familiar, this Far Away. The village comes into shift and then……Cows. There’s no track (road), just cows. Lumber, golden red, beautiful, right across any chance of passing. Mothers holding the space. Youngsters bright, bouncy, all over the place. Camper vans rising from the below. A load of gear changing. A meet. Nothing can be be done. That’s what I’m getting from the nothing that comes from the cars before me and the camper vans aft of the rise. I sit a bit. It’s nice in the sunshine. No idea what’s going on in those cabs. Just as I huff enough to decide me to get out of my sporty mini and go gentle these coos away, one old mama moves, and the rest follow-ish. We squeeze between cows. I like that.