Visitors from the Softy South!

It's a loooong way from the softy south to Skye, so we really don't expect many of our smog-smothered friends to take a break from their stressed-out lives to fight their way through the traffic jams and head north to visit us.

Mostly, Sue and I are content to keep up with our southern friends by travelling ourselves to visit them. We are OK doing this, as we are comfortable in the knowledge that we will soon be escaping from the southern heat, pollution and crowds and coming back home to our peaceful little patch of heaven on earth.

But last week it was a HUGE delight to welcome to Scotland my long-time friends Sara and Rod (plus pooch, Lucy). They stayed at the Old Bakery in Strathpeffer for most of their visit - because our cottages here were already booked before S&R planned their visit. But we were able to put them up at Summer Cott for just one night during their stay, so they had an all-too-brief 24 hours or so on Skye.

As it happened, their visit happened to coincide with one of the warmest days we have had up here for years, so they now wonder why we spend so much time talking about the cold, wind and drizzle.

I do hope their short visit will have spurred them on to consider coming again in the not too distant future. We might be even able to lay-on more typical weather next time!

With Sara, Rod and Lucy on the Roskhill allotment
Note the sleeveless shirts and cloudless sky....

In search of a cool walk, we headed into Dunvegan woods

Cupar expresses his disdain of Lucy