Lock-down On Skye

As none of us are permitted to go anywhere at the moment, I can only think of a few topics I can write about today.

I could regale you with my own thoughts, hopes and imaginations as to what the human race might possibly learn from our current desperate situation..

...or I could moan about issues that the over-sensationalist media choose to try to anger us with..

...or I could simply tell you what it is like to be living in Roskhill right now.

Maybe I will return to the first option in a future post, but for today, I am simply going to write about living here in lock-down.

The whole UK population (as well as much of the rest of the world) are 'in the same boat' at the moment, as the scientists and politicians try to find ways to bring our planet and its people back to what we term as 'normal'. Life here just now is undoubtedly very different to the living conditions that the vast majority of the populous are currently having to cope with. Now - we have always maintained that Skye is a pretty wonderful place to live, and I am quite sure that there can be few better places to be at a time like the present.

Today, the day dawned calm, with a thick white frost on the grass and patches of thin cloud in a pale blue sky. Sue went off to carry-out her home-care routine at 6.30 as normal, and I pottered up the main road, half a mile or so each way, to give Cupar his morning stretch. Just one car passed us today. There were none at all yesterday. It was very quiet. The nearest coast is about half a mile away, but the distant splosh of small waves breaking onto the rocks provided a background sound to the enthusiastic noisy twittering of chaffinches in the roadside willow and a peep-peeping snipe on the moor. It is a stunning morning.

I haven't ventured far from the Barn in the last few days. The weather has only just calmed - we had a bitterly cold wind for a while, and a blanket of drizzle yesterday. The last time I drove the 3 miles into Dunvegan Village was last Monday. There were one or two people on foot, but I didn't see more than a couple of vehicles moving. The car park at the medical centre was about half-full. Every hotel and B&B is closed of course, but the garage is open, as is the sole and small village shop. A notice at the shop door asks people to wait outside if the shop is busy - but I was the only shopper on this occasion. The shop assistant wears a mask.

Inside at home, everything is normal. The radio plays BBC Radio 2 much of the day. The computer takes my attention for an hour or so of glancing through Facebook and reading any new email - just one holiday cottage cancellation today. A few domestic chores keep me occupied for a while. Soon, I will pop Cupar into the back of my car, where he can sleep undisturbed while I turn-over the soil on one of my allotment beds - it will be planting-time very soon now.

I will leave you for now with a photograph taken from my study window a little earlier this morning. I know I've posted the view many times before - but it is not a view I will ever tire of.