I woke at 4:30a in the Ullapool youth hostel, after a dream filled sleep in the staff quarters. There'd been a mix up in my booking, which had included a request to reserve a lower bunk in the 6 women dorm. Either the reservation card hadn't been placed on a bed or perhaps someone in the dorm decided to ignore it. Well, it was resolved in the best way possible: a private room vs. sharing with other resentful occupants. I've stayed in enough hostels to know how it goes. So, I woke with a start 2 hours pre-alarm, took down the towel I'd used as a curtain and saw the silent misty moodiness of the sea loch. The trip's now gently receding into the dreamlike place of memory, where the discomforts, anxieties and ambivalences disappear and you only remember it was often sunny, the people's you met along the way were hospitable, and the miles and miles of open one lane road, with passing places, unfolded a stark, beautiful landscape dotted with ewes and spring lambs, tiny villages and many roofless black houses and shepherds' huts. Everything is green, gray and brown. The tiny flowers in the machair are fairy bowers, and the gulls, oyster catchers, robins, blackbirds, and doves play second place to the sound of the cuckoos ringing from hedgerow and peat valleys. It's good to have a break from the enormous Scottish cooked breakfast, an a break from living out of a waterproof bag and front satchel. Time to get on the bus to Inverness and turn home.
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