I’ve been thinking of moving to the Highlands, buying a small cottage by a loch and swim every morning.

There’s a river too, that haunts the glen, between my cottage and the mountains. I feel it, breathing within the shadow of mountains.

I know this is not just a pipe dream. I know someone who’s done it, made the move across the border, living a blessed life.

I’ve been thinking of an open fire where I’d bake bread with the sun rise and when ready sit sit out on the porch with thick slices, warm and buttered. Dripping butter and the air smelling like home.

My home.

I’m thinking there’s one village store miles away. I walk every other day for exercise. On the way, I bird spot. Blackbird, moorhen, blue tit, eagle.

Small talk with the store owner might be difficult after long moments of silence in my cottage by the loch. In the silence I can hear myself better.

Being a water woman and a mountain woman, I will welcome the solitude and the haunting rolling out before me as nothing would hold me back.