Find the Good – Day 18

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.

Leaving the Loch

I’ve taken quite a shine to Loch Morlich. It’s a place that keeps on giving. And a place I long to return. I leave it with a renewed commitment to my self-love journey. To devoting more time, care and attention to myself. Diverting the attentions I might have been giving out willy-nilly to other people, thoughtlessly, I redirect back to the source. Me.

7am, Loch Morlich

I entered the loch today as the sun was rising. I broke the surface of the loch, with its shards of ice and glided out. Slow expansive circles ripped upon the lochs surface as I took slow, cold strokes. It was freezing and it was painful, but I didn’t want to stop, to get out and leave the loch. But I did.

My finger tips were white for a long time after my swim. I used hot water to bring back some feeling into them. They were so painful. But this pain, along with my body submerged without the frozen loch, are all a reminder to feel again, to live my life to the fullest and give thanks in the process.

7am, Loch Morlich

One Day, Four Walks

8am, Loch Morlich

Yesterday, I clocked up 17 miles on my walk into Aviemore and back. So today was a talking it easy kind of day. But I still needed to move my body. To explore the camp site and be with the loch. So a morning walk it was.

Sun just up. Loch serene.

10am, River into Loch

Some days, to keep the creative juices flowing and the blood pumping, I take a walk out. Stretch the legs and clear the head. All those great thinkers from time have sworn by taking a walk and a problem is solved.

Sun up. River flowing.

2pm, Loch Morlich

As the afternoon wears on, I usually get a slump in energy levels. If I was home, I’d crawl under a blanket and ride out the low energy. Picking on myself for being so lazy and not doing something to shift my energy. Today I got back out to the loch and noticed a nip in the air. A rise in the wind speed and a reluctance to get into the water.

Sun descending. Loch rippled.

5.30pm, Loch Morlich

The aim was to enter the loch with the sun going down. But I couldn’t be arsed. There were too many people round. I was the only Black body around for miles as well as the only body I’d seen for my stay entering the loch. I was too tired to be singled out any further. So I walked the loch. Around to the point of the sun going down and the loch taking on the colours of dusk. I was glad I walked out again.

Sun down. Loch iridescent.

Loch Lomond

The calming waters of Loch Lomond graced us as we walked yesterday. After heavy rainfall over the weekend, the Loch was swollen and flooded the West Highland Way in parts.

It’s funny how that can be a cause for concern in terms of getting wet but then not thinking twice about stripping off and getting the whole body wet for a dip!

It was so worth it though.

Is it a Selkie?