Coigach, NW Highlands.
There isn’t much light left in the day, now that the rain has finally abated. But the forecast has proved correct, predicting that this weather trough would pass through by evening. I’ve been indoors for two days now with incessant rain hammering at the windows and barely any visibility beyond the garden wall. I feel the need to breathe fresh air, get my body moving and see what it’s like out there, even if only to catch the final light of the day, despite the narrow margins of these wintery days.
Stepping outside, I can see light is already fading, and colour is draining further from an already subdued palette of winter vegetation. Or perhaps the light levels haven’t lifted much today, with such a heavy cloud layer. The days seem to fold so rapidly in on themselves at this time of year. As I head down to the shore, a faint gleam of orange has penetrated the cloud over the islands, hinting at the presence of the setting sun and the possibility of weather clearing behind.
The way downhill is completely saturated, more a stream than a path. I’m following the flow, wading through pools and running water, concentrating on where to place my feet in the sodden peat. There is so much surface water, there is nowhere else for it to go but downhill. In the distance I can hear the roar of the burn carrying its heavy waters to the sea. Across the loch, the dim shapes of the mountains are streaked with white ribbons of spate. An Teallach is buried in cloud, apart from its whaleback spine, etched in snow.
It’s a relief to reach the firm cobbles of the shore and take things in after so much looking down at the ground. A strong north westerly is blowing hard, and low light is casting black shadows on the waves. The brightest thing is the phosphorescence of waves breaking in a dazzling white line across the high tideline. Bright, ice-white. Brighter even than the blossoms of white lichen on sandstone, and fizzing in over the dark crevices of the shore with its bubbling, luminous spume, all spray and rush and dazzle. I soak it up, as if it were sunshine.
I’m starting to wake up down here. How could I not feel enlivened by so much churned up sea and cold air? My eyes follow the dance of three herring gulls, changing places in a triangle as they loop over the waves, and lift suddenly, jerking the triad, as if connected by strings. Over the islands to the west, a small eye of light has opened up in the cloud like burning paper, its edges rimmed with a fierce glow. The promise of change.
As much as I’d like to stay down here, I know I need to keep moving and get back while there is enough visibility, and there’s not much time to hang around. With light falling fast, I decide to follow the line of the burn for a more defined path uphill. Everywhere I can hear the sound of waterfalls thundering down into their pools of dark nothing. I can just pick out an occasional froth through the trees. But the sky on the horizon is peeling open to a clear band of light beyond the cloud. It suddenly colours everything with a hint of warmth, bronzing the faded heather, grasses and bracken. The tips of silver birch lining the burn are now a tangle of purple wires against a gleam of lemon sky.
The burst of final light, however subtle and brief, is a welcome gift after the dank of the past few days, and the path a little more distinct because of it. My pace quickens. I’m revelling in the strangely glowing amber tones that are coming forward from the darkness of the hill. As I leave the fading basin of the loch behind, I am thinking how it would be even darker than this, without the sea holding the last grey of the sky. On brighter days, I have sometimes walked back after dark with light so brightly reflected from the silver mirror of the sea, that the whole mountainside has been illuminated, as if by a shining torch, and as strong as moonlight.
Sometimes it’s not about how little can be seen, but what it is actually possible to see. I love walking at this liminal time of day, before the cusp of nightfall – the way it shakes up perception and changes what can be sensed in the semi-dark, revealed from the shadows. The acuteness of focus, locating oneself in obscurity. I know the way back, and my eyes adjust to find familiar landmarks, trusting the path. Sometimes we don’t need to see the full picture. It’s enough to be with just the next step of solid ground. And be guided forward, located by what is known in the moment. Everything I need is here.
I have almost forgotten the sound of rain drumming on the roof earlier in the day. Out here in the last embers of light, I can see how each day is lengthening just that small fraction further, a slow incremental increase with each passing day. It will rise rapidly from here in an upward curve. After all, we are already more than half-way past the solstice, heading towards the equinox. It is a small turning, but a turning nonetheless. I feel I have glimpsed the evidence, and have walked towards it. And the windows of the house, lit up against the hill like the lights of the passing Stornoway ferry, a line of stars heading out into the black of the Minch, are even more welcoming for it.
