This article follows on from "Small Wonders"

Another in an occasional series from a Standard owner in Scotland:

Mull Shore

I simply hadn’t wanted to leave. The engines of the ferry stirred beneath and the Craignure boarding platform slowly shrunk away. My heart ached. Whilst on shore I hadn’t fully realised it but as the distance between the shore and me continued to widen, I now knew that Mull had silently made her way in and found somewhere to settle with me.

It was the end of January – a month positively thought of for it is always a month of adventure and new places. With her often bleak and freezing winds, every year, January brings with her another anniversary for my partner Chris & I. January 2010 saw us having been together for 8 years and so, like all our other Januarys, we had celebrated by heading away from home and staying a week somewhere wild.

Mull Map

This year we had chosen Mull and she did not disappoint. Never before had I seen a place that had such dramatic skies, rugged shores and challenging terrain. We’d taken Chris’s rally-prepared Daihatsu Avanzato to take on Mull’s roads but as I’d sat in the passenger seat throughout our capers, I had thought of Henry garaged back at home on the mainland and told myself that I must bring him here someday. So often the island had seemed so completely unspoiled by modern day clutter. Much of the island was wild and empty - just the kind of landscape that inspired adventures tend to spring from.

On the back of a postcard I scribbled:

Mull Postcard entitled: Road to the Glen, Isle of Mull

Upon leaving Mull, I had written out the postcard to remind me why we ought to come back. Back to the island that, when I hadn’t been looking, had stolen my heart.

Gillian Carmoodie

There are more photos on my Flickr page: www.flickr.com/vintagehighlands

Don't miss the next instalment

(Feb 2011)