The Scotland Diaries: Part One - Staggered Stars

I've just been reminded that I've not written on here for some time. I confess to having forgotten all about you.  However since you have not been waiting with either held or bated breath you can't have missed me much, so I shall simply dust you off, check your pulse and respirations are still in order - and continue.

In mid-September I drove north from my beloved Exmoor to the equally beloved Other Country, from which my family originates.  Eleven hours - get out your atlas - took me to a near-deserted loch below Oban. Alone I was, since The Others although invited, declined to accompany me - but not lonely. 

Odd how one can feel lonely in a crowd and not on the edge of a wild, glacier-designed landscape with only curlews, owls, bats, red squirrels and huge red deer for company. 

The sunshine on the loch made dancing flashing mirrors of every movement of the water and the reflected light from the sky turned the sea turqoise. The air was so pure that mosses and lichens capped the granite stone walls to a depth of nearly two inches.  And my cabin was so close to the water that I could hear the gentle ebbing and flowing of the tide lapping on the shore. 

That evening as dusk fell, I walked the two miles to The Big House, along the narrow lochside lane, often stopping to examine trees, tiny flowers, still-purple heather and many rocks and stones both in and out of the water.  The geological history of Scotland ('Land of Mountain and Flood') is fascinating ... but not my story to tell. 

The red deer were already in rut and in the fading light I watched two stags sizing one another up for possession of a single hind who was waiting on the rocky foreshore. As it happened it was no contest - I think the younger stag saw the magnificent antlered  head of the older (sporting brow, bey, trey and I think four atop) and realised he was outclassed.

I watched the Elder trot off with the hind and a couple of bats swooped low, no doubt feasting on the late summer midges still around.  The light did a cinematic fade-out and my eyes adjusted to it in gradual and natural relaxation.

As one sense lost its supremacy, another took over. Night sounds serenaded me back to the cabin - was that still curlews?  Owls, Tawny and Little from their calls, mourned across the evening, rushes of wind shivered through the leaves of birch, oaks and pines, small mammal rustlings twitched the undergrowth.

Seemingly from everywhere - and dominant over all the other noises - the eerie primeval roaring of red stags came at me: from the other side of the loch, from the lane behind, from somewhere high up on the hillside above. 

Oh, glorious night!

I stayed out for a long, long time.  The heavens were unbelievable - just a dome of stars stretching to eternity in every direction. The Milky Way was clear and constellations such as Orion very easy to spot, with the Pleiades up beyond and oh, how I wished I'd brought my 'Observer's Book' with me to identify all the others!  Once enchanted by such a night sky, one puts up with the inevitable sore neck - but at last I had to go indoors.  I did consider setting a camp bed out there on the shore and just lying on my back to stare up all night at the beauty of a trillion miles of starstruck forever ...

Oh, glorious, glorious night!