Isle of Mull

 Home now from our holiday on the Isle of Mull, I've been sitting looking through our photos.....(why is it we've just driven 1500 miles straight, and yet, I'm ready to sit down again)

Mull has left me, inspired, rejuvenated, relaxed, tired, overwhelmed, ponderous......

All good stuff I think, just hoping that whatever it was that bit me, stays with me.

A quick whirl round the island in photographs....there are many more, but here are a selection.

Duart castle - a proper Scottish castle, full of wonderful family artifacts, paintings and adventure.

View of a mid-sea lighthouse taken from Duart.

The scenic road....the back road round Mull....beautiful, but a bit scary, single track with passing places, often long drops with no girders to keep you on the road.....here a wall to keep you from the sea, but nothing to stop you being caught under a big boulder!

So come on, what kind of crafter would I be, not to check out the locally spun yarn. This Hebridean yarn comes from a small horned black ewe, she has a fairly robust rough feeling wool....not sure I want it around my neck, but it will be used for something special.

A bag of bits to fiddle with, fleece brought in and spun.

The more used road took us through large areas of hills, grazed only by a few Black-Faced Scottish ewes and their lambs, excellent mums and thrifty enough to live on very little....as you can see they have to....

Two abandoned boats in a little village Salen....I think these may become inspiration for a painting.

Evening light on our way home one evening.

An hour out pony trekking for all of us, this is littlest boy on Storm, his Shetland pony.

Views from the highest point of our trek....I didn't get much chance as my pony kept trying to trot off....trekking was brilliant, I haven't done it since I was a kid, and only a couple of times then....I've certainly lost my nerve somewhere in between, but I loved it!

We were totally spoilt with the weather during our stay on Mull, blue skies and sunshine.....blue on blue....

One afternoon, the day was so glorious that  middle and small boy decided to take a dip, despite strong warnings of how cold it would be, off they went.  The small beach was literally a stones throw from the garden, so I sat with sketch book and cider enjoying the sun on my face, watching the boys splashing about.  Big boy was far to sensible to go in, but went down to take some photos.

On our last night, after packing our bags for an early set off the next day, we got (relatively) dolled up and went to the pub across the road for some supper which was a real treat.

On the last night, Mull was showing off with this beautiful sunset over the water, the lumpy bumpy skyline is Iona.

We left just after six the next day, and we definitely saw more of our four-legged neighbours, as we were the only ones about it seemed.

This would have been a wonderful photo if only I'd been expecting to see two deer stood on top of a hill silhouetted against a morning sky....after reversing back and lots of scrabbling about for my camera, they both scarpered, this one just momentarily turned around to look at me and then was gone.

Our ferry to take us back to the mainland.

Our holiday to the Isle of Mull was perfect, I don't think I've ever relaxed as much.  And while I was relaxing I remembered all the things which are important to me.