Post No. 1

I have just returned from a week’s holiday on the West Coast of Scotland introducing my wife to Sutherland. My parents used to take me and my sisters up to the extreme north-west corner of Scotland for our childhood holidays. Whilst my wife had been to Scotland before she had never been as far north as Sutherland.

We chose the last week in May so that we would have a reasonable chance of avoiding the midges which can bite like fury in high season.

Sutherland in all it’s beauty

If I hear someone saying that they are going to Scotland for the 1^st time I always give them this piece of advice “Assume every day is going to be wet and then any dry day will be a bonus!”. It can easily rain for 7 days non-stop but we were fortunate, encountering only a little rain and so my wife did not have to imagine how beautiful the scenery is in sunshine.

Amongst other wildlife that we saw was a white tailed eagle over a sea loch, a red deer stag only about 40 yards away and on the island of Handa , looked after by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, we saw puffins, razorbills, guillemots, shags, cormorants and even a pair of grouse with 9 grouse chicks!