Up Close and Grateful

It’s a beautiful day, as I knew it would be, and my spirit soars when I set off early with a picnic in my bag. No trouble, ever, to get up early at the weekend and drive west: to get through Glasgow and know you’re at the start of the real world.

The sun’s shining on the boat and when I arrive at Hunters Quay the noise is deafening: birds singing, chirping, tweeting, chirruping, laughing. They are celebrating my being there. I cannot believe I will wake up each morning and hear their joyful celebration.

The air is balmy: soft, sweet, deliciously May time. It can only be a sunny May day in the west Highlands.

I’m nervous about the arrangements for the walk, it suddenly seems far-fetched to find the car park, and hail the bus, and the bus to arrive at the right time and take me to the right place, but I let go and trust. And the bus comes.

The walk starts at Benmore Gardens: teeming with visitors and rhododendrons ready to burst into bloom. It’s an 8 mile walk to the top of Loch Eck, along its west side, all the way from one end of the Loch to the other. The sun shines all the way.

And it’s a photo walk too, taking pictures as I go and this stopping, and noticing, and taking of pictures, oh it takes me so long to keep stopping and taking and walking and stopping. It adds a good hour to a four hour walk.

But it’s worth it. I find hidden treasures. Tiny red thistles, just waiting to be admired. Outrageous gorse bushes, firing up yellow to the heavens. Purple rhododendrons, blooming and in bud. Tiny hedgerow flowers: weeds really, that you’d normally walk past without a glance. But look what happens when you stop, bend down, pay attention, whisper “thank you”.

Look how much beauty you find.

Towards the end of the walk I lie down in the grasses. Oh yes, it’s partly because I’m tired and it’s hot, but it’s mainly because it’s the best way I know to get up close and personal with the Highlands. To lie down on the warm, rough ground, and look out through the moorland grasses. Breathe in her scents. Watch through that grassy frame. Let the landscape move, softly, as the grasses bend in the wind.

It’s a feeling of perfect contentment. Of being at peace, at ease, of being in precisely the right place at precisely the right moment in time.

And giving thanks.