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Ooof, that didn’t last long. We got home late on Sunday night and I have been slowly adjusting to the world again.

Harris was wonderful, the beaches, the dunes and the vast skies cut you right down to size, ‘til you feel like ant in summer grass.

I took lots of photos that I’m still working through, though I’ll probably only keep a few as I seem to get pickier and pickier about what works. But there’s one of water plants floating on a lochan that I’m really pleased with.

And I managed to see a red throated diver, a rare bird of the far north, and that was a real thrill, as they are so beautiful.

The late Ken Smith’s selected poems The Poet Reclining, which I borrowed from the Scottish Poetry Library, came with me and his poems seemed to fit the wildness that I was experiencing. I liked many of them – The Stone Poems, In Transit and Fox in October in particular. He was a fantastic poet and I’m really glad to have had the chance to read more of his work.

Here’s a clip of him that I found on youtube