May Contain Mild Peril? **

** which has got to be the most stupid 'viewing warning' ever applied to anything.

The eagle-eyed may have noticed a countdown box over on the right. I installed it a little while ago and have been vacillating between excited joy and stomach-churning anxiety ever since.

Blue Bus and I are soon to go on a Big Adventure. By the standards of normal people this is probably not much of an adventure at all, but to me It. Is. Big. It is a trip which has been on my "one day" list for years and years.

🚙     I thought I would head off in Bill but I never wanted to leave Daisy for too long.
🚙     Then I did not have Daisy-dog but was too miserable to organise myself to get away.
🚙     Then we had a badly handled pandemic and bonkers lockdowns so no-one could.
🚙     Then I had the crushing fatigue and brain-fog of Long-Covid so I could not.

And now I have no bloomin' excuses at all and I am in the middle of reviewing my packing for a mere two week jolly (see, I told you it was probably nothing by other people's reckoning!)

The peril is not the 14 day trip. Nor is the peril the fact that it's the furthest I will have been, on my own, for many years.

This is the peril:



I have to go on a ship, a big one, because it's the only way to reach the islands which I have dreamed about for as long as I can remember. Although that is not strictly true - I could get a flight from Inverness and then rent a car.  Not going to happen . . .

I love looking at the sea. I can sit on a beach and watch the tide roll in and out for endless hours. I am, however, seriously afraid of the SEA, of deep water, of not having my feet (and wheels) firmly on dry land. I reserve the right to spend the entire crossing standing next to the lifeboats.

Two weeks today, at right about when I press "Publish" I should be pulling into Fort William for lunch.

If there is a good signal, if I am not too busy sitting just drinking in the island air, I will try and share a little whilst I am away.