Sunday morning on dark, salt encrusted roads, a large moon riding high in the pre dawn sky as I drove across to Cluanie to make the most of the superb forecast of clear skies, light winds and lots and lots of snow. With the hotel car park locked I pulled up in the ice streams on the old road just past it, my nostrils freezing up as I pulled on big winter boots, slid the axe behind my neck and clumbed back along the road under the silver snow-shining mountains of Kintail.

The end of an indifferent summer on Skye. The rowans in late July getting ready for winter, berries massing, ready for the arrival of the redwings. Leaves rattling like old hollow bones after the youthful swishing and dancing in summer storms. But this day is warm, sunny, humid. And strangely quiet.

The day promised a wet start, with early autumn showers heading in from the west coast and low cloud on the tops. However, with a clear afternoon in prospect I decided to head up a hill I’ve long admired on the way through Glen Shiel. Biod an Fhitich.

A book of Gaelic haiku poems to accompany my wild land photographs had been an idea ruminating in the depths of my own wild imagination for some time. Having taken the plunge and self published the Little Book of Gaiku I was amazed to be contacted by Scotland on Sunday newspaper for a half page spread on what was believed to be the first full volume of Gaelic haiku poems.

After a few days of grotbags weather plastering the mountains in the first big snows of the season, Sunday dawned cold, clear and utterly enticing. So it was into the car and round to Blaven for a look around. As usual, I didn’t have anything specific in mind.

A wild night on Saturday as the autumn storm season began with a rattling roof, torrential rain and gushing winds roaring round the side of the local hills. The trees danced all night so they were pleased when it dawned bright and sunny though the wind was still high.

A three month photography exhibition with the John Muir Trust in Pitlochry, an article on Blaven in TGO, an upcoming feature in the John Muir Trust journal on connections between wild land and the Gaelic language and a book on Gaelic mountain poetry in the works.

I like to get down to the Lakes now and then, usually involving a very long and complicated public transport journey but this time I drove to Ambleside as I had to return via Pitlochry to pick up what was left of my photography exhibition with the John Muir Trust’s Wild Space visitor centre and gallery. That’s another story though. A rollercoaster of a ride and outrageous success even if I say so myself!

It’s been in the planning for a year, ever since my photo feature in the Scottish Mountaineer magazine when the John Muir Trust asked if I’d like to exhibit with them.

It’s oot! The May 2016 edition of TGO Magazine is in the shops with my feature on Blà Bheinn along with photographs I’ve created over the years when visiting Bàn-rìgh an Eilein Sgiathanaich, the Queen of the Winged Isle.