Some days I wake in Bullerbyn, some days I wake in Narnia. To lift the latter there is nothing better than a morning of what the Japanese call Shirin-yoku or forest bathing.
Yesterday we had half a tank of fuel to use up before the car gets traded in today, so my wife said, “let’s go to Bute.” I needed no little persuasion. So off we went on the half-hour drive to the ferry terminal at Wemyss bay for a day trip round the island.
Our first stop was the ancient monastery of St Blanes; a peaceful place encapsulated in some ancient trees where one is at one with nature. The low autumn sun cast incredible images over the landscape that swept down to the sea.
I said to my wife, “When God and Christ Jesus bring about the Restoration and the promised paradise, I would feel eternally grateful to live here.”
Our next stop was Kilchattan Bay, where a flock of sheep chilled in the middle of the road. No worries: we just admired the view whilst these balls of wool in matchstick legs decided that the grass was greener on the other side of the road.
At the bay, we stopped and absorbed the beauty as we enjoyed a costal walk. On the ferry home (Which was a temporary vessel that came from Mallaig), I got talking to one of the staff. The ferry normally did the Mallaig to Skye, so I enjoyed talking about Mallaig, Gaelic language, and the demise of the fishing industry.
Mary Wollstonecraft, one wrote about the strangers we meet on travel and the melancholic regret of not getting to know them fully. Alas, such is life.
Back home, it was tuna chou mien and a bit of travel video. I then woke in the morning refreshed by the rhythms of nature and, and Duncan Chisholm’s burning, haunting violin on Runrig’s Proterra ringing in my head.
Restoration: Acts 3: 21
https://biblehub.com/acts/3-21.htm
Proterra, for whom it may concern.