The House of the Red Fox and Beinn Sguliaird

This morning my mother was on top form, so we sat outside in the garden in our pyjamas until 12.30, chatting, because I didn't want to do anything to break the spell.

We had lunch (bacon rolls) and I helped her write out her funeral plan. She was very keen to do this when my older sister T and I were visiting two years ago, and even wanted to go and visit different undertakers. I hadn't seen her for those two years, but had sent her a form that we managed to fill in today, though she was not quite as interested. Repeated lockdowns and the death of her husband (who wasn't my stepfather) have taken their toll.

Then CleanSteve drove me to the surgery at Port Appin, where I collected my mother's medication and chatted to a few health professionals. After dropping me at my sister's house in Appin, CS drove off, and my sister K and I and the dog drove to the head of Loch Creran, past the house and garden (with a ha-ha!) of our former landlord from our 1970s days in Duror. We parked and walked up the drive of Glenure House, where the "Red Fox" Colin Campbell lived, before he was murdered near Ballachullish Ferry in the infamous Appin Murder of 1782, immortalised by Robert Louis Stephenson's novel Kidnapped. This is his house in the above photo.

The river Creran sparkled as we walked up the glen behind the house. Eventually we found the lochan mentioned in our guidebook, though it was one, not two, lochans. Perhaps they had merged, we thought. Across the bog, my sister spotted some rocky outcrops they she called "the seating area". I heard "the Zeta variant" and wondered what another CoVid variant could be doing in such a lonely glen, with not even a deer or sheep in sight.

We must have sat there for about an hour, overlooking the lochan, until the sun left us, and we began the return journey, stopping to play in the river en route. We both enjoyed our first visit, and K says she'll be back, possibly even to walk the longer route to Ballachullish.

K collected her swimsuit and drove me back to Duror. I decided not to swim in Cuil Bay, but CleanSteve was there already, so I sat on a log and looked out for him while K swam. Then we all went home and I microwaved another Aldi ready meal, which is what we've been living off this week. No cooking for me! Woohoo! Then we watched Endeavour. The radio programme Question time was live from Stroud, where I live, and we listened to that, too.

P.S. HRH Princess Anne visited the Oban Highland games, where we were yesterday, and the High school, where my sister is a dinner lady. They'd made her a special school dinner, which she did not manage to finish, apparently. Many cheese scones were left over. My sister K took some home, left them on the table for a second, and whoops! The dog devoured EIGHT of them. Thank goodness we had poo bags with us on the walk.