A HOME FROM HOME

I KNOW A PLACE, a square on the map, a black dot. It has a good chimney which draws well and a poor gable end that needs repointing, full of holes and mice. A place where a trod from the door leads down to a tussocky meadow of buttercups, bog myrtle, heather and thistle, and an alder-lined burn with a pebble beach where we wash and fetch water. I know a place reached by rutted track between mountain and lochan, where reed warblers dance and floorboards creak, an old stalkers’ hut on a road lined with ruins of crofts and way houses, home to black-throated divers and geese.

The school holidays have begun and there’s high pressure hanging over the Highlands for a few days. We’ve saddled up the bikes and are heading off-grid, to a place I know.

HOMING INSTINCT

Most of the mountain shelters we know about are run by the Mountain Bothies Association (MBA). These have been closed during the pandemic; but my quiet, local hut isn’t an MBA building. Instead, it’s looked after by a nearby estate and a few volunteers. They explicitly request ‘no publicity’ and that’s why the photos that illustrate this feature don’t show the immediate exterior. It