PEOPLE AND PLACES OF "THE BROCH"
The connected islands of Harris and Lewis are truly something else. Something else entirely, even from the rest of the Scottish mainland.
I'm not sure even now, three months after our return from a week of weatherbeaten, sensory bombardment in the place, just what it is that grabs you so hard and doesn't, entirely, let go. Yes, its a ferry ride away , which immediately adds to a feeling of otherness. And yes, too, you never escape the feeling that you're only a few steps, a few mistaken turns of the wheel, from falling into the Atlantic.
But there's something else too.
It's as if the rainbows that make landfall here, such as the first of many that greeted us on our initial arrival (see photo), somehow seep into the land, and bleed up through your shoes until your blood is saturated by them.
Anyway, all that being as it may, I'd like to share with you some of the experiences Joanne and I had on the island, following pretty much all of Martin's footsteps, during the same week of the year in which THE BROCH takes place. I'll seek to avoid spoilers, and for those of you who've read the book, I'll cluster events of our own visit to match the sequence in which Martin experiences them.
P.S. and lastly..... All photos are my own, although some are drawn from our adventures in the highlands over the last twenty years.