ARRIVING IN THE OUTER HEBRIDES

It’s hitting me how tired I am. I mean, fair enough I’ve travelled several hundred miles today, to the opposite end of the country. I’ve caught two planes, a coach and a taxi and I’ve shuffled around airports with a bulbous rucksack. I deserve to be tired.

I think my tiredness runs a little deeper though.

That being said, I’ve arrived in Stornoway (or Steòrnabhagh as the airport terminal declared it in big letters). It’s the main town on the Isle of Lewis, right out here at the edge of the world. I’m here for a few days.

I’ve enjoyed the flying. The sun lit up the clouds like cotton wool beneath our plane. It looked just like you could jump out and bounce on them, or snuggle into the giant candy floss from 24,000 feet. Then, under their shade, the ocean swam into view, wide and blue with tiny white waves. I love that.

The plane banked over land - bleak and almost flat against the sea, as though a green tablecloth had been laid over it. The green was interrupted with enormous puddles, misshapen lakes that stretched across that low land of the South Lochs. Tiny rivers trickled between them, and way in the distance, scattered toy houses, the farms and homesteads - hamlets of the islands, between the dirt tracks and thin grey concrete of passable roads.

Down came the plane, wispy clouds parting, rumbling onto the wet concrete runway. 

“Here for a holiday, or for work?” asked the taxi driver. Her large round earrings bounced against her neck as the car bumped along in the rain.

“Just a short break,” I said, acutely aware of my English accent and unhelpful propensity for revealing next to nothing. I told her I hoped to do a bit of walking and exploring, which made her shoulders rise and fall with a shrug. Laughter? Amusement? Scepticism? The rain smeared across the windscreen.

“The rain should ease up by Saturday,” she said.

I’m not exactly sure why I’m here in the Outer Hebrides. There was a 1950s revival here of course, which I’ve been reading about on the way up. But even that doesn’t feel like the main reason; I’m afraid revival tourism doesn’t interest me any more than going to Italy made me want to dress in a toga. Revival, I think, is never really about the location.

No, I think it just got in my heart as a ‘thin’ place, perhaps where God might say something new to me. Remote, windswept, beautiful, in its own quiet and undiscovered way. I hope he does; it could be bleak without him.

Anyway, tomorrow I’ll do a bit of exploring and see what it’s like in the daylight. Breakfast is booked for 8:15am, and I’m told a full Scottish breakfast waits for no man. Meanwhile, I’m going to see what I can do about that tiredness.