Skye Photo Tours - and not a camera in sight! 4th Jan 2020

THERE ARE NO PHOTOS FROM TODAY DUE TO UNFAVOURABLE WEATHER! MAY AS WELL JUST HAVE STAYED HOME!

(The best of planning doesn't always pay off - Mother Nature wins every time!)

The weather was not the best for us today, so we dispensed with any ideas of sunrise or sunset shots due to the heavy cloud cover and young Harry Martin, from Skye Photo Tours arrived around 9.30am to collect us in his 4 x 4 twincab.

We have booked about 5 outings with them covering a range of things from Skye in a Day through to Astro, Wildlife, Location Guidance and one-on-on Tuition. After a brief chat on what was doable given the weather conditions we set off towards Portree down the Eastern side of the Island.

Harry took us on a loop around the top half of the island, stopping periodically to show us various off the beaten track spots such as the Hill of the Red Fox and some little side roads with views of the Cuillin (or at least there would be if we could see beyond the cloud today). He also showed us some key locations for Highland Cattle, Otters and White Tailed Sea Eagles and Golden Eagles (he’s a zoologist as well as a photographer).

We spent a lovely day with him, all be it I had to take two lots of Ondansetron as I don’t travel well in the back of cars. We stopped off in Portree for a coffee and some of the pea and ham soup I’d brought in our thermos in the hope the rain would subside - it didn’t.

We returned home to Willie McLeod’s House around 4.00pm with the cameras and gear not even coming out of our bags. Harry will keep us posted on when some Northern Lights action happens and conditions are right for us to head out for some astro shots.

Although we never got to take even one photograph it was a useful exercise in terms of gaining insight into some lesser know locations and the best vantage points and conditions to shoot in.

We were also excited that the replacement turntable (for the one I broke on Christmas day) arrived today for the microwave which will make things a bit easier - with a lovely note from Pam the postie thanking us for the wedding cake we dropped off the other day.

As we were both feeling a bit unwell having spent so much time driving in a car we didn’t bother with a proper dinner, instead just finishing off the left over soup and bread.

Vince built and amazing fire and we watched a DVD, Mary Queen of Scots, which we are not certain is historically accurate but at least it was something different. I pulled out my hot waterbottle for the first time, as the bed is getting colder and colder each night - snow is forecast for Wed! BUT WE'LL SEE WHAT HAPPENS