Three years ago, in March 2015, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity arose to witness a 96% solar eclipse darken the skies over northern Scotland. My husband and I parked up behind Evanton before breakfast and began an hour-long ascent of Cnoc Fyrish. We quickly realised our idea wasn’t an original one when we crested the summit of the hill and found a couple of dozen people already gathered around the Fyrish Monument, overlooking the Cromarty Firth, waiting for the spectacle to unfold. Our efforts paid off in spite of the overcrowded hilltop and unseasonably cold wind. An eerie darkness descended over Ross…

Dawn leaked over the roof of the Rec’, a pale blue canvas, a promise. I was already late but it would do. I crept out of the still sleeping house, hard frosted back garden grass, hard frosted windscreen glass. Newtonmore stirred, turned over and went back to sleep as I passed, Laggan still rested, afloat in a frozen floodplain. To the west, a milky gauze lay softly, poised between out breath and in breath, a stillness I’d forgotten existed recently. Our human world can be so self-involved, I’d not had time to look around me this winter. As the road…