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It
is a calm day with not a breath of wind. Peat smoke
streams upwards in thin vertical roads, floating in
a soft haze over the coves of Scalpay. The villages
I cycle through have a strongly communal feel to them;
washing lines fluttering gaily, old cars decaying by
every turn of the back road, houses camped cheek to
jowl at crazy angles. In the sunshine many islanders
are out of doors, gossiping in porches or pottering
on the crofts, and the wave and smile of greeting from
each as I spin by seems more expansive than the last.
I
head along the lonely shore of Kennavay and turn up
the road to Eilean Glas Lighthouse, and when
the road turns into a track I dismount the bike and
march, and at length the track stops completely in the
moor. The lighthouse looms from the heather half a mile
away, on a jutting headland at the extreme tip of Scalpay.
Built as long ago as 1789, it was the first in the Outer
Isles. Today it is fully automated, and its buildings
have become a restaurant and bed-and-breakfast business
operated by a chirpy couple of white settlers. Scalpay
friends tell me that the couple are currently seeking
a table-licence - the island is completely "dry"
- and seem unanimously opposed to such an innovation.
I
decide not to visit the restaurant at Eilean Glas and
turn to pedal back through the Scalpay villages. Presently
I am heading out to Cuddy Point, along the main headland
of the North Harbour and immortalised in RunRig lyrics;
I take another turn up another headland towards Ardnacille,
then pause for breath on a high viewpoint over the main
village, above the chimneys of the Free Church Manse.
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