Summer friends

And so the spring wound into summer - and the light came back full throttle. In fact, it never really got dark. By midsummer you could read a newspaper at midnight, and the ceilidhs would start and end in sunlight. The rythm of life picked up and the B&B's were full of visitors - many of whom returned year after year and became familiar faces around the village. Neville and Mavis, who owned the Lord Nelson Inn down in northern England, made it known that we had usurped their favorite cottage (they'd rented Castlehill for their holidays for years). We were sorry - but not very. So we had them to lunch, became friends, and stopped to visit them at their pub one summer when we went south (we were delighted with its traditional cozy ambience).

We met people who owned croft houses in Coigach but only came up for their holidays - and we forged friendships that have lasted through all the years since we left - friends that we still meet when we can, and talk and write to between visits. Some have visited us here, and we have been made welcome in their homes, scattered now throughout the UK from north to south. We have shared their lives from when they were young and single, through marriage and growing families. They have made our lives infinitely richer.