Thursday 29th September

After days of long drives I decided to take the day off and stay locally but I still ended up driving almost 100 miles. Up in the Highlands most things are a long way away. The mobile library arrived in Shieldaig just after breakfast and seemed to be doing a roaring trade. Books and news being exchanged in equal measure. I was still on a quest for a post office and discovered that whilst there is a mobile bank (as well as the mobile library) there is, as yet, no mobile post office. Plenty of places that sell books of first and second class stamps but anything more exotic means a 15 mile drive to find a post office.

I’ve become convinced that the world of work is likely to change for many people. Regular, full-time jobs with regular full time benefits are likely to become a thing of the past. Jobs will be less reliable and many people will have to have more than one job to make ends meet. At the edges of Britain (and on display up here) is the multijob worker. The nice lady who serves breakfast today works at a doctor’s surgery other days/times. Many of the farms also do bed & breakfast or offer smoked salmon, seafood to make their living a little easier. But signs that say ‘closed from 2nd October – Easter’ remind that earnings from a good summer don’t go far when spread across the year. In the winter it’s cheaper to close than keep the heating going. And the ‘big society’ seems to be the norm up here. Perhaps it’s the lack of shopping that means people have more time to give. Shops are owned by the community and run by volunteers. Petrol pumps and jetties are owned by the community. I buy the most expensive petrol I’ve seen in Applecross to help support the project (142.9p a litre), if the market is so efficient why do basics cost more in places where they are most needed?

I find Lochcarron and the post office and stock up on stamps (when travelling I buy books of 100, likely to wipe out the stock of the little shops who stock stamps). There are strings of cottages along the side of the loch, many have satellite dishes all pointed in the same direction. I assume satellite is the best way to pick up the internet as well as programmes. Strangely as I’ve travelled north I’ve seen more and more solar panels on roofs. You’d think there was not enough sun up here, but that can’t be true. I have no idea whether it’s driven by keeping bills down or a desire to preserve the environment. There’s more signs of recycling than in the cities. Perhaps it’s as simple as landfill being close enough to smell it. I have no idea where my waste goes in London. I try to recycle as much as possible, but all I know is that it gets taken away. In rural areas it gets dumped within smelling distance – a real incentive to reduce landfill.

The cloud base is low and I’m not brave enough to take the high road to Applecross (caravans and learner drivers are banned) but the low road is plenty steep enough for me. A close encounter with a fuel lorry is disconcerting but other than making me even more wary about blind summits all is well. There are plenty of sheep and Highland cattle who regard the road as their territory rather than belonging to the motorists. But the real excitement is that Brad Pitt is filming locally. Apparently he’d been into the local pub and no-one recognised him. Now everyone is on the lookout.