It was a spectacular drive. The road led through farmlands and over bridges, and on the high ground the tyres of the Subaru scrunched over snow. It followed the shores of a long tidal sea loch, and ran through small villages with grey stone cottages flush on the pavement, along with pubs and shops and sturdy no-nonsense churches surrounded by old graveyards filled with lichened, leaning headstones. Then the last bridge, over another firth, stretching like a long arm of blue water up into the folds of the western hills.
