I recall times when we’d park for the night by one of those magnificent seascapes or loch and mountain views for which the area is famous. The notorious Scotch mist and drizzling rain would enfold us. Then we’d sit tight, perhaps for days at a time, enjoying the kaleidoscopic changes in the scenery as the clouds swept down around us, only to lift again at the whim of the fickle winds. 
 
Sometimes during those waits for the weather to clear we might not see or hear another human for days. A few sheep bleating as they came grazing by, or a flock of hoodies cawing past on the blustering gale. A small flotilla of eider, bobbing and cooing in the surf. At dusk, those gut-wrenching moments when the red-throated and black-throated divers renewed their inconsolably grieving conversations across the lochs and lochans, with perhaps a curlew adding its own poignant counterpoint.  
 
Or a never-to-be-forgotten dusk when, with the light fast fading under lowering clouds, borne on the evening breeze came the indescribably haunting skirl of a lone piper. Playing, I guessed, simply for his own pleasure - or, judging by the evocative, emotional stirring of my own heart strings - perhaps trying to assuage his own inner grief over a loss - he sat on the gunwale of his rowboat, a quarter mile away across the sea-loch. The moving melody, modulated by its own echo from the towering Torridon massif looming behind us, brought us to our feet.  
 
With tears smarting our eyes, we hugged, heart to heart.