I’ve just taken my traditional Christmas holiday: each year I spend a week before Christmas somewhere really bleak and miserable, before joining family in Glasgow. This year I spent a few days in a shepherd’s hut on the island of Rùm, before moving to Inverie in Knoydart — the most remote village on the UK mainland; you have to get there by ferry.

Rùm has been on my list of islands for years, and now that I’ve finally been there there’s only one of the Small Isles left to go. The hut (really a caravan) was very comfortable with a wood stove and proper bathroom. Rùm itself was just as bleak and miserable as I was hoping with some wonderful landscapes, and the hills were absolutely pickled with deer, which stared at me suspiciously, as did the seals. The population is 22 and there is no pub, but I did hang out with the locals in the front porch of the shop, which sells beer…

Inverie I’ve been to before, and it’s lovely; this time I got some more walking in, heading up the valley to the next loch inland as well as going over to the next bay. The place is supposed to be full of otters, and I was told that a family’s been seen in the village itself (population about a hundred). The weather was better and there was some actual sunlight.

This last is important because I have a new camera, a Lumix G70, and was dying to try it out. Sadly even the best camera can’t do much with dull Scottish winter days. But on the rare occasions when sunlight hit the hills, they came alive…