An Uig paper round

Saturday 17 February: Need a leg-stretch, and the weatherman says it will rain this afternoon. We need to go down to Uig for today’s paper – perhaps we can end our walk at the shop. The papers should be in by then – they don’t get here until late morning (many years ago, I had a paper round. I was hopeless – usually half-asleep, I pedalled around on autopilot. Rarely did my last delivery coincide with the last paper in my bag. I might have been more successful if the papers arrived at noon)

The jelly-ear fungus was a welcome find, on some scruffy elder bushes beside the Idrigill road. There was another very substantial crop a few yards further back, but the thicket of dead brambles looked impenetrable and rather scratchy…