Wednesday 12th April, W6D6

So I retired, with alarm set, in the hope I might make the ferry to Skye, and I did, and here I am. I'd left the van all set for a quick getaway, with no prospect of a morning shower despite the excellent facilities of Talla na Mara. It was still a rude awakening at 0530 as my phone alarm rang out the Washington Post March on the van's system, but I just had a quick visit to the facilities, unplugged the power and set off in the dark windy pre-dawn. By the time I reached the Tarbert Harbour there were already long lines of cars and vans, and I was mightily relieved to be allowed aboard at the second time of asking!

The 100 minute passage to Uig in Skye was smooth, with only a light swell, and I had a bacon roll from the on board cafeteria. Skye was very very wet when we berthed, and I was too early to get into my booked caravan site at Uig Bay. I was quite tired from my early start, so after stopping to refuel and check my oil, I set off to find a nice place to park with a viewpoint, to catch up on a bit of a snooze. In fact the place I selected was the Fairy Glen,  but as the rain had abated, I felt I must have a walk before resting. There's a huge car park with additional permitted roadside parking, where I stopped.

The Fairy Glen is more of a collection of curiously pointy high grassy peaks, and the fitter (younger) visitors were scrambling to the tops. I'm still not fully confident on my feet, so in my boots and using two walking poles I crept cautiously up one of the lower pyramids. (As ever, coming down was worse then going up, but I managed without damage to my body, clothes, or pride.)

I rewarded myself with a comfortable catnap on the bed, and returned down the high road to the harbour, as the rain started again. The Uig Bay Campsite is quite large, empty when I checked in, but has rapidly filled up with large motorhomes as I write now after my Evening Prayers of Harris Gin. It's an adequate but very unappealing site, useful by virtue of being right next to the ferry port, plenty sites on gravel, but much of it waterlogged, and I'd had to readjust my pitch a couple of times so I don't have to disembark into a deep puddle to get to the facilities.

As I have less than two weeks' pills left, I spoke with the lovely Sara at Deal Boots' pharmacy to get codes to have more dispensed from a local pharmacy in Skye. I called the Boots in Portree, and was told that there's no system for electronic prescription from England to Scotland, which was news to me, and as I then discovered to Sara in Deal too. She thought it could be done, but it can't, so there's a problem. I'll go down to Portree tomorrow (and have now booked into a site there) and the solution may be for me to write a private prescription for my drugs, as I still have GMC registration and a Licence to Practise until the end of June this year! It'll cost me, but at least it's a way out. (Or I could just head down to England now and cut short my trip, but I'm not going to do that. Too much I still want to do up here!)