Still have some photos from my Parents visit to share with you – we did some beautiful walks and the weather, as I said before, was gorgeous! 1st January was a quiet day and we didn’t go anywhere – just stayed at home enjoying good food and wine; the photos below are from the New Year’s celebration 
Next day we drove to Strathdearn, some 10miles South from Inverness, then to Glen Kyllachy where we stopped for few minutes to admire the peace of Winter…
Next, we made a stop some 2 miles further in Monadhliadh Mountains. It’s a very empty and wild area where only heather and windfarms grow… yes we have them in the Highlands and one can usually find them in such isolate places like this one. Unfortunatelly these are often the places we’d go for a walk looking for wilderness and Nature. I know – windfarms provide green energy, so I do have mixed felings about them. I don’t think I like them though. Anyway, it seams some birds don’t mind the structures at all – we saw quite a few red grouses! And it was the first time in our lives!!! Not only we saw them – I had managed to take two shots before the girl realised we were stearing at her 
Let me introduce you: the Female Red Grouse
this photo is for you to see and decide, I don’t like this view…
And now: some photos of the family
me – the Author 
my Parents – the Guests
my Husband Michal – the Driver and the Guide
our shadows
and Mini The Pepper – the Car
From that place we started driving back to Inverness. This was the view we suddenly saw – Inverness in the sunset covered with harr…
At the and of that day we made a short walk by Loch Farr. The ice was clear, no sound of civilisation nor any other other humans. In the evening peace a sudden distant noise alarmed us. It was like somebody far away was throwing metal barrels or very thick woden beams on the ice… and then the singing in a deep, low voice… repeating… getting closer and louder… and bursting out with a long howl just at our feet!!!!
Did you just think of ghosts? Or fairies? At that moment I did! And then I had heared my Dad say “Listen, the Loch is singing” – and I knew: it was the ice breaking. Apparently some cetrain temperature and weather conditions (sunny day and temperature rapidly dropping in the evening) cause great tensions in the ice and make it break and crack with very strange loud sounds. I have never ever experienced anything like that before – never heared any Loch sing…
Tags: countryside, fairy, frost, ghost, Glen, grouse, heather, Highlands, ice, Kyllachy, Monadhliath, mountains, new year, photography, red, Scotland, song, Strathdearn, walk, wildlife, windfarm, winter, woods
