The first day of 2017 dawned in the same way as the last day of 2016 - wet and windy!  We have had front after front of "weather" coming through Assynt since before Christmas.  We had two named storms pass over - Barbara and Conor, and while they were fierce we were fortunate enough not to suffer any damage.

On Hogmanay we took a walk down to Stoer beach, which was looking beautiful, but pretty wild.

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With a final, end of year selfie

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we made our way home to the warmth and settled in for a long evening of silly TV, a big dinner, and too many maltesers.  And once the bells had rung, we headed out as we always do, up to the top of the little hill behind our house to look at the stars (which were stunning), then climbed the stairs and headed to bed.

Because Christmas Day was so wild, we didn't get out for our normal Christmas walk in the hills, sadly.  But today we headed off up towards the Old Soldier's.  The wind was bitter, but there were blue patches in the sky encouraging us upwards.  We found out recently that on our pay as you go mobile tariff with Giff Gaff, calls to Australia, South Africa and the USA are very reasonable, and certainly much cheaper than our land line.  However we can't get a mobile phone signal at home, so whenever we're out we take the opportunity of getting in touch with our close friends and family around the world.  And today was no different:

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While Stevan chatted (and Peggy looked on, impatiently!), I took in the vistas:

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Happy new year to all of you who read this blog.  I'm sorry that entries have been so patchy over the last few months - I will try to improve that!!  No, it isn't a new year's resolution, but an intention.  I hope 2017 brings you everything you need to make you happy.