Mull and Iona

Woke up to a grey, damp morning with shafts of light -

then took the 96 bus for an hour and a half's worth of beautiful wildness to take the ferry to Iona - startlingly clear water -

The Abbey at Iona, seen through drizzle from the top of the mound on which, they think, St Columba's writing hut was perched: the scriptorium to end all scriptoria was here, since it's where the Book of Kells was produced - though way after Columba's own time (though this was subsequently taken to Ireland for safe keeping from Viking raiders - whether finished [which of course is what they claim here] or partly completed).

The Abbey itself has been restored - beautifully and simply restored -

though there are some bits of ruins scattered around.

This is where the Abbey's herbal/medicinal garden was;

and here, on a walk further up the road from the Abbey, is one of the local inhabitants.

Back on Mull, and waiting for the bus, I had plenty of opportunity to admire at least two of Mull's 700+ species of lichen [700+ !! - I could spend a lot of time here ...]

before the wonderful bus ride back.

I would - I hope I will - very happily return to Iona, and stay for a few nights and soak in absolute quietness.