A little late to the H&I Voices X feed tonight as it's been an utterly beautiful day on the western end of the Ardnamurchan peninsula, have been out with the cameras all day.
First up is Sunset Over The Sound from Kilchoan.

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A little earlier as we wandered off the bay towards Kilchoan Boat House, the suns rays were mesmeric emanating from the clouds.

The Boat House is the home of one of the best community events in Kilchoan each year, the West Ardnamurchan Regatta.
westhighlandpeninsulas.com/whats-on/west-…

Today’s visual excursion around Ardnamurchan is around the magical Camas man Gaell (Bay of Strangers / Bay of the Promise) and the cleared Croft settlement of Bourblaig.
The images were taken on clearer weather days in October, but heading back again tomorrow too.





The walks around Camas down to the bay with its evidence of human inhabitation since Neolithic times, or up to the peak of the majestic Ben Hiant (528m) which affords spectacular views out of the Sound of Mull where you can enjoy the magical play of light.

There is a body of water on the Hill of Nigg that, on the official maps, is called Bayfield Loch or Bayfield Dam. Conversely, if you ask the locals they will call it Adams Loch, or Loch Adamach. But who was Adam? 1/31 On one side the Hill of Nigg rises gently from the coast but on the other there are sheer cliffs of Old Red Sandstone caused by the Great Glen Fault, where the hill meets the Moray Firth. Once common land, the hill was divided between various estates in the 18th century. 2/31

The challenge with organising things in village halls is they aren’t dedicated venues with paid staff, they are fuelled by goodwill. Sometimes the business of fixing the roof and keeping the lights on supersedes curating a dedicated programme of events. Indeed some halls have ended up as the sole responsibility of a single volunteer who becomes the only person who knows how things work and where the fuse box is. It can feel like a thankless task and it isn’t surprising when people get jaded.

The ongoing mission was/is to keep coming back into the halls throughout the project (and hopefully long into the future) so that the venues themselves run through the work like the words in a stick of rock.

https://twitter.com/HI_Voices/status/1601200513697329154

So step two involved me writing songs inspired by the conversations and then coming back into those halls to record them with local singers and musicians. I’m currently ten songs in with notes for three or four more.

Village halls are brilliant places. They’re so versatile and yet can have a real character of their own. My project for #Aiseirigh #CultureCollective aimed to get their usage up after so many had been left empty over lockdown, particularly as culture spaces to share experiences. I didn’t want to just put on events though. Events are great but they only attract events people. I didn’t want to have lots of two-hours-where-a-big-group-of-people-silently-watch-a-small-group-of-people-do-something.

Right so I’ve got two full days left at the helm of the H&I Voices account. I’ve talked about being a crew member of @DunveganFire and working with @SEALLEventsSkye, plus a bit about my past as a touring musician. Today is going to be all about @CultureColSco. The #CultureCollective was set up in the wake of the covid lockdowns as a way of getting money to artists and projects quickly, with funding pots administered by local organisations throughout Scotland (in the case of Skye & Lochalsh it’s @SEALLEventsSkye and #AtlasArts).

Here are some more wildfire shots 🔥 Had enough yet?

An offshoot of being dragged back into the creative industries after a fallow period of burnout is that I’d found a different kind of confidence. The fire service made me feel useful for the first time in my life so I now felt more at ease putting myself forward as an artist. In 2021 @CreativeScots created a covid recovery fund to stimulate the grassroots arts sector that had been so debilitated by lockdown. @SEALLEventsSkye administered the fund for Skye/Lochalsh and created six jobs for artists to do community work in various creative disciplines.

Strangely, at the exact point I’d made the mental leap into no longer thinking of myself as a musician, I got an email out of the blue asking if I’d lead the theatre band for a big stage production. A dream job. But I’d literally just been accepted into the fire service that day. I told them I couldn’t, that I had ties in Skye that made it impossible, despite it being a career ambition. BUT if they didn’t mind me working remotely, I would write the music (despite having not written a single note for over a year and uncertain if I still could).

So I’ve been talking a fair bit about fire service work in #Skye with a few references to my former life in a rock band. I’ve had a few questions from people on here about how/why I made the switch from this guy to this guy. In 2016 @BedlamSix split up after ten years on the road. I threw myself into writing a musical about political spin and populist governments loosely following the structure of the Oedipus myth. You can read all about that here: louisbarabbas.com/jocasta/

You might wonder why a union for tenants is relevant for the Highlands and Islands, when much of the discussion around the rented sector focuses on the central belt. Tenants in rural and remote communities have to fight the same battles, often with harder odds. Poor quality housing, insecure and informal tenancies that leave you homeless when the tourist season kicks off, alongside the social isolation that often means dealing with it alone!

This is Blair Fyffe. Blair is an avalanche forecaster in the Lochaber area. All winter, forecasters go out on the hill every day in several mountain areas all over highlands and monitor snow conditions and avalanche risk. /1 This service is invaluable for mountain safety in winter. Avalanche is one of the dangers in mountaineering that is hardest to fully mitigate. Pic looking over Aonach Mor to Carn Mor Dearg and Ben Nevis. /2

This is St John's Head, Hoy, Orkney. If you can see me in the pic, well done. I'm wearing a red top. It's a very big cliff. I climbed an amazing route here called The Longhope Route. /1 The overhanging top section has this amazing smooth, hard wall pitch which feels more like an alpine north face than a sea cliff. It's an incredible spot. /2

I hate training in the morning. Seems Freida is rather like me. In the first lockdown we did the @thebodycoach 9am workouts. Later, we did our own, after more time for tea first. /1 We recorded some of them, which was a load of fun. I thought Freida did a tremendous job of presenting. I could hardly do some of the exercises for laughing. /2

The parallel roads of Glen Roy, taken from my drone. I live at the foot of this glen and whenever I see the roads, I think of a question I have about Scotland's ice history I have not yet seen a firm answer to. /1 The roads are old Loch shores when the glen was dammed by ice, between 11.5 and 13,000 years ago, during a wee icy period known as the 'Younger Dryas'. This was a very rapid and dramatic cooling and warming of the northern hemisphere. /2

This was 'in' a hospital be in Munich in 2014, the day after having my third ankle surgery on my right ankle. It is handy they put pull-up bars on hospital beds to commence physio early. This a thread about identity. /1 Not a good pic but this was in 2012, a few seconds before the only serious climbing accident I've had (as in injured). I'd just finished an easy new route and was being lowered off. Unfortunately I was lowered off the end of the rope. It's preventable but happens a lot. /2

This is Alicia. This pic was taken in Glen Nevis on the Polldubh crags. I made a film about the climbing here Alicia is a runner, who sometimes climbs. /1 I learned a lot from Alicia about how to be a professional athlete (a masterclass in being strong willed and high tolerance for discomfort). Here she is running Ramsay's Round in Lochaber. /2

While I'm on the subject of the Gorms. This was the first winter ascent of a route called The Hurting on Cairngorm. Nothing to do with my pain thread - that was the name of the summer rock climb already. I just climbed it in winter first. /1 Climbing this was a good transition away from 'apprentice' style climbing, if you will. This was true in a number of ways. /2

A thread about pain and its unexpected resolution. This is Coire and Lochain on Cairngorm the other week. I was out for a walk/run and sat here for a while, enjoying the sun and just the mountain atmosphere. /1 It suddenly hit me that there was something seriously off about how I should be feeling here. It took some time to realise what it was. It was that I was here, but not in pain /2

One of the highlights of the summer was cycling the Great Glen Way with Freida. /1 We went Inverness to Fort William. One downside of my schedule (1st world prob) is that I’m usually training and pushing to do hard stuff all the time. So just going slow and being a kid is a nice contrast. /2