Two and a half weeks ago I was on the Greek island of Rhodes, soaking up some rays. This weekend, I was in the West Highlands of Scotland - getting soaked.

Rhodes and Scotland are at opposite ends of Europe,and there are some interesting comparisons to be made.

The beautiful views from my hotel rooms, for example:

Guess which one is in Scotland…

Up in the north of Scotland, the clouds were so low (or we were so high up) that it looked like smoke or steam was coming out of the ground. It seemed to be so perpetually damp I could not imagine that there could ever be a problem with forest fires (which there are in Greece, which is really hot and dry), but apparently there is:

Another interesting comparison is the animals one comes across in the course of the day. In Rhodes there were cats everywhere. They were really cute and I ended up taking more pictures of them than anything else. If this makes me a philistine then I am sorry!

The Greek donkeys were rather nice too:

In Scotland there are cows and sheep and some birds of prey, and rather a lot of frogs.

We walked about 20 miles yesterday. I like walking for similar reasons as I like dancing. I kind of retreat into my own head and either I don’t think about anything other than what I am doing or I feel like I can sort things out with a clarity it’s hard to find in my everyday life. Now we’re in Glasgow all that beauty is less than two hours away by train. You walk straight off the train into the most wonderful countryside, where the air smells really clean, a bit like cinnamon chewing gum. I feel so lucky to be here.

On the other hand, I do need a bit of sunshine… I wish I could be close to both places!