It all began yesterday, I had been chatting to the kids about our Christmas wreath …

… when they decided it needed something, extra, “a drop of the snow spray”,
they had pleaded and, well, it seemed like such a harmless idea. 
A bit of entertainment for the kids …

… but they just didn’t know when to stop …

… and then disaster!  The button stuck on and into the night the ‘snow’ continued to spray it’s white fluffiness all over …

… by morning it had finally stopped but not before it had layered the land in it’s permanent homage to winters bygone.

You’ve got to love winter and we might have a white Christmas this year … if only it wasn’t so blinkin’ cold!

We’re back from our holidays both refreshed and exhausted.  There are almost 600 photos to sort through; it could be some time before we emerge from the digital darkroom!

In the meantime here’s a picture of Stac Pollaidh at sunrise.  The view from our holiday cottage to this hill was uninterrupted and seemed to change every time we saw it.

Click on the picture to see the full size image.

We spent all week longing to climb this and thinking we couldn’t because the kids aged 5 and 2 wouldn’t be able to.  Well, on the last day of our holiday we decided to see how far we could get with them and they surprised us by climbing all the way to the top, round the back and down again without complaint.  It’s amazing what you can achieve with some fudge and the promise of chips and ice cream!

We got some cracking pictures from the top…well worth the hike, which took us over some very steep terrain with the aforementioned nippers…did I mention how proud of them we are?

If you are ever in the Scottish highlands with your children looking for a hill to climb then we think Stac Pollaidh would make a good choice.  There’s a made path most of the way and on a sunny day at the end of a very sunny week there were no boggy bits.  A map showing the path is available from Ordnance Survey.