I went to an excellent piping recital by silver medalist Cameron Drummond at Tulloch castle. He played a very wide ranging repertoire from pibroch, the Lament for the Earl of Antrim, through to Breton music and ultra modern compositions by Fred Morrison and Ian MacDonald. A very musical player, he is still relatively young and promises a great future
.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVwCXYQnV0w&feature=fvst
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiwKQQAXYuM

Yesterday I was out with the club cycling around the Black Isle in mixed conditions.

On the shore of the Black Isle with oil rigs behind.

Today it was windy again, but dry and sometimes sunny. I cycled out to Foyers along Loch Ness, seeing the occasional red squirrel.

Ponies near Dores

Urquhart Castle and Drumnadrochit

Beyond Inverfaragaig the road begins to climb away from the Loch. This is a very beautiful stretch of road with open views along the loch. In a couple of weeks banks of daffodils will be busy making a display here:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze
Wordsworth

There is also Boleskine house which is said to be haunted because the ghoulish Alastair Crowley performed rituals to raise spirits of the dead from the cemetry below the house.

There are also musket ball impressions in some of the headstones as red coats marching by were provoked by members of a funeral party and fired into their midst. http://www.southlochnessheritage.co.uk/index25.html

Of course Jimmy Page also owned the house because he was a big Crowley fan. I don't think Page spent much time there. Like his infantile hero the reality of the Highlands probably wasn't to his taste.
Jimmy Page at Boleskine House

Jimmy Page in front of Boleskine House. When does the chopper leave for London?

Further on I stopped at Foyers house to admire the view and watch the birds at the busy bird table.

Finally after a stiff climb you reach Foyers where there is a good cafe and you can visit the falls.

Burns wrote this poem about the falls:

Lines On The Fall Of Fyers Near Loch-Ness.

Written with a Pencil on the Spot.
1787
Type: Poem

Among the heathy hills and ragged woods
The roaring Fyers pours his mossy floods;
Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds,
Where, thro' a shapeless breach, his stream resounds.
As high in air the bursting torrents flow,
As deep recoiling surges foam below,
Prone down the rock the whitening sheet descends,
And viewles Echo's ear, astonished, rends.
Dim-seen, through rising mists and ceaseless show'rs,
The hoary cavern, wide surrounding lours:
Still thro' the gap the struggling river toils,
And still, below, the horrid cauldron boils-

After this the road winds along the river before joining the road up from Fort Augustus across the high moorland. At times there was a brilliant winter light on the hills of the Monadhliath and Loch Mor. I was bowled quickly home by a strong wind.