I have the door shut against the midges but the early sunlight pours through the window. Most summers this would be unremarkable. However, this summer has been dreich. The relentless sunshine and heatwaves of the rest of the country have been entirely absent here, and I’ve become used to waking to low grey cloud and rain. The strength of the sunlight thus surprises me. I can almost feel the pressure of its photons on my skin, its streaming particles settling and absorbing themselves into my eagerly waiting body.
I sit in front of the window and bask. The light is so warm and golden, it seems almost alien—a rare presence entering the room—and the sun itself, clearing the trees beyond the garden, a strange, new globe, hanging upwards in the sky.
Photographers talk about the golden hour, when the rising or setting sun shows the world softly, but this is more than that. This is a holy hour, a singular hour, an untimed hour of precious illumination. As I look, already thin strands of cloud begin to draw themselves across the sky.
The veil is being woven once more.
Lochinver, Assynt, Scotland
3rd August 2026