The Ard was one of the sites that Sarah and I visited twice during our project and it seems to have a draw for us.
I usually try to take my dog Nacho on a walk around The Ard in Port Ellen every few days. It’s a small but beautiful peninsula near my home with purple heathers, angular rock faces, fishing boats and small sheds for fishing and other items. All the paths have just been made by the shoes and feet of walkers over time – not man-made or gravel paths.
Normally, I walk a certain way from north to south. When I chose to walk this time, I went the opposite way, backwards for the sole reason of walking the way I wasn’t used to.
I looked around me more, saw colour and shape more intensively as I was out of my routine. I found I took more care with Nacho and really enjoyed the walk as it felt new, fresh and somehow different. Like a parallel universe I had dropped into for a time. How to get into a routine to get out of it so you can see.
For a brief moment I forgot where I was, my vision filled with purple heather, grass and peat. Then I realised, and relief flooded back and I continued to walk.
