Here is the front door for Tighshee, a simple cottage.  However what you can see beyond those sheep is the Sound of Mull, and the view is even better from our bedroom upstairs.  One of the windows into the lounge, their name for the living room, is on the left, and with another window on the opposite side creating a bright, pleasant space.

While it is still very windy with random showers blowing through, we hiked up to the north end beaches.  The walking is through pastures, and this trinity of cows were taking it easy with the rock sheltering them from the worst of the wind.   You can see the rain covering the island in the distance.

The tide was low, so the beach was beautiful, parts were rugged with rock and others were covered with white sand.  This side of the North end of Iona is Lewisian Gneiss, which predates any living creatures on earth.  The island is all that remains of a mountain that once was a high as the Himalayas worn down by millennia of erosion by wind and water. 

 We attended a communion service at Iona Abbey by the Iona Community tonight.  The leader quoted Ellen Degeneres speaking to the need to hold onto hope in these times of destruction and death.  The service leader had us turn to someone we didn't know and describe what we see that gives us hope.  The beauty of this place, while battered with turbulent wind and pounding waves, gives me hope that I, that we can live through these times with grace and beauty.