ESSIE Stewart's story that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about the deal that Macleod of Assynt made with the devil reminded a local worthy of his experience at Loch Assynt about 35 years ago when driving alongside the loch around 1am.
He had heard stories about things that had been seen or heard there such as car occupants seeing lights coming towards them at night; they had swerved to avoid what they assumed was another car and crashed; there was no other car there. But he was sceptical about the stories until his own experience.
He was passing Ardvreck Castle when he saw lights that looked like headlights. Not only that but his vehicle starting stopping and starting and then his brakes seized. He got out of his vehicle to check it and then got back in, wondering what on earth he was going to do. But the van suddenly started up again. The lights had disappeared and no car passed.
He freely admits to having been very scared and he still has no idea what was happening. Weird, eh?
* LIKE your correspondent last week (Letters to the editor - a picture of woe!) I saw the photo in the Guardian of the two children at the Ross County v Celtic match.
I had passed it on to my work colleague whose children are at Dingwall Primary School to see if the children could be identified. If anyone recognised the description of the children in last week's letter (though I had thought one of them was a girl, but it was difficult to tell as they were both so huddled up!) let me know and I'll get the paper to you.
* THERE is still time to sign up for evening classes at The Macphail Centre that are due to start at the end of the month. To exercise both your mind (and your body) there is a wide range of subjects from French to geology to ceilidh dancing and all things in between. For more information phone Chris or Fran at the Macphail on 01854 613336.
* I HAD to laugh during a recent edition of BBC1's Pointless. The contestants all had to choose a correct island (the more obscure the better) from a list of Inner or Outer Hebrides islands, at least one of which would be a wrong answer. The person who thought Corncrake was a one of the less well-known islands cracked me up!
