The road to the holidays

There's a part of Argyll where I've had holidays for the last 30 years. Every stretch of the journey there is at once loved and familiar and yet new. Today we pass a yellow boat; looks like it's floating across a field, but there's a canal hidden behind the raised bank. Now we turn off the main road - is the canal bridge closed to let the yachts past?

Are there any Highland cattle in the field today? What about lambs - how many can you count? Should we stop to walk round the lochan and look for signs of beavers? No, not today, because today is the start of the holiday and we're eager to settle in.

There's the stand of trees, so fine, so upright that they always make me want to praise them. The first time we drive past, I'd been humming the song 'The Holy Ground Once More' and found myself mangling the lyrics into 'fine stand you are!' I still sing it to them, every time.

First glimpse of Loch Sween, one of the three main fingers of water it divides into at the landward end. From now on, the road pretty much follows the water's edge. Almost every bend of that one-track road has a memory attached, for me. One of the first times we visited, I was driving super-slow because I wasn't used to passing places then, and so perhaps that's why a fox sauntered across the road, right in front of me, calm as you please!

See that house, it's got a prehistoric chambered cairn in the grounds – when the people there sleep, do they dream, like me, of people who lived and died here thousands of years ago?

Rounding the corner by the farm, remember when there was a horse standing right in the middle of the road? It had escaped from its field. (No damage done.) Looking out for the horses in the farm always reminds me of my mum. When I was little, she used to tell me that if I saw a white horse, I should hold my breath for as long as possible, while making a wish. I thought it was a family tradition so when I eventually had grandchildren, I suggested they do it too. My wish always used to be 'let's have a great holiday'. The bit I didn't tell the grandkids was that my mum finally admitted she had only told me to hold my breath in order to stop my endless chatter! I don't wish on those white horses any more.

Always slow down going past the rocks near the shore - how many seals are on it today? Oh, watch out for the potholes as well! Finally, there are the high walls of Castle Sween, that have been standing guard for at least 800 years.

In medieval times, they quarried the local rocks to make gravestones, and you can still see the carved slabs in the chapel at the seaward end of the loch. In a few days we'll walk further down the road and visit the chapel: it's one of the little routines, pilgrimages if you like, that make up the holiday. Another of the things I feel I must do on every holiday is to leave the road by the old telephone box, and climb up through the fields to the site of an iron age fort on the hill above the caravan site. If it's spring, we always look out for the bluebells on the very last stretch of the road, through the little wood. If it's autumn, the holiday has to include blackberry picking, strolling along the road, with a view of the loch and the sun on our backs. Such a lovely road, and so many lovely holiday memories at beloved Loch Sween!