The Highlands, friendship, and remembering who we are.
I’ve just returned from a trip to the Scottish Highlands that has stayed with me in ways I didn’t quite expect.
I went with one of my closest friends, Lottie. We’ve been friends for over 20 years — the kind of friendship shaped by shared adventures, big conversations, and chapters of life that have unfolded side by side. This trip wasn’t just a holiday. It was a reminder of who we were, who we are, and how much strength can sit quietly beneath the surface.
Four years ago, Lottie suffered a concussion after falling from her daughter’s scooter on the way home from school drop-off. A moment that should have been insignificant became life-altering. Her road to recovery has been long, frustrating and relentlessly hard. The kind of recovery that doesn’t follow a neat curve, where progress is measured in tiny increments and setbacks are part of the landscape.
Before her injury, Lottie was endlessly active. She’s a clinical psychiatrist, but also someone who raced downhill mountain bikes, windsurfed, surfed, ran — movement was part of her identity. For years, even simple activities drained her completely. Her “brain battery”, as she describes it, would deplete so suddenly it could feel almost paralysing. Social situations, noise, light — things most of us barely register — became overwhelming.
Which is why this trip felt so significant.
Over the course of our time in the Highlands, Lottie walked for over three hours at a time. She climbed mountains. She navigated uneven ground, wind, rain and long days. She went out for dinner in a pub — the first time she’s been able to do that in years. Watching her do these things, not bravely in a loud way, but steadily and with determination, was genuinely moving.
She showed grit, resilience and patience in its truest form. Not the glossy, Instagram-friendly kind, but the real version — showing up, listening to her body, resting when she needed to, and then going again.
This trip also brought something else into focus for me: how vital adventure is to my sense of self.
Lottie and I used to travel like this before children and responsibilities reshaped our days. Maui. Cape Verde. Even hiking up Ben Nevis together when we were both three months pregnant — something that feels faintly ridiculous in hindsight, but perfectly us at the time.
Somewhere between school drop-offs, rugby club, surf life saving, football, work, and the constant mental load of “mumming”, it’s easy to forget that adventure is part of who I am. That connection to wild places, to movement, to shared experience — it hasn’t gone away, it’s just been quieter.
Being in the Highlands reawakened that part of me.
I felt deeply connected again — to nature, to Lottie, and to myself. Long walks through shifting weather, lochs reflecting endless shades of blue, rust-coloured leaves underfoot, deep greens layered across hillsides, and the sharp, bright white of snow sitting cleanly on the peaks. There’s something about being immersed in landscapes like this that strips things back and sharpens your thinking.
Even work found its way into the rhythm of the trip. While Lottie took her afternoon recovery sleeps, or headed to bed early when her brain battery ran low, I worked on a few ongoing projects. Without trying, the environment began to seep into the work itself. Colour palettes for a brand evolution I’m currently working on were directly inspired by what surrounded us — the deep blues of the lochs, the earthy rusts of autumn leaves, the layered greens of the trees, and that crisp Highland white of snow that brings clarity and contrast.
It was a quiet reminder that creativity doesn’t always come from pushing harder. Sometimes it comes from stepping outside, slowing down, and letting yourself be influenced by where you are.
A note for anyone walking a similar path
I also wanted to share this story for anyone reading who may be going through something similar to Lottie.
Recovery — particularly brain injury recovery — is rarely linear. It’s full of progress and setbacks, hope and frustration, good days followed by days that feel like you’ve gone backwards. Watching Lottie over the past four years has shown me just how isolating that can be.
But this trip was proof that things can change.
Not overnight. Not without effort. And not without listening closely to your limits. But change is possible. Strength returns. Capacity grows. Life expands again, sometimes in ways you don’t expect.
If you’re in the middle of it right now, feeling stuck or exhausted or wondering if things will ever improve, I hope this offers a small amount of hope. Someone else is walking that road too. Someone else has felt the setbacks and still found moments of progress, joy and reconnection.
This trip wasn’t about conquering mountains. It was about recovery, reconnection, and remembering. Remembering the strength it takes to keep going when progress is slow. Remembering friendships that have carried decades of change. And remembering that adventure — in whatever form it takes — is not a luxury, but a vital part of who we are.
I came home tired, inspired, grounded, and deeply grateful. For nature. For friendship. And for the reminder that even in the busiest seasons of life, there is still space to find your way back to yourself.
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