Is There a Perfect Place?

I don’t think there’s a perfect place in the world.

At least not in the way travel brochures try to sell us one.

It doesn’t have to be the warmest place. Or the coldest. It doesn’t need the highest mountain or the clearest water.

Although sometimes, those things certainly help.

I think perfection has far less to do with what a place looks like than how it makes you feel.

I’ve got one.

I’ve been going there for about twenty years.

It’s a little rocky outcrop on the banks of one of Scotland’s most famous lochs.

The view is breathtaking.

On a calm day the loch can look like polished glass, reflecting the hills that surround it. Other days it’s alive with ferries, boats and waves pushed along by the wind. It’s peaceful. It’s beautiful. And despite how well known the loch is, this little corner somehow still feels hidden away.

You don’t stumble across it by accident.

It’s tucked away at the end of a dead-end road, beside a hotel and a waterfall, overlooking the loch. It’s the sort of place you only really find if you’re looking for it, or if somebody once showed it to you.

I’ve been there hundreds of times.

I’ve camped there.

I’ve walked past it.

I’ve swam from it.

I’ve sat there in the pouring rain and in blazing sunshine.

I’ve watched the sunrise.

I’ve watched the sunset.

I’ve sat there with a beer.

I’ve sat there in complete silence.

I’ve written there.

I’ve sketched there.

Sometimes I’ve gone because life was good.

Sometimes I’ve gone because life wasn’t.

I’ve taken dogs there that are no longer with us.

I’ve taken my daughter.

My nieces and nephews.

My wife.

Friends.

The memories have slowly gathered there over the years without me ever really noticing.

That’s probably what I love most about it.

I’ve changed over those twenty years.

I’ve become a husband.

I’ve become a father.

I’ve changed jobs.

I’ve grown older.

I’ve said goodbye to people and animals that once stood beside me on those rocks.

The place hasn’t.

Every time I go back, it feels like meeting an old friend who never moved away.

It’s only about an hour and a half from home, but it feels much further than that.

Far enough that the world seems to quieten down.

If I died tomorrow that is where I would want my ashes scattered.

There are other places that mean the world to me.

The house I grew up in.

The home where my wife and I have built our lives and watched our daughter grow.

Those places are filled with memories too.

But this place is different.

It asks nothing of me.

It doesn’t expect conversation.

It doesn’t care what sort of week I’ve had.

It simply waits.

Exactly as it always has.

And somehow, that’s enough.

Maybe that’s what makes somewhere perfect.

Not because it’s the most beautiful place on Earth.

But because it’s where your life quietly happened.

You leave little pieces of yourself there over the years until, one day, you realise part of you belongs there too.

Now I’m curious.

Do you have somewhere like that?

A place that feels like home, even though it isn’t?

A place you keep going back to without ever really knowing why?

And one last thing...

From the clues I’ve given, I wonder if anyone knows where I’m talking about.

One of Scotland’s most famous lochs.

A hotel.

A waterfall.

A dead-end road.

A ferry.

If you think you know, don’t spoil it for everyone else.

Just tell me you’ve been there.

I’d love to know if we’ve unknowingly stood in exactly the same place.

That’s my Abstract Take.