The sun shone all day yesterday in a cloudless sky. I spent the afternoon relaxing in the garden reading a fascinating and beautifully written book about a small group of Hebridean islands called The Shiants.

In summer, the grass on the cliff-tops is thick with flowers: bog asphodel and bog pimpernel; branched orchids, the stars of tormentil and milkwort. ‘Under such skies can be expected no great exuberance of vegetation,’ Dr Johnson wrote, but this miniature spangle of Hebridean flora, never protruding its yellows and deep purples more than an inch or two above the turf, is a great and scarcely regarded treasure. I think of it when in England I walk on expensive Persian rugs; the same points of dense, discreet colour, the same proportion of ground to decoration; a sudden flash of the Hebrides in a rich man’s rooms.

You can download the first chapter of 'Sea Room' by Adam Nicolson here.