5.55am Christmas Day! Wake to radio alarm shipping forecast; Force 6 to 8 southerly veering northerly later, Force 5 to 6. Showers. Decide to go for it - turkey still in the freezer anyway.

7.30am Depart Crossapol in pitch dark. Wind blowing up and over graveyard telling me I am going against Nature. Heavens, I have been up at this time in the winter before now. Why do I feel so insecure this morning? Is the Christ Child not out of his manger yet? The torch gets me over the burn plank. Once on the beach the white fury of the waves show the way. Damn, it is high tide. No firm sand to wheel Trumeter over. Trumeter is a hand held stick with metred wheel; our relationship starts off on an uneasy footing. The wind buffets us sideways along the three beaches of Crossapol but is at our back by the time we get to the sand dune track inland. Slowly a thin line of light sketches over Mull.

8.20am Metalled road by Feall Plain. Trumeter is pleased, welcoming the relative smoothness and behaves like a well behaved dog on a lead. Geese, black silhouetted by thin light, clack out of the bog. I no longer need the torch to read Trumeter. Crossapol is 3449.2 metres from the road end. A light on in the Old Castle. Has Nick been up all night wrestling with MacLeans or is Lavinia already doing things with chestnuts? At the empty Roundhouse a strengthening wind yowls in overhead wires. Two Muscovies huddle by the locked doorway, white rimmed black eyes beady as I pass. No soup kitchen today boys...

8.40am Arileod, all lights blazing. Wave Trumeter and thump on window to get witness response. Moira is bent over tying up her shoelaces for her day's walk from the kitchen to byre to kitchen to sink to cooker to table to sink, etc. etc. (Yes, Brian was up, too) Ballard has kitchen lights on as well but an upstairs light just going' off. Aha! Dogs bark in out byres. The dinosour spine of the island's Himalayas shows clearly to the N .E., if greyly. It is as daylight as it will ever be. First ominous spats of rain at the Standing Stones. Gill's leeks in reclaimed Totronald garden stand pround. I wish they were sticks of chocolate. The bull stands with his bum against the Nature Reserve sign at Totronald Plain gate. You are 6521 metres exactly from Crossapol, I tell him. Allan comes down the brae with the tractor just after I have shut the gate. Sorry, Allan. He says he is just out to check up on his cows... Oh yeah? Thanks, Alan... Merry Christmas. The Bents give shelter from a firmly set in smirr. Great billowing seas of windblown sand reach almost to the track as the white ship of Ballyhaugh is glimpsed ahead. Trumeter is not happy; the road left at Totronald will not reappear until Ballyhaugh. Geese and curlews rise. A black cat slopes over the dunes. There are far fewer rabbits here than in the Crossapol bents. But maybe they are all cosy down below doing things with chestnuts, too? The breakers at the Haugh Bay gap are shredded northwards by the wind.

9.30am Ballyhaugh. Silent save six loud warning swans at the lochside. Trumeter rejoices on the road again. We have done 8552.6 metres. An outside light hangs brilliantly under the heather thatched eaves of one of the Pinky and Perky cottages up the hill from Totamore. Caroline's car is parked on the track half way. I try a loud carol but no pixie pops out. It is really WET by now. The tangerine in my mouth feels like the toes in my boots - but must taste better.

9.45am Clabach. Xmas tree lights at window tempt me to tap and look in for further witness to my madness. Pete and Honey cheer me on. It looks very warm and tinselly in there. Very wet and lonely slog up brae and down and past lightless Grishipol.

1O.20am Surprise sustenance courtesy of Jock and Amanda at Cliad Golfcourse! Thermos of hot coffee and the sweetest gooiest piece of Xmas cake. Trumeter's lubrication taken out of rucksack and also imbibed. (First time, honest). And a Xmas present from Wendy personalised 'Happy Feet Peppermint Foot Bath and Balm'. We head to the Crossroads, two of us greatly revived. Amanda keeps going with Trumeter and me to just before the Windy Gap.The twinkling Xmas lights of Gallanach and its new many faceted dignity fade as I breast the truly Windy Gap. 15222.3 metres. Rain slackening.

11.10am Sandy goes by Sorasdalwards refusing to acknowledge my hitch thumb (of course, I wouldn't) after spontaneously slowing down and then remembering...I contemplate my final resting place in Cill Ionnaigh but decide to keep going.

11.15am Alison is dropped off by yet another car refusing me a lift. The Roadman! We plod towards the Fishing Gate. 17322.7 metres. Deprived of her daily run on account of the burgeoning bulge she relishes the walk. Once again I stride stronger.

11.45am Cornaigmore. Sandy and Hamish's heads pop out encouragingly from the shed. (So that's where Sandy was going...)

12.OOam Sorasdal March Gate. 20381.1 metres. Daylight seems to be dimming already. Colin passes with Bunty and Ruth in car. "Well! Well!" says Bunty, 'There's no fool like an old fool!" as she lowers the window. Warmth and a wink rush out. Colin, of course, tries to read the metre with his eagle eye from the driver's side...

1.OOpm Sorasdal! 21616.5 metres. The kettle boiling and the best cup of tea and jeelie sandwiches ever. Trumeter needs lubrication again after being privately reset to zero. Johnie totally agrees. In absentia so does Hugh. Alison says she is a port lady. I worry a little about my starboard before leaving Sorasdal. Knock on Annie's window to make sure there is no bias to the Sorasdal witnessing as I start off on the return journey. Alison drops off at Ceann a Bhaigh road end. The Roadman will have turned the tatties and turkey by now. I still push Trumeter. We have become very attached. Nature calls at Torastan quarries ie. I need a pee. What a palaver are all the wet layers. Why bother? I do of course and then stride homewards - half a mile? I have forgotten Trumeter! Too much lubrication...

2.45pm The Crossroads. The uniformly grey skied day ends the way it began with a line of bright light low on the horizon but now to the south. It spreads into shafts of tentative pale orangey pink high above Grishipol Point. The wind is behind me - just as the shipping forecast foretold. Looking back, wisps of the day's rainclouds cling to Rum. It is very cold. Just before Clabach I think I see a figure up on Ben Haugh. Wishful thinking; it is the triangulation point. The southern sky is shredded now like a young girl's crimped hair Palest gold.

3.3Opm Clabach. No one in the Xmas Tree room to the front. Thro' the kitchen window I gawp like an orphan at The Family seated feasting at the laden table. Everyone is wearing paper hats. "Come in! Come in!" No please.. . just witness me... Honey understands. "Merry Xmas! Keep going!" she shouts thro' the steaming window. At Ballyhaugh Loch the swans have their necks deep in the water - the last feed of the day. The breakers spume southwards but gentler on Haugh Bay. A sliver of platinum cool sky sinks behind Tiree.

4.25pm Totronald Gate. The First Star shines brilliantly; directly ahead above the road between Ballard and Arileod. A great incredible cream and fruit gateau sits on a low table in the Arileod sitting room. I ampeeking in to other people's lives again from the chill dark outside. "Come in! Come IN!" No, no... I mime collapse which does not take much acting. Any extended stop to the plodding rhythm would be fatal Trumeter and I have still the longest bit to go - the last bit.

5.20pm Crossapol Bay. The tide, of course, is up again. The storm gravel a hellish slipping sliding ankle twisting obstacle course. By the Black Rock the worst is over. A benign windless star-laden sky looks down on this tired little mortal. The First Star cuts a silver path across the pewter black sea leading me home.

6.00pm Crossapol! A bath that takes two hours and two long stiff ice-cubed gins (with lemon) make the day well worth celebrating. 43175.9 metres (26'4 miles) in 9hrs. 40 mins walking time. 53,660 steps! Dies Mirabilis. The Christ Child must surely be well tucked up in the manger by now...

Mairi did her Xmas Day Walk '92 in aid of 'Scotland for Bosnia'. £395.80 was raised. Many thanks to all who contributed.