94

I knock on the door at the sad hotel and Louise asks me in. Inside the lobby, there's a bale of straw or hay smelling of the farmyard. I crunch over broken floor tiles. The furniture's in disarray, easy chairs crammed into a corner of a barren room – the dining room I think it was in better days. In the kitchen, a young man tinkers with an odd-looking apparatus consisting of a green oil drum set on a table from which plastic tubes connect with glass bottles on the floor.

‘He's making bio-fuel,’ Louise remarks as we pass through to the wing of the old hotel which has been acquired by someone from the south and now functions as a pub. Leaning on her elbows at the bar, sweeping back her hair with one hand and gesturing with the other, she fixes me in the eye and talks earnestly about her love–hate affair with the hotel, the village, the folk, and her mission in life. She could write a book about it, she says – the title to be You Think I'm Mad but I can Help.

Well, many people think her off-the-wall. As for me, I enjoy listening to her dreams. She's a visionary. I like Louise and I'm not alone. George at Upper Glassburn has a soft spot for her. ‘You can't fail to like and admire her in a funny kind of way,’ he said. ‘She's endlessly cheerful – she brightens up the day.’

The hotel is open house. It seems that people drop in, stay for a while, opt in, opt out, leave. Currently resident are a South African girl and her boyfriend the bio-fuel man.

Louise says she aims to help people in need –‘rescuing’ is her word for it. Among those she has rescued are the 30 Poles who worked in a fish factory in Dingwall and ended up with nowhere to stay. Louise put them up. The council didn't like it, muttering darkly of multi-occupancy and unimpressed by her claim to be running a legitimate hotel. Court action was threatened and the electricity cut off. The Poles left by candlelight.

‘Did you know I'd been living on a croft in Sutherland?’ she asks brightly. No, I didn't. She went there for a spell. It was one of those times when her feelings about Cannich tipped to the dark side and she took flight with her horse and a Shetland pony – I imagine her tramping north à la Stevenson with his donkey but I guess she got transport.

Back in Affric, her plans develop. Currently, she intends to invite volunteers to help her renovate the hotel, in return for which they'll be offered a timeshare in the place.

‘Perhaps you'd like to volunteer?’ she asks brightly.

Darkly, I gaze into my glass.