Author: Lesley

We’re enjoying a good summer on the island this year, but I’ve detected a touch of autumn in our days already. The season is starting to turn.

Mornings often have that misty, dewy start to them before the sun rises high enough to burn it off. The brambles in the hedgerows are starting to turn to black, a seasonal harvest that I love.

Wild blackberries, called brambles in Scotland, are fragrant, juicy, and smaller but much more intense in flavour than the imported, cultivated supermarket varieties. Supermarket berries are huge and glossy, promising much but delivering little. I usually have a container of the local ones saved jealously into the freezer ready for apple pies and puddings over the dark winter months.

The lane at the bottom of our croft is a veritable tangle of brambles, all starting to ripen now. I’ve been laid a bit low with a summer flu bug for the last week but we have promised ourselves a foraging session this weekend to see what we can glean.

Between the rain and the midges, good outdoor eating nights are a rarity here on the island, so we grab them when we can.

Summer foods are the absolute best thing about summer. Especially if we get to eat them outside – double bonus points in my book.

And if there’s a fire too, definitely triple bonus points. So tonight we’ll be firing up the firepit for grilled mackerel, new potatoes and salad, followed by summer trifle. We have so much mackerel that we’ll batch grill it and freeze it cooked and flaked, or turned into pate.

Grilled fresh mackerel about to go onto the grill over the firepit. Firm and fresh, ready for eating.

Grilled and smoky.

Small, sweet cherry tomatoes from the polycrub, picked as they ripen daily, just a small handful at a time. Mainly Sungold so far, which has done really well for us this year, and has a beautiful flavour.

Lettuce that actually tastes of something, fresh and crunchy from the croft. And celery, my surprise growing success this year.

New potatoes, small and firm, to be simply cooked and served drenched in butter

Summer trifle with peaches and cream for afters.

The land and the seas here provide such good eating. We’re loving our summer food.

Life is good.

Never let it be said that life on a rural croft on a remote Scottish island is boring. Every day brings its new challenges and adventures – just not those that you’d perhaps anticipated.

I was given the chance to look after this little bundle of puppy loveliness the other day. Friends needed four hours to do some work on their boat and Woody was too young to go out with them yet.

Young animals are just adorable. Woody hasn’t grown into his feet and his ears yet, so he bundles along, tail wagging furiously and ears flying in the wind. He has little sharp milk teeth and fur as soft as silk.

He wanted so badly to play with the kittens, but they weren’t having any of it. We got the hissing and back arching displays, tails all fluffed up to look more menacing, along with the tortured looks at us at our sheer audacity entertaining a DOG in their house. What were we thinking?

Talking of the kittens, I should perhaps mention the rodent situation.

Our two intrepid hunters are now making significant dents in the croft vole and shrew population. Not a day goes by without a catch, and often several. Just what we’d hoped for. Sadly their idea of fun is to bring their catch into the house and we spend countless hours chasing them back out. Or finding sad little remnants or chewed bits of body scattered across the floors.

Freya catches and plays with them, but Fergus, always one for a free meal, eats them. Which in a way I’d prefer, as our bins are filling up with kitchen-roll wrapped corpses. If we throw them outside they just bring them back in again..

Never a dull day!

Every now and then when the pressure of self build gets too much, whether that be plaster-boarding, electrics or painting, we have a joint supper with fellow self-builders in exhausted celebration of progress, or lack of it. Usually a bit of both.

Our self-build friends are also crofters a few miles away and their home is very nearly ready for occupation. It’s looking great. So they’re at the “exhausted but determined to get it habitable” stage that we know so well., aiming to be in before the autumn gales hit.

So tonight we’re loading up the boot of the car with curries, rice and flatbreads and heading over the windy road to the western side of the peninsula to their caravan. They can collapse with a beer or a G&T and we can all pile in. Easy, hearty food meant for sharing. We even take the dirty pans away with us 😊.

Tonight we’re having a chicken korma and a saag halloumi, with flatbreads and rice. I’ve been cooking all afternoon so I’m looking forward to tasting it all.

Supporting each other through this lengthy and sometimes soul-destroying process is so important. Two years and counting of hard work and decisions for both of us.

The occasional curry may not solve our plastering problems, but an evening of chat, laughter and good food definitely helps.

The day has come at last. Two and a half years after delivery, the static caravan has just left the croft on the back of a transporter to be delivered to a family in the next village just starting their self-build journey.

We’d seen the new house build start in the next village, and noted that progress had stopped completely about nine months ago. The house tarps and temporary roof coverings were starting to fray in the wind and the site was looking sad and empty. We wondered what had gone wrong.

Builder problems. We know that feeling.

In desperation the couple had been staying in a tent on-site to try and get things moving again, but with two young children that wasn’t going to be sustainable for any length of time. There was no accommodation to be had for love nor money on the island in peak season.

We had always planned to pass the caravan on. We’d been gifted it for free from a kind local on the island when we first moved here, and we wanted to do the same for someone that needed it when the time came.

The time came.

In the end it all happened very quickly. We heard about the problems that they were facing and offered them the static. They came and took a look. A bit shabby, but watertight. They accepted.

We took a couple of days to empty it of our remaining stuff and give it a clean. Husband disconnected the water, sewerage and electricity and removed the cables and pipes connecting it to the house services.

He then lost several hours of his life emptying the tonne bags of type 1 that had been tethering it down so that it could be more easily manoeuvred out of position. Of course, two years in and the contents of the bags had compacted and seized together like cement, necessitating a drill to help break it up.

But we made it in time with weary backs and relief, and when the transporter rolled up our windy hill at 8.30 am this morning, we were ready.

The end of an era, as a friend said. And of course also the start of a new one. I shan’t miss living in it, but it kept us dry and safe for two and a half years, making progress on our house build possible. Those years also gave us some great memories and were a big part of this adventure.

I confess to being a little emotional as it trundled down the hill leaving nothing but a patch of weeds, a few empty gas bottles and a strong feeling of time marching on.

We were sitting on the sofa the other day sharing a coffee and chewing the fat on house build challenges with a friend. He was distractedly gazing at the view through our big French windows when suddenly he spotted something unusual in the Sound.

He’s clearly got better eyesight than both of us, as it took us several seconds to see what he had noticed. But then there it was. Fins in the water.

A large pod of dolphins in the Sound, maybe even two. We excitedly trained binoculars onto them to better follow their movements.

They were jumping and cavorting, probably following a shoal of fish. We counted at least two dozen of them. There’s something so joyous and uninhibited about a pod of dolphins, and I still pinch myself in disbelief at our luck when I see something like this right from the house.

Pods of dolphins are a common sight around the island in the summer months.

Our friend also told us a story of an overnight visitor last week which I must share with you, as it was so special.

He and his partner live in a caravan on their croft a few miles away whilst they are building their house. Much as we did.

One night last week he was roused from sleep in the small hours of the morning by the sound of the cat flap pushing open. Realising that their cat was on the bed next to him, he got up to investigate.

Walking around the caravan in the pre-dawn light he couldn’t see anything untoward. But then he heard the cat flap go again, and moving towards the door he caught the visitor on the way out. It was a young otter!

Once it realised that it had been detected it shot away quickly. But what a special encounter. And absolutely not what you’d expect to find roaming around in your caravan at night.

Young otters are known to be very inquisitive creatures, and a number of them regularly cross their croft via the burn that runs down into the sea about half a mile away.

We apparently have an otter on our croft too, although I haven’t seen it yet. It was spotted late one evening by the same friend crossing our access track on the way to our burn.

How amazing is it that we share our lives, however unwittingly, with such wildlife. It makes us even more determined to protect that privilege and maintain a habitat for them here where they can thrive.

This highland morning dawns at around 4am, with a pale sun, a fine drizzle and cloudy skies. A cool breeze from the partially open windows stirs the blinds.

I lie in bed next to my husband, still asleep although smothered in kittens, and listen to the rain on the windows. I can hear a fair wind blowing around the eaves of the house across our exposed, hilltop croft. The kittens stir, reform themselves into more comfortable circles of fur between us, and settle again.

Soon it will be time to get up and make coffee and breakfast, but for now I’m content to lie here in the comfort of bed and enjoy the tranquility of this morning.

I use this quiet time to think, and plan, and sometimes make lists. Shall I bake baguettes this week? Do I have enough bread flour? I must add avocados to my shopping list. I think I’ll use those freshly pulled carrots in a salad later today. And I should remember to sow more beetroot seed this week.

Nothing of great importance, just the mental jottings of a small, contented life.

We are back after our Manchester trip, and there’s nothing quite like time away to create a fine appreciation of home comforts.

The comfort of our own bed. The cats snoozing peacefully in rare moments of stillness. The pleasure of good bread, croft eggs with rich orange yolks and slow breakfasts together. Settling back into the comforting groove of our particular life. Not a life for everyone, but one that fits us just perfectly.

It’s good to be home.

Our youngest son (well, my stepson to be accurate) has just graduated from university in Manchester with a first class Bachelor’s degree.

We’re very proud. That’s both of the sons fledged and graduated, both with firsts. They’re smart, happy, well-adjusted young people – who could ask for more?

We’ve always been more interested in them being their authentic, creative selves than in their capacity to make money, so we’re delighted that they’ve both wanted to follow an arts path.

Although of course they’re finding it tough, as I suspect most young people do at the start of their careers, with one acting and one making films, making ends meet with bar jobs and other things as best they can.

Three days in Manchester has been a bit of a challenge for me, to be honest. I’m not used to cities any longer. It’s been fabulous to be able to celebrate with grandparents and the boys, but I’m already missing the cats and the tranquility of the croft.

I clearly just can’t hack it any longer!

Husband is getting good at this fishing thing.

Mackerel are in the sound, and we now have a freezer full of them. The season for them is short, so I’m glad to make the most of them. The day gets to a certain point and I can see him checking the tide tables. Next thing he’s off to Armadale Pier with his fishing rod and a bucket, and a few hours later he’s home again with it full of fish.

Yesterday he caught over thirty mackerel.

We cooked the first few batches of them on the fire-pit, roasting them until their juices spat on the hot coals and the air filled with fragrant smoke. We ate what we could and stripped the remaining fillets, freezing the flesh into bags for mackerel pâté and other uses.

The last thirty we filleted, and packed separated by layers of greaseproof paper to stop them freezing together. We will flour, season and pan-fry or grill most of these over the coming months.

Many have gone to friends and neighbours, and the rest will sustain us through the rest of the year.

I need to start smoking and canning these. I have such amazing memories of an Alaskan friend Rene’s jars of home smoked salmon, some of the most delicious I’ve ever tasted. I’m sure that mackerel would lend itself to the same treatment.

It’s on the project list!