Author: Lesley

After a prolonged spell of wet weather we’ve had a cold, crisp, dry day at last. The sun shone weakly and the cats have been running around the croft relishing being outside.

I’ve done very little today and I’m enjoying the rest. Hugh filled up the log basket and has been working away on the VAT reclaim. The woodburner is ticking away quietly in the corner. I’ve been preparing a quiet, low-key New Years meal for us both.

We’re having Orkney Bororay rack of lamb with a fresh herb crust, dauphinoise potatoes and the remains of the fresh vegetables – mainly carrots and parsnips – which I’ll roast alongside the meat.

When I donned my wellies and squelched my way out to the polycrub this morning (well done me! All thirty metres away 😋) the croft was totally saturated from the rain. A complete quagmire. But inside the polycrub it was calm and the winter lettuces that I had sown in October are happily growing away despite the cold. The few extra degrees of protection that the polycrub provides makes all the difference.

Freya sunbathed for a bit in her favourite spot wedged into the side cushion of the sofa where she can watch everything that goes on. The sun caught the little hairs on her ears and she looked quite angelic for a few minutes. Or maybe a bit like a gremlin. Do not be fooled.

Wishing you all a peaceful and happy New Years Day.

Hogmanay in Scotland, where we live, is a big thing. More important than Christmas as a celebration, and with stronger traditions.

My father was a Scotsman from Edinburgh and his birthday was today, Hogmanay. A double whammy of a celebration, and I often wonder how it was marked when he was a child growing up in post-war Edinburgh. Sadly he’s no longer with us to ask. Why do we never think to ask these questions whilst they’re still with us, I wonder.

He made very sure that we knew our roots when we were growing up, despite the fact that we moved from Scotland when I was four years of age. Wherever we lived the routine was always the same. My mother would scrub the house from top to bottom and empty the laundry bin in the days running up to Hogmanay so that we saw the new year in as we meant to go on, with everything clean. It was considered bad luck if we entered the new year otherwise.

My father would dutifully stand outside in the cold on the stroke of midnight with a piece of bread and a lump of coal, if he could find one. If we couldn’t find a tall, dark stranger to undertake the first footing, which often perplexed our English neighbours, he would do it himself.

On the stroke of midnight he’d pour a glass of Drambuie for my mother and himself to toast in the new year. It was the only time he drank spirits in the house and our bottle of Drambuie lasted for many years and many house moves! Being an army family it followed us around in our packing boxes for what seemed an eternity.

We will be spending New Years Eve quietly with a couple of friends, a glass or two of wine and some supper. I often don’t make it to midnight, and I certainly haven’t cleaned the house especially. Maybe a traditional steak pie for New Year’s Day. We all make our own traditions.

I wish you all a happy and healthy new year. May 2025 be everything you wish it to be. May your hearth always be warm and as they say in these parts with affection, “lang may yer lum reek!”

It’s that time of year where the remains of the Christmas feasts need to be eaten before they go off. I can’t bear food waste, and the freezer is still full, so imaginative and slightly unusual meals are being prepared with glorious abandon.

We used up half a pot of sour cream, a slightly soft avocado and a couple of ends of cheese that needed grating and melting to be delicious again in a huevos rancheros breakfast this morning.

I even found a pot of spicy Chica salsa in the pantry, so that was a win, although technically that had no chance of going off.

Later today I shall strip the turkey and we shall make turkey leek and mushroom pie and a large pot of turkey stock for soup and Hughs famous chicken rice (made with currants and pine nuts, it’s delicious comfort food).

And although this has never yet happened, should there be any panettone left over at the beginning of next week I’ve got a bread and butter pudding lined up.

My favourite food time of the year!

Let the festivities begin!

I deemed it close enough to Christmas to cut into the annual panettone for breakfast this morning.

This has become a bit of a new tradition in our home since I stopped making Christmas cakes a few years ago.

Young people (stepson and his housemates) are making their way to us via train and bus for Christmas as I type so this will be our last quiet breakfast with just the two of us for a while.

It seemed appropriate to have our annual treat of panettone with our coffee whilst the house is still calm.

This year I bought two boxed panettone- a pistachio cream one and a traditional one with dried fruits and candied peel. Husband viewed the pistachio one with deep disdain as it’s covered in white chocolate which he believes is the invention of the devil.

All the more for me then ..

Merry Christmas everyone! Wishing you a warm and cozy festive season with love from Skye.

I have always had a love of old, well-made things. The current trend of throwing things out because they’re no longer in fashion is so wasteful and unsustainable.

If I can, I try to reuse and refurbish things. Most of our furniture (our sofas, footstool, dining room chairs, desk etc) are secondhand, and the main reason isn’t cost, but because I think that they’re better made than most modern furniture and I like that things can be refurbished rather than filling up landfill.

A good case in point are my two big Ercol renaissance chairs. They were picked up in London in lockdown for about £50 as they’re big and unfashionable, and I always intended to refurbish them. They’re solid ash frames, and very comfortable, and great reading chairs, as they’re generous enough in width to tuck your feet up if you wish.

They’ve just been re-covered by a local upholsterer on the island in a wool fabric from Abraham Moon, a British mill in Yorkshire.

Once the weather is better and I can drag them outside for sanding down, varnish removal and oiling they’ll be good for another fifty years.

I’ve also been picking up Ercol cowhorn dining chairs where I can.

This particular model from the 1960s has a thick elm seat and a steam-bent beech rail at the top. It may not be fashionably minimalist, but it’s comfortable and solid. It’s older than I am! I think that’s wonderful.

As time went on Ercol made the seats thinner and stopped using elm altogether, replacing it with oak due to the scarcity of elm wood. But I love elm.

Again, a few new seat cushions and a bit of refinishing next spring and they’re good to go for many more years.

It’s been blowing a stiff north-easterly wind over these past few days, cold and biting. It cuts through your jumper and chills to the bone.

North-easterlies are our typical winter wind up here on the island. I imagine it blowing from the snowy tundra of Europe, arriving here still laden with the scent and snow of Siberia.

So it’s been particularly frustrating that our trusty woodburner, our number one weapon in our arsenal of winter cosiness, has always refused to burn properly in an easterly wind.

For whatever strange reason when there’s an easterly it creates a down-draught which blows the smoke back into the burning chamber of the stove and smothers the flames. As you can imagine this has been particularly galling as it’s usually in the teeth of storm or a cold snap when you need it most.

After a bit of research online Hugh found a different chimney cowl called a fluecube (www.fluecube.co.uk), a devilishly clever little chimney pot designed for woodburning stoves.

Made of stainless steel, it stops down-draught and is robust enough to cope with the severe weather we get in these northerly climes. It also increases the working efficiency of the fire and helps to reduce carbon emissions.

We waited for a calm day so that installation wouldn’t be too perilous, and the opportunity eventually came on a day last week which dawned without wind and rain, a rare day in a Hebridean December!

Out came the big ladder.

The intrepid husband did the deed with me holding the ladder, removed the old chimney pot, and installed the new one. Here is sits in all its glory.

It looks deceptively simple, doesn’t it? But it’s revolutionised the working efficiency of the stove. Definitely recommended.

This is the woodburner now crackling away merrily in a full easterly wind. I am delighted. A winter of glorious fires awaits and I for one could not be happier.

We have a building warrant at last!

Our final inspection was successful, the certificates for air tests, EPC rating and electricals have all been submitted, and we received building warrant approval a few days ago.

To say that we are relieved and emotional is an understatement.

This house build has been a mammoth undertaking with the bulk of the learning curve and the hard work landing squarely on Hugh.

It’s easy to forget that we didn’t start this journey expecting to have to build this house ourselves four years ago. It was a decision that was made for us by the failure of our builders and the rapidly escalating costs of materials and labour during lockdown and beyond.

If Hugh hadn’t stepped up to the plate and learned how to fit guttering, insulation, MVHR ducting, underfloor heating pipes, wiring and electricals, all the plumbing and the groundworks and countless other things we wouldn’t be here today.

I am so proud of him and his perseverance in the teeth of such adversity.

There have been times that I despaired, truly worried that we would lose heart completely and that we would never finish the build. There have been so many let-downs and disappointments along the way. But there have also been friends who helped and sustained us throughout this process.

We’ve done it.

There are of course lots of cosmetic things still to finish in the house – painting, skirting boards, door threshold plates, a terrace etc. Is a house ever truly finished? It’s always evolving, a moving feast. We still have no artwork up on the walls and a shed full of boxes remain unpacked.

But we have an energy efficient, warm home, one that’s strong enough to withstand the highland storms and hold us safely.

I love the open space, the light, the views, the feeling of being within nature, surrounded by open croftland as we are. I love being so close to the sea and being on top of a hill with the skylarks and ravens and swallows wheeling around us. I love the kindness that we’ve experienced from people who’ve embraced us as part of the local community.

We celebrated with a large sausage roll with cranberries, a glass or two of fizz and a few happy tears.

We’ve done it.

It was an early morning this Sunday, up baking fresh baguettes for breakfast with a few to share with our local crofters cooperative.

We share labour on the local crofts on one Sunday each month, and the host croft provides lunch.

Warm, freshly baked bread is always a welcome contribution.

We’ve had snowfall in this last week up here on Skye, although it’s melting now. Blue skies, cold bright sunshine and drifts of powdery snow.

The polycrub is covered and the vegetable beds are buried, the occasional kale or Brussels sprout stem sticking up like a strangled beacon.

I love the snow. Although not the icy slippyness of it underfoot.

I’ve become nervous of it in my old age now, overly cautious. I miss the recklessness of youth, throwing myself into the snow with no thought or fear, just the joy of the sensation. Back in the day when fitness wasn’t a problem and my knees still worked properly.

Today I enjoy it more from my armchair by the fire, watching it swirl around the house through our big windows, happy to be warm and comfortable.