Ravencroft Skye

Our two cats have very different personalities, and have been this way since the very beginning as tiny kittens.

At nine months old they’re pretty much fully developed now, and they’ve grown into beautiful cats.

Fergus is a quiet cat, reserved in nature, calm and stoic.

He’s generally not the adventurous one of two, and is rarely the leader, preferring to follow Freya.

He’s grown into a big cat, strong and fast, and has become a good hunter.

He favours Hugh, and will often wander over in the evening and stretch out on him, revelling in the stroking and scratching, and purring loudly.

He rarely if ever comes to me for attention in the same way.

Freya is, and always has been, the mischievous one. She is bold and adventurous, always the first to explore something new.

She is vocal and demanding when she wants affection and usually comes to me for that.

Invariably she’s the one who comes up onto the bed overnight wanting an ear rub and will curl up happily on our pillows close to us.

She’s remained physically small, unlike her brother, and is as cute as a button.

However, whenever something has nibbled food that’s been left unattended, or has been digging up the snowdrop bulbs from their pots, it’s almost certain to be Freya.

And of course she was the one that scaled the Christmas tree.

It was always going to be Freya..

We love them, and they’ve enriched our lives immeasurably since they’ve been with us. Life is certainly never boring with cats in the house!

Merry Christmas to you all! I’m wishing you a happy, peaceful festive break, or if it’s manic, that it’s a good manic.

I started this blog to mark the huge lifestyle change of us giving up our jobs and moving to the island to build a home and a new life. That was three years ago.

We’re still working on the house and the croft. Is it ever truly finished? I’m not sure how to finish this, but for now it continues, as we do.

Thank you all so much for being with us as we continue the journey.

The nights now are frosty and very dark, the temperatures often hovering around -2 or -3°C.

Daylight fades by about 3.30pm here now that we’re so close to the winter solstice. Soon the wheel will turn again and the light will begin to return.

At about 4pm we light the woodburner and a few of the candles. Neither are strictly necessary, but for me it’s part of wintering – banishing the dark with real flames in a way that no artificial light can.

And for the solstice, firelight and a bit of natural greenery to mark the power of nature and the return of the light is absolutely needed.

The house becomes a different thing after dark. Smaller, cosier, more embracing without those wide vistas over the Sound and the winter sunlight streaming in through the big windows.

We coorie-in, and as we listen to the rain and wind lashing the croft outside we’re glad of the home we’ve built.

We don’t watch much television but we do love a good movie or documentary and have a huge library of films to ease our way through long winters evenings.

We’ve been waiting for the sales before buying our projector (which proved to be a bit of a waste of time as the model we wanted never was much reduced), but at long last it arrived and was installed.

Husband had already installed a large projection screen that operates via a remote and retracts into the wall above one of the big front windows.

Of course the cats found it all incredibly fascinating and as you can see were keen to help with the audio setup.

We chose an old classic to inaugurate the system and I can quite honestly say that it was like being in a super-comfy cinema! Brilliant resolution and surround-sound audio.

We’re already lining up films for movie evenings, and I need to get working on the popcorn and snacks for that authentic cinema evening experience.

I’m on the case.

Great job, husband ❤️

There are bets on how long the Christmas tree will survive. This is our cats first Christmas and the lure of the shiny things is strong..

Freya is especially taken by it.

We often hear a furtive rustle in the evenings and find her batting the tree ornaments around with her paw. Hugh caught her trying to find a way up into the tree this morning. It’s only a matter of time..

I’ve been doing a bit of festive baking. Sausage and cranberry rolls and frangipane mince pies. I’m going to give Stollen a try later this week. It’s a favourite, and a freshly home-baked one will be so much nicer than a shop bought, mass produced one.

I’m keeping the decorations minimal this year. Firstly we’re still not fully unpacked, and most of them are still in the boxes. And secondly, the cats have more than enough temptation for chaos as it is.

A few candles and fresh evergreen foliage will have to do this year.

We’re approaching the winter solstice very soon now. The days are at their shortest with the sun rising slowly above Loch Nevis at about 9am and setting by 3.40pm.

Short days and long, cold winter nights.

Last week a few of us attended a fire cider making session organised by our local reusable shop, the Selkie Collective.

The herbalist running it was an experienced practitioner, and she talked knowledgeably and at some length about the anti bacterial, probiotic and anti inflammatory properties of the ingredients we were using.

We chopped turmeric root until our fingers were stained bright orange. Into the jars it all went. Then we chopped onion and garlic. Then ginger root. Then a mixture, unique to each of us depending on what we felt like using, of chillies, honey, rosehips, elderflowers, elderberries, fenugreek and other herbs.

The mixture was topped up with organic cider apple vinegar and tops were added to the jars to seal them. To be shaken daily and stored somewhere cool and dark for six weeks.

We tasted the resultant mixture, a winter tonic, that the herbalist had made up some weeks previously. Two tablespoons to be taken every day during the winter months to ward off colds and supposedly strengthen the immune system. I know that modern medical science doesn’t back the claims made by herbalists about this stuff, but it will be interesting to see what effect it has.

In any case, it was delicious!

Fiery, dark and sweet.

We’re waking up to white, crispy mornings heavy with frost and glorious sunrises on these dark, December days.

We’ve had no heavy snow as yet, just heavy frosts.

The cats paws are cold when they come indoors, and their fur is often stiff with frost. It’s their first winter.

Soon it will be the winter solstice and we’ll light candles to welcome back the longer days, the gradual turn of the year and return of the light.

Wishing you all moments of peace and relaxation in the often busy approach to Christmas.

We’ve hit December with frosty mornings and snow on the mountain tops. The nights are cold and clear with breathtaking shows of the stars and the Milky Way.

This is the point at which I normally decorate the house for Christmas.

I’ve asked Hugh if he can reach the boxes containing the Christmas tree and decorations. He thinks he can get to them through the labyrinth of book boxes and furniture that we haven’t yet brought indoors, so I’m hopeful we may have some festive cheer in place before the week is out.

In the meantime I’ve broken into my first pot of cranberry mincemeat and I’ve made my first batch of cranberry frangipane mince pies.

They were supposed to be for the freezer but the test pie was so delicious that we couldn’t resist. A few made it in there.

A few friends arrived unexpectedly in the afternoon and we polished off the remainder of the tray over cups of tea.

I’ve also been potting up snowdrops in terracotta containers, for us and for gifts for friends.

They’re just starting to push their tips up through the compost so even though they won’t be in flower for Christmas Day they’ll hold promise for the dark days of January.

I hope.

I don’t know if you have this too, but in our calendar year we have clusters of birthdays. They’re not nicely evened out over the year.

No, they’re bunched together like squabbling ducks in two hefty and expensive waddles, June/July and October/November.

There’s not a problem with that, of course. It’s lovely to have friends to celebrate birthdays with.

But it does mean that I’m baking birthday cakes quite a lot at this time of the year.

This is the latest one, a chocolate and hazelnut creation that will soon be bouncing down the bumpy croft track on its way to a friend a few miles away.

I gave up all hope of finding my piping bag which is still buried somewhere in the boxes, and bought a cheap set of piping nozzles online. We have swirls again.

It was only last week that a lemon and elderflower one made a very similar journey, and the week before that another one.

It’s not the baking of them that’s the challenge, although to be honest I’m not a great baker of cakes, and even worse at decorating them. It’s the transportation of them over these awful roads full of potholes, blind bends and precipitous gradients.

I normally ask Hugh to drive whilst I sit there in the passenger seat clutching the cake, sometimes in a tin, sometimes on a plate, depending on how fragile it seems. I act as a sort of secondary suspension, balancing and re-levelling it dynamically as best as I can as we bounce along avoiding cars and potholes.

I’ve only lost one, to be honest. And that was my fault. I tripped over the doorstep as I left the house and watched my strawberry crème patisserie creation arc gracefully into the evening air and crash land upside down on the gravel.

Before I even got to the car.

Autumn on the island seems to serve up the most amazing sunrises.

This morning was incredible – it looked as if the sky was on fire. I snapped this with my iPhone through the bedroom window at about 7.30am.

We were both up not long afterwards. The cats were keen to be out first thing and disappeared into the long grass on the croft as soon as the door was opened.

Ferg turned up with his breakfast vole ten minutes later, agitating to be let in. They’ve both turned into good hunters, which is helping to keep the rodent population on the croft to almost manageable levels.

I’ve also been making piccalilli, slightly late for Christmas, but probably just in time. It takes five to six weeks to mature at minimum and I want some for the Boxing Day table. There’s nothing like piccalilli with cold ham or turkey.

Best friend Jan makes the most divine piccalilli. I remember doing a blindfold taste test many years ago with a spoonful of her homemade tasted against Fortnums finest. Hers won. I’ve used her recipe to make mine this year.

The pantry is now full of homemade cranberry mincemeat, tomato chutney and piccalilli, so I’m feeling reasonably prepared for Christmas from a condiment perspective.

Here’s to slow mornings, great sunrises, dark, starry skies and great chutney.