Tag: cold wet island

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The final few yards

It’s less than a week now until we move, and we’re starting to flag a bit.

Every room is full of boxes, either full or waiting to be filled, lining the rooms like some cardboard termite mound whilst we squeeze through tunnels between them.

It’s tiring. Both the constant decision making process – to store, to the caravan, to the charity box, to trash – and the packing and manhandling of the boxes to safe stacks around the house.

There is nothing that brings home the stark reality of having too much stuff like the process of having to pack it away.

To be fair, the bulk of it is books. I honestly don’t know how many boxes of books we have. It must be in the hundreds.

Husband and I both share an abiding love of books, but combining our collections when we married three years ago has resulted in a veritable tsunami of books. Working in the book industry for major publishers over the last thirteen years has only fed the beast. It’s overwhelming. We’ve never had them all unpacked…

When we get to the island we’re going to have to do further weeding out and disposal. There simply won’t be enough wallspace to build enough book shelves to take them all, I’m sure of it.

However, we’re now on the final stretch. The last few yards.

The day of the move is almost upon us, She says with a big, tired smile.

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If it was’nae fer yer wellies..

… Where would ye be?

(in the immortal words of The Big Yin, Billy Connolly).

I’ve just stocked up with a new pair of wellies. Wellies are the things that everyone on the island wears just about constantly, so a spare pair isn’t a bad idea.

As I have wide calves (read fat legs) I find that normal wellies are too tight for comfort, or that I simply can’t get them on at all.

I can’t tell you the money that I’ve wasted in the past in the interests of keeping my feet dry only to find that the boots only come so far up my legs before turning into rubber tourniquets. I quite like my blood supply, thank you.

I’ve found a company that sells wide leg wellies with little adjusting buckles so that you can fiddle until you’re comfy.

They arrived this morning, well packaged and in a funky drawstring mud bag for transportation. I’m impressed!

Thank you Jileon.com. You’ve made this fat-legged crofters wifie very happy today 😀👍.

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Ancient Drovers Track

This is the ancient Drovers track that runs up the side of our croft, providing access to the common grazings on the hill behind us for the people of the village and their sheep.

It’s a path not much used these days except for occasional walkers, but once upon a time it was clearly well used judging by the width of it.

I love how the heather embankments enclose and protect it, creating a sunken lane in the landscape. The colours of purple, gold, russet and green in the low autumn sunlight are beautiful.

There is one lone tree (I will need to check what this is) bravely growing through the hedging, and standing proud despite the predominant winds with no company for shelter.

My eyes are usually drawn the other way, to the South, to our view of the Sound and the mountains beyond, but there is an equal if more understated beauty in the hills to the north of us.

Autumn in Skye is a truly stunning season.

Two weeks to go and the anticipation is almost painful.

All photos by kind permission of the wonderful Sara Louise Taylor @sara_louise_taylor on Instagram.

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Planning for the internals

Now that the exterior of the house is mainly complete, the builders will be finishing on site and handing over to us to make a start on the interior.

We had originally planned for the builders to do everything, but cost estimates quickly became prohibitive once they’d been discussed and confirmed. The build costs rose over 30% above the architects calculation estimates, leaving us with no alternative but to complete the house ourselves. We’d allocated some contingency, but the magnitude of this was beyond what we could absorb.

We are moving up and into the static in a few weeks time so that we can work full time on the build. As two IT people rather than builders, this is going to be a challenge!

The first week will be busy connecting water and power to the caravan and hooking up the gas bottles for heat and cooking so that we’ve got the basics in place. We also need to build steps for easier access, replace some of the flooring, fit a new boiler and give it a quick lick of paint. This will be our home for the forseeable few months and we need it to be warm, dry and comfortable. Only then can we make a start on the house itself.

Then we start with the foil membrane on the inside of the walls for heat retention and moisture control. There is already protective waterproof membrane on the outer walls underneath the cladding, but to ensure that the house is as sealed as possible we need to wrap the inside of the walls too before plasterboarding.

After that, the underfloor heating, screed and MVHR ducting. There’s something that gives me infantile pleasure as part of the generation that grew up with Alien to have ducting in the house… 🙂.

It’s certainly going to be different to our current lives, and I’m just so damned grateful that husband is a practical man who doesn’t seem daunted by what seems to me to be a whole mountain of challenges…

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Of slow cooked stews and power tools


We’re now in the final few weeks of the London house as the October winds blow. We sit listening to the rain and wind blustering through the branches of the crab apple trees that flank the house, commenting ruefully to each other that this is an early trial for the Skye weather.

We’re making lists of what will be packed for storage and what will be needed in the caravan for the duration of the build.

I’m anticipating a cold, wet Highland winter in the caravan and days of hard physical work, something unfamiliar to our soft urban bodies. Not to mention my still recovering replacement bionic knees.

We’re going to ache and I’m sure that exhaustion will hit pretty quickly. Husband will bear the brunt of this as there are things that he can do that I simply can’t, so one of my small contributions will be keeping us fed. Food will be important for both fuelling tired muscles and keeping morale going.


I’m packing my slow cooker so that I can make soups and stews first thing in the morning to come into at the end of the day without too much effort. It’s comforting to come home to the warmth and smell of a lamb hotpot permeating the caravan when you’re tired, cold and wet. We should be able to raise a spoon and some chunks of bread if we have energy for nothing else!


The kitchen in the caravan is also pretty small so I’m trying to condense down what to pack to the most essential items only. Kettle, oven dishes, plates, cutlery, a few good knives etc. I suspect that our food will be basic until we are in the house, and eaten off laps, but that’s fine by us.


Forget the wild fantasies of feasting off venison and salmon in the Highlands – this is going to be lots of simple cooking designed to fill us up and keep us warm. Soups, porridge, stews and dumplings. Hearty fare, albeit with fresh local produce.

Whilst I’m looking at supplies, husband is restocking essential tools for the build. He got rid of a lot of tools when he moved from the North of England, thinking that they’d no longer be needed in London (and having no storage space for them).

Our living room here is gradually filling up with reciprocating saws, drill bits, power screwdrivers, steel capped boots and work trousers.

I hug myself in anticipation. Not long now until we pack up the car with our ancient spaniel and start the long, slow drive up to the island.

It’s all becoming very real… 👍☺️

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Darkest before the Dawn

The saying goes that the darkness is deepest just before the dawn.

As I sit here in our bedroom in the half light of morning listening to the birds on the nearby lake beating their wings against the water and the sounds of London slowly waking up, I understand that feeling.

We have this amazing dream that after two years of nurture, focus and hard work is now within inches of becoming reality. We are within just a few weeks of packing up our old house, getting in the car and driving with the dog to our new life on the island.We are weighed down with lists and arrangements, with disposing of things, and with decisions.

Although I have now finished work, husband still has three weeks to go and so doesn’t have the luxury of daily headspace to process things. I’m limited by what I can do to help. It’s a huge weight.

Covid 19 is on the rise again with the prospect of further lockdowns and travel restrictions which is adding another spoonful of stress and uncertainty to an already pretty potent mix.

I know that this will pass. I know that everything will get done, and that if it doesn’t get done the world won’t stop turning.I know this. We both know this.

We will find the space to hang on to the excitement of these new beginnings. Even when these feelings of excitement are heavily entwined with the decoupling from our old lives and all that this entails. Even when sleep is dominated with dreams of all the things we haven’t yet done. Even when our bedtime reading is all plumbing manuals and spreadsheets.

It’s important not to allow the “to-do” list to consume every waking moment and to reconnect with feelings of joy at what we are about to do.

Because of course it will all be worth it.New beginnings, a new way of life.The dawn is lightening the sky already.

We will be ready.

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Building Warrant Approved

Building Warrant came through a few days before Christmas. It was a great start to the festivities!

This is what we are building. It’s a 1.5 storey larch clad eco longhouse with traditional slate roof.

The front door is actually at the back of the building, nestled into the hill at the back of the croft. The picture windows are at the front, overlooking the Sound of Sleat, and hopefully providing much light.

Once the architects are back after the Christmas break we’ll start looking at build schedules. Can’t wait!

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Scones and silver sands

We took the ferry from Armadale across to Mallaig to check out the local shops. Being so close to the ferry means that Mallaig is actually closer than our closest town on the island as the crow flies, so it was useful to check it out from a supplies perspective.

There is a fabulous bakery and bread shop in Mallaig called the Bakehouse. They bake a great selection of sourdough breads, scones, cakes and other pastries. The local community stores on our southerly part of the island get bread deliveries from them each week. Alongside a great focaccia we sampled what must surely be the best cheese scones on the planet!

Mallaig is also an active fishing port and here you can buy locally landed fresh fish, langoustine and shellfish. Good to know when the cravings come upon us. It’s getting better, but there aren’t as many outlets for locally caught fish on Skye as you’d imagine.

On the way back to the ferry terminal we took a detour along the coast. Not knowing this part of the coastline at all we were astonished to discover that there are glorious white sand beaches all the way along a ten mile stretch or so. Quite stunning.

We were lucky with the weather. Despite enjoying a mostly dry, breezy day whilst we were out, once we turned for home the rain started in earnest as Storm Dorian swept in and clipped the coast. The crossing was very choppy and visibility almost zero with the rain.

We watched the storm lashing Knock Bay from the warmth of our cosy cottage on the hillside, glad to be home and dry. And thinking, not long now 😊…

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Showers, wind and wild flowers

It’s been a week of squally showers, high winds and at times, torrential rain here on the island. The rivers are full and the waterfalls are torrents of white water tumbling down the hillsides.

We don’t mind the weather at all. It’s lovely to sit in front of the windows in the cabin and watch the weather fronts scud across the sky. There’s a change every half hour or so, and we dodge the showers as best we can.

In a break in the rain we made it up to the croft. Here it’s very much seize the moment!

The lower ground is waterlogged and boggy, although the higher reaches of the land are better drained. We hopped from clump to clump of rushes to avoid sinking too deeply into the mud.

The tiny burn that we saw trickling sedately through the croft in February is now a raging plume of water plummeting through the channel that it has cut for itself.

We headed for the copse of trees on the western boundary and scattered bluebell, wood anemone, pignut and wild garlic seeds as we’d planned. We’re hoping that at least some of them will take.

Although the wild flowers are more or less over here on Skye, we found more than we expected in the ditches and springy turf on the croft: and with our trusty plant identification app we think we’ve recognised black knapweed, common vetchling, broad leaved clover, buttercups, crowfoot, downy vetch and willow herb.

We were delighted to see that we had a hazel tree already established amongst the birch trees – bodes well for more nut tree plantings once we’re established!

Excuse the bad quality of the photos – these were hurried snaps taken with an iPhone.

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Managing Small Woodlands in the Highlands and Islands

The Scottish Crofting Federation has recently published this useful little tome, packed with goodies about planting and managing woodland on the croft.

Husband and I have just spent a happy hour or so debating the wisdom of tree shelters vs. spiral tree guards for the protection of newly planted whips and young trees. A lot will depend upon the strength of the wind on the slope, which we won’t really be able to assess until we’ve lived there through a year or so of seasons.

We are travelling up to the island next month and are hoping to be able to walk the land with a representative from the local Woodland Trust, who will be able to assess the site and recommend viable tree varieties. It would be good to start the tree planning even if the trees can’t go in for a further year. And of course, the whole croft will need to be deer fenced before anything much can be planted.

We’re thinking of planting willow to help drain the boggy bottom of the croft, which can apparently act as a pioneer tree and help preparation for other species, along with birch, alder, elm, rowan, hazel, sycamore, sessile oak, bird cherry and others elsewhere. But of course we’ll take advice.

Husband is a just wee bit excited to read that Walnut and Sweet Chestnut are now considered viable species in this part of the world. Being Nut Boy, anything nut-related is worth a try in his eyes!