Tag: isle of skye

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Gaelic singers, fires and venison

Our first island Christmas.

Last night we attended an outdoor meal with friends around a fire, with local musicians and Gaelic singers. They sang traditional carols but also songs that we didn’t know, hauntingly beautiful in the open air and the darkness of the night.

It was a cold night but we honestly didn’t feel it. Such a lovely introduction to Christmas here.

We returned home smelling of woodsmoke and with heads full of new melodies and happy memories.

This morning, Christmas Day, and it was a day alone for us. The wind howled around the caravan and we sat in front of the fire with big socks on and shared a zoom call with the boys in Manchester.

We ate venison and drank red wine and enjoyed the feeling of peacefulness and nothing that we absolutely had to do.

It’s been a very unusal and quiet Christmas, but a good one for all that. It’s made us remember what’s important and has made us look forward to next year’s celebration with family (and a proper kitchen!) all the more.

Merry Christmas to you all. From the fireside of the caravan on the windswept hillside of the croft I’m sending you all good wishes for health and happiness, wherever you are.

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Winter Skies

As we pass the winter solstice and the shortest day, it seems appropriate to talk about the quality of the light here on the island.

We may only have about six hours of daylight a day at this time of the year, but it’s intense. There seems to be an incredible clarity to the light, and the dusk skies are just spectacular.

The croft faces SSE, and so morning sunrises are really it’s thing. The sun sets behind the hills to the west of us, and we only see the residual glow of a sunset rather than the sun itself dipping behind the horizon.

However, even that is beautiful, making the land and skies glow with a final blast of warm light before the night encroaches. Which it does very quickly. It will be completely dark with stars visible within the hour.

I can hear the burn tumbling through the birch grove and the call of the raven as it settles down for the night in the old Scots pine to the west of the house. Apart from that, all is silent as the light fades.

Tonight will be a frosty one. There is already a smattering of snow on the hilltops and with a clear night sky it will be especially cold.

Stay safe and cosy, wherever you are.

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Festive thoughts from the croft

Like many people in these troubled times, Christmas for us this year will not be as it usually is.

Apart from the fact that we’ll be spending it in an ancient caravan perched on the side of a rain-swept hill, we will also not have the kids with us. It will just be husband and myself on the day.

We’re conscious that they are many others who don’t have a roof over their heads, good health, or enough to eat this Christmas. We’re very blessed that we don’t fall into any of these categories.

We will be together. We’ll be warm and dry with enough to eat. Our loved ones are safe, and we’ll be able to share calls with them on the day.

The house build is progressing, albeit slowly, and stands there, a promise to come and the culmination of many years of planning and hard work. We awake to this promise, along with some incredible sunrises, every day.

During the bizarre awfulness which 2020 has been, I count this all as success.

Wishing you all a peaceful, happy Christmas.

See you on the other side.

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Croft Christmas Tree

It’s a blustery, cold winters day here on the island right now.

Whilst husband is working in the house, preparing the walls for foil, I’m keeping busy in the caravan until I can be helpful, cooking, staying warm by the fire and listening to a Ted Hughes audio book.

We have no room in the caravan for a Christmas tree, but I couldn’t contemplate any kind of Christmas without one.

I ordered a very small, rooted tree from a nursery on the island, and it arrived yesterday. It’s now potted up in an old whisky barrel planter just outside the caravan. We can see it from the sitting area window. We can plant it on the croft in the New Year as it’s a native fir.

Conscious that I didn’t want battery lights or to add any more electrical load to the caravan, I’d bought solar tree lights.

This was a bit of a leap of faith, to be honest. We only get approximately six hours daylight at our northern latitude at this, the darkest time of the year. It was always a bit of a lottery as to whether this would be enough to power the tree lights for an evening or whether the whole thing would be a washout.

But it worked. Despite it being a totally grey, overcast day, as soon as the light dimmed at 4pm the solar lights came on. Our wee Croft Christmas tree is twinkling away in the darkness, probably entertaining the deer and definitely adding a bit of festive cheer to the building site.

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A spiky start

With the house build we’ve had little time for the croft tree plans or vegetable bed preparation beyond the most basic of plans for zoning and starting to think about grant applications for the trees and deer fencing.

Having said all of that, whilst our days are taken up with working in the house I’ve started on the croft in the smallest of ways. It just felt necessary to do something.

We’re planning for a berry bed, and also edible hedges.

To this end I’ve just received the first dozen or so cuttings of japanese red gooseberry, jostaberry and green currants, and have stuck them in a barrel of soil positioned next to the caravan to root up ready to be planted out into beds late next year.

If the deer don’t eat them (and you’d think that the thorns on the gooseberries would be enough of a deterrent, or am I deluding myself?) this should give them a bit of an early start.

These will be followed with raspberry, honeyberry, cloudberry, black currants, blueberry and strawberries early next year. And maybe the start of herb pots in the spring for the herb beds. Once we have some windbreaks in place.

We have also picked up some willow whips from a neighbours’ prunings, and as an experiment we’re going to plant them in the exposed boggy bottom of the croft over the next few days.

We’re treating these as sacrificial trees, as a test. We’ve had conflicting local reports about the need for and the effectiveness of deer fencing. It will be interesting to see whether these young trees get decimated and whether we have to wait for a further year to fully deer fence the croft before we can attempt sensibly to plant any young trees further at all.

A slow and spiky start. But it’s a start.

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Atholl Brose

It’s that time of year again. I’ve made homemade Atholl Brose.

A wee glass of this in the evening to warm us up is a necessity, I think.

Whisky, honey, oats and cream. Lasts for a week in the fridge – if you can make it last that long 😊.

Recipe here for anyone that fancies giving it a go. Note I only use a half bottle of whisky, just a blended one too, and it’s delicious.

https://foodanddrink.scotsman.com/drink/how-to-make-your-very-own-atholl-brose/

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Wintering

It snowed last night.

When we awoke it was to sleet and snow pounding the roof and windows of the caravan, and it had settled on the hills. The morning was very cold. It took all of our willpower to leave the warmth of our bed and stagger through to the kitchen to make hot coffee.

We ate breakfast watching the snow swirl around the caravan, and both decided it might not be a bad idea to head out to do our weekly food shop now in case it got any worse.

We already have food stocks of oatmeal, pasta, tinned goods and flour, even within the very limited storage capacity we have within the static. I think it’s just prudent to keep long-life food available in case roads become impassable or we got ill. You never know. And whilst the weather is doing this it just reinforces the stocking up instinct further.

Whilst husband is working in the house filling gaps between the SIP panels in our desire to have the house as close to passive house standards as possible, I’m doing most of the food preparation. It’s just what we can both best do to contribute to pushing this build forward at this point in time.

Food has become reduced to simple homemade soups, curries, stews and occasional bakes. Tonight, for example, I’m making a cottage pie. Yesterday was bean and vegetable soup. Nothing fancy, just home made food that fills us up and is filled with nourishing ingredients.

I’m also making Athol Brose this evening. A small, sweet, creamy whisky based treat that we’ll take a glass of before bed each night.

Absolutely essential preparation for wintering in my book. 😊

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Powered by Flapjacks

I have many half packets of nuts and dried fruits that travelled with us from London, and which I don’t really have space for in this little caravan kitchen.

Oatmeal, dried apricots, pecans.. So I made flapjacks.

I’m not going to pretend that these are healthy with the amount of butter and golden syrup that they contain, which is more than the oatmeal could ever compensate for!

But as a pick-me-up, elevenses, or snack when energy levels are getting a bit low, they hit the spot.

Powered by flapjacks.

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When it rains…

When it rains here, it really rains.

The croft feels like a giant sponge, the grass squelchy underfoot as it tries its best to absorb the huge quantity of water being thrown at it from the sky.

Yes, that’s horizontal rain.

When it’s like this, no waterproofs that I’ve ever come across will keep you dry for long. It’s best to retreat indoors for a cup of tea and wait it out.

We have pools of rainwater everywhere. The burn, which normally trickles gently through the hills at the back of the croft, has become a foaming torrent of water tumbling its way to the sea.

This is an older video from September, with the burn in medium flow. Now it’s about twice as full, I just haven’t been brave enough to make my way down there for a more recent picture.

Wish I could send you some, Green Goddess 🌿.

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Evening light

The sun sets early on the croft at this time of the year. 1545 yesterday, to be precise. We’re approaching the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.

Almost as if to make up for the long hours of darkness that are about to come, nature puts on a dazzling show of light before it dies.

The skies become suffused with a golden light and all the colours of the hedgerow glow with an incredible intensity.

That’s every evening, even on days without a remarkable sunset.

Facing SSE, we get more sunrises than sunsets on this part of the island. The sun dips behind the mountains behind us and we often just see the residual rosy glow in the sky, whereas those on the west coast enjoy its full splendour.

Still, it’s beautiful. A camera never seems to do it justice.