After Ever After

I've been thinking recently about what 'happily ever after' is supposed to look and feel like. I know the idea has been the concept of a few clever books and films - what does happen when the credits roll and the last chapter's words run off the last page?

Arriving on Rum felt like it was maybe supposed to be happily ever after for us. It felt as though the music should play and the picture slowly fade off the screen as we got on with our dream life, finally found after our big adventure and soul searching and interview on Rum and epic move up here.

Then it felt as though it should surely be the end after the mini sequel which was Getting The Static On To The Croft.

Maybe after the trilogy of Surviving Our First Winter. Even if Surviving Our Second Winter became part of the dvd bonus features on a second disc....

Recently we thought we may end up taking on a proper employed job. Ady and I would have shared the role, it was far from what we originally came here to do but the benefits and security would, we thought, outweigh the obvious compromises in terms of being away from the croft and the children and the stresses and commitments of what the post would entail. It was not to be. Which when you have spent several weeks convincing yourself into doing can be a bit tough to talk yourself back out of again.

There is something about Rum which pushes you to your absolute limits, like a jealous lover asking you to prove, over and over again that you really, really love them. Treating you cruelly just to challenge, to test, to ensure this is definitely what you want to do and where you want to do it. Just as you are on the very brink of deciding that actually this is not for you after all the sun breaks through, the blackberries ripen, kind and thoughtful words are said, new chicks are hatched in the old washing machine and a huge pod of dolphins swim close to the shore at ferry time, leaping out of the water and making a whole crowd of excited onlookers point, exclaim and cry out with delight and sheer joy and life.


I'm not always sure but I think this might be what happily ever after looks like.

Transition Times

I was reading a blog post earlier that talked about August being the month of 'transition to Autumn'. I like that. Autumn is definitely in the air with nights drawing in and a nip to the evenings, brambles starting to ripen and a new wave of colour coming on Rum as yellow summer flowers fade and the more purple autumnal ones start to bloom.

Suddenly we have done a third summer and are facing a third winter. Life and time marches on and I look at pictures of our early days here on Rum and am already marvelling at how much Davies and Scarlett have grown, how Ady and I have aged....

Life looks set to change again with new possibilities and opportunities on the horizon, shifts in ideas, re shaping of plans and ambitions. The cast of characters for this winter on Rum looks rather different to last year. As ever, taking stock, rationalising responsibilities and being realistic about the capacity for the number of hours in a day is something to be considered.

For now though we're picking brambles, making jam, feeding animals and enjoying the light evenings while they last. The 18 hour night times are not long around the corner...

Need to know basis

In my last post I talked about how much I have learned about birds and wildlife since moving here to Rum. As a Home Educator I am often to be heard talking about how we don't learn everything we need to know in childhood and how humans should be lifelong learners. About how I have learned more in my adult life, particularly the last five years than I ever did as a child. About how easily we learn and retain knowledge when it is relevant, pertinent, meaningful and in context.

My friend Kirsty who runs the fabulous untrappedlife website and I were chatting over new year - a time when we all reflect on the year passed and pin hopes on the year ahead. Kirsty was reminding of me of how much knowledge I have to share and how people are interested in the things I know about. It is in no small way thanks to those conversations that we took the plunge of WWOOF hosting this year and Kirsty was right - our wwoofers have been scribbling notes, taking photos and videos and stroking my ego no end with what I have learned and do know about various things in livestock, growing fruit, veg and herbs, permaculture ideas, off grid living and more.

An on island friend who is a very skilled person in lots of rural crafts that Ady and I are desperate to learn more about has been sharing some of his skills and yesterday we spent a very exciting hour in his company getting a first lesson in how to sythe. We are on our fourth strimmer in two and a half years and hate the use of petrol and noise pollution that strimming creates, while still needing to keep paths clear to walk up and down the croft, harvest the grass and reeds for animal bedding and prevent our crops from being choked by grass and weeds. Sytheing may well be the answer - new skills and a low impact, sustainable solution. I commented to our friend how lucky we were to have him here willing to teach us and he told me that a skill is not a skill until you share it. What a deep thought and one which has echoed through my mind countless times since he said it...

This morning when I was answering questions about living in a campervan for 9 months. This lunch time as we all sat down to fresh baked bread and home made soup and then our visitor made the bread dough and pizza dough for this evening - a skill she had not possessed two weeks ago when she arrived her but I have shared with her. At breakfast when we spread jam on our toast made in a collaborative effort between Scarlett and I, this afternoon when Davies headed off to water the polytunnel calling back over his shoulder 'I know, don't over water the chillies...' and came back having picked the very first tomatoes. Later this evening when Scarlett and I walked back to the croft the long way all around three sides of our land and we picked a posy of wild flowers and grasses to put in a jam jar and brighten the static.

My grandmother is a florist and I have many childhood memories of sitting in her flower shop, eating marmite on toast, surrounded by great buckets of highly scented, rainbow coloured blooms. I love the smell of cut flowers and that taking me back 35 years ago in time quality the smell has but have always been rather snooty at the idea of having cut flowers in my house - expensive, imported at great carbon footprint cost, a token of ostentatious spending rather than genuine thoughtfulness... but the flowers on the croft make me smile every time I walk up the hill. Over the last 3 summers I have learned the names of most of them - asking people who live here and know the names, picking a specimen and searching in our wild flower guide book, going on organised wild flower walks with the ranger.

Today Scarlett and I picked the posy in the photo above and could both name all of the flowers - ragwort, sneezeworth, common birdsfoot trefoil, devils-bit scabious, meadowsweet. celandine, ling heather, clover, orchid and various rushes and grasses. 

Never in our old lives would we have sought to gain or retain that knowledge, it simply would not have sunk in. What new thing did you learn today?

Walk on the wild side

I got distracted while on the phone to my parents late this afternoon - Happy Birthday Dad! - by this short eared owl putting on a fly-by display over the croft. He was hunting all over the croft and we walked around while he flew over our heads for a good half an hour. He was not at all bothered by us and at one point was flying straight towards me so close and low that I ducked. We briefly made eye contact and it was a haunting experience that will stay with me for a long while.

It's definitely been the year for close wildlife encounters and I was reflecting earlier today about how much we have all learnt about the wildlife here on Rum. I can now identify so many creatures I could never have picked out before, some of the birds by their flight pattern alone. We remain utter amateurs on this island full of wildlife experts, researchers, rangers, national nature reserve officers, scientists and birders but the delight of sharing our home with so many of natures amazing creatures never wears thin.

Game for anything

There has been a distinct lack of 'here's what we're doing on the croft just now' on the blog of late. Mostly because it has been majorly midgey this year - by far our worst summer of midges here and it's our third on Rum and actually our fourth on the west coast of Scotland. We were anticipating it after such a warm wet winter but it has still been a shock and really does prevent much outside stuff from happening.

We have also been very busy just making the most of the summer and living life here to the full. Frankly you don't jack in a conventional life on the south coast of England with hot and cold running water, a proper roof over your head, company car and pension plan to go and live in a midge infested caravan on a remote Scottish island to spend all your time working! Life is far too short and the pay off for the endurance that our lives sometimes feel like is the hefty dose of enjoyment grabbed whenever we can.

We currently have a friend / volunteer staying with us. Someone we met on our Cob Course earlier this year, hit it off with and stayed in touch with and who is very interested in our lifestyle and learning more about permaculture, self sufficiency, low impact off grid living and so on. She is staying with us for a whole month and is living alongside us learning as much as she can about how we do things - this has included plenty of watering the polytunnel, pulling up ragwort, feeding the animals, carrying things up and down the hill, breadmaking, jam making, selling produce at Market Day and hanging out with Davies and Scarlett. It has also included coming along on all the various adventures we have had in the last week - from climbing mountains in the dark to sit and listen to shearwaters come in for the night around us to various boat trips wildlife spotting.

This weekend our adventures took us to the only of the four Small Isles we had yet to visit - Muck. The smallest of the small isles and different to Rum, Canna and Eigg in the same way as all four are different to each other. The occassion was the Small Isles Games. An annual event hosted by each of the island in four year rotation. It is part old school sports day, part highland games, part fierce inter island competition, part first class hospitality from the host island and fully fun.

Muck put on a great show, is is a lovely island, really tiny but with a similar size population to us on Rum. There were about 20 of us there from Rum for the games (about half our island population meaning our post office was closed, family members were drafted in to man our shop, other family members were called on to come and compete alongside us for Rum, the island was on 'skeleton crew' of those left behind) and we took our tents, pitched up 'Camp Rum' and let the games commence.

The games were an excellent mix of true sportsmanship such as rifle shooting, hill racing, proper flat race sprinting, tug of war and good old fashioned fun such as sack race (done in mail bags), tattie and spoon race, welly wanging and the utterly ridiculous such as four people in a bulk bag told to get to the finish line by whatever method they chose as long as all four people were still in the bag! The obstacle race fell into the final category too with running with a section of culvert pipe around your middle, followed by four person skis, wheelbarrow race, quad pushing, bouncing on a buoy and going under a scramble net. We were all so helpless with laughter for most of these that the competitive element was utterly immaterial!

I don't remember the last time I have had so much fun looking like quite such a fool! And remember I live in a caravan on top of a muddy hillside so I have plenty of opportunity!

We had the best time and were really proud to come second to our hosts who won (again!).

The games were followed by a splendid barbecue, loads of delicious cake, an epic ceilidh with two bands and plenty more fun and laughter and dancing until the early hours.

This morning was spent exploring Muck, drinking tea and post mortem-ing the day before with tales from the games and the ceilidh getting retold and embellished as all good days do. We had chartered one of the local boats to come and bring us home and had a lovely trip back to Rum speeding between the Small Isles watching gannets dive and the odd porpoise leap from the sea.

It was a magical weekend, full of feeling of belonging, of being part of a small and slightly larger wider community. Of spending happy fun filled sunshine-y days with people we know so well and share our lives with.

All at sea

I posted earlier this week about enjoying life here on Rum but so far this week seems to have mostly been about enjoying life off the coast of Rum.

It's a funny old balance here - the time of year when you feel you should be out working the croft as much as possible also coincides with the time of year it is largely unbearable outside due to the midges. They have been dreadful this year, which we were anticipating after such a wet, warm winter and we are practically living in our midge jackets and managing to feed animals, water the polytunnel and do odd bits and pieces outside in and around the swarms. We are also admitting defeat when it is really bad and planning to catch up properly on the weeding, building and other tasks on the days when th sun shines or the wind blows and the midges are not quite so fierce.

So instead we have been retreating out on to the water to enjoy the wildlife rather than endure it. On Monday we finished our week of Shearwater worship with an evening boat trip just around the coastline of Rum to see the rafts of shearwaters gathering at sea ready to come in as dark fell. It is a different feel altogether being out on the water in the evening. The light is different, the sounds are different, the behaviour of the birds is different. We saw a huge colony of kittiwakes on a rock face including lots of fledglings. Our skipper told us that they were much, much bigger than the chicks off the coast of Mallaig, just 15 or so miles away. We speculated on whether this was an earlier hatching or better feeding here on Rum. The noise of the colony was deafening, they were really rowdy. Very excitingly an eagle was perched on the rocks above the kittiwakes, waiting to drop in on them for his dinner. We scared him off (they had done the boat trip the evening before and startled the same eagle from the same spot) making the boat the kittiwakes new best friend!

Today we were out again, this time on our regular Thursday trip aboard MV Sheerwater. Usually we head towards the isle of Soay, just off the coast of Skye as the Sheerwater has the contract to deliver their weekly postbag. The island has just 3 permanent residents at present so they don't get a lot of post! Today there was no post at all and so we were off whale and dolphin chasing instead with no specific route to adhere to.

Straight away we were veering off sharply with the cry of 'Whale! coming from the front of the boat and sure enough we found a minke whale. We have had several close encounters with these gorgeous cetaceans during our time here on Rum including a couple of multiple whales together, a very curious young whale who appeared as interested in us as we were in him, popping out of the water headfirst and eyeing us up. Today was by far the largest minke we have seen though - this was an older whale, complete with big nick in it's dorsal fin and was just enormous. They can be over 20foot long and this specimen certainly was.

We stayed with the minke for a fair while and then reports came in of a superpod of dolphins not far away so we chased off in the direction of them. We saw them long before we came close as they were highlighted by three bright orange boats with the pod of dolphins all around them. Dolphins are super curious and love being around people, seeming to play in the waves and wake of boats and almost put on a show for their delighted audience. This group was no different and we were treated to a splendid amount of leaping, beaching, splashing and what certainly looked like playing. There were probably between 30 and 50 in the group of varying sizes including several young and they were leaping well clear of the water before splashing back in again, delighting us and ensuring most of us went into high pitches squeals and squeaks to rival the dolphins themselves! Above joining in with the feeding frenzy that the dolphins were engaged in were a large number of gannets, flying and crashing into the water in their own, equally impressive display. It was definitely the sort of memory one treasures for ever.

Our camera battery died, which is always the mark of the best experiences - whether that is sods law or actually a really good thing as you tend to watch far closer and commit way more to memory if not watching from behind a camera lens and stressing over capturing the perfect shot I am never sure, but I don't need a photo to remind me of the experience. Sorry I can't share one here so you can get a little of it but you'll have to trust me that Scarlett's much repeated catchphrase of our first summer here was very true today. The sea was alive!

Living It Up

It's the Busy Period here on Rum. Tourists aplenty, lots of visiting friends, stacks to be doing on the croft (not all of it getting done!) but also in true tail chasing manner it is the very time of year when you most want to be taking time out to enjoy the many things which make Rum so very special.

The wildlife, the weather, the landscapes, the interesting people, the produce, the foraging...

Rum is famous for so many of the creatures we share our island and surrounding waters with; the red deer, the sea eagles and golden eagles, the midges (!), the dolphins and whales, the dragonflies, the winkles (!). We are also the summer host to a quarter of the worlds population of Manx Shearwaters, fantastic little birds who return here every year to meet up with their breeding partner (they stay with the same partner throughout their breeding life), use the same burrow as in previous years, mate, lay and incubate their egg and rear their chick until it fledges and they migrate to their winter habitat. During the day time the birds are out feeding at sea where they are graceful, elegant creatures, swooping low over the ocean with alternate flashes of black and white (their wings are black on top, white on the underside), sometimes gathering in large rafts, bobbing on the seas surface. As it gets dark at night they return once more in to land (their burrows are holes dug high into the mountainside using their beaks and wings) to feed their chicks, calling to each other with eerie high pitched squeals believed to have been incorrectly identified as trolls and goblins by the vikings who landed on Rum and named the cuillin range Hallivall, Barkeval, Askival and probably the reason behind the name Trollaval. On land they are clumsy, struggling to walk along on legs set far back on their bodies, vulnerable to predation.

On Monday we were fortunate to assist as volunteers in some of the shearwater burrow monitoring, where selected specific burrows are checked for productivity each year. Rum is the location of countless scientific research projects on many species, habitat, weather, flora and fauna.

Our part involved a walk 'up the hill' (about 3/4 of the way up a very high peak) on a very hot day but the views each time we stopped to catch our breath were more than worth the effort required.

and the shearwater chicks themselves once we got there were definitely worth it! We had a lovely few hours up there checking burrows, finding chicks of varying sizes, a couple of adults birds and a couple of pipping eggs. We also found a dead bird which was sad but still interesting as we could learn more about the shearwaters from looking at it's remains and speculating on how it may have died.

Then then long walk back down the hill...

On Thursday we had our usual weekly summer treat of the Sheerwater boat trip. The conditions were perfect - a roasting hot, midge infested day back on dry land made for a welcome sea breeze, millpond flat shimmering blue ocean, cloudless blue skies and a gorgeous trip out from Rum to Soay, around the isle of Soay and back to Rum again. We saw loads of porpoises, plenty of seals, tons of jellyfish and plenty of gannets.

These close encounters with nature are a big part of what makes our life here so amazing.

Last night we ventured up the hill again, to the same part as we had been on Monday but this time in the evening. We walked up just as it was getting dark, installed ourselves on comfortable rocks and sat to wait for the adult shearwaters to come in for the night. It was an amazing experience. Sitting amid the screeching calls, the flapping wings, the shearwaters landing all around us, appearing in the drifting clouds and fog and then disappearing again while we sat, a group of 14 of us close together, speaking in hushed whispers and exclaiming on how amazing it was.

Photos are poor, mostly because the light was not good for photography but also because such an experience can never be captured on film. It is the stuff of wildlife documentaries which makes you desperate not to view it through a tv screen but to be there, experiencing it, feeling it, seeing it, hearing it and living it for real.

That's us. Living it. To the full. And a lot of this week up in rather high places too.