West Word excitement, crows in the chimney and tea-shop doubts

I think there may be a crow in our chimney!  Just sitting drinking tea in the living room at breakfast and for once, feeling no need to go outside as it's so cold and I have lots of baking to do for tomorrow, and I heard a very loud "Caw" from what sounded like just behind me.  There's nothing outside on the battlements so I wonder if it's a bird in the chimney, it's happened before in Yorkshire and sounded just the same.  Just when you're looking forward to a cosy day in front of the fire and hoping the heating will work...

Life hasn't been too cosy this week but it's been quite funny!  It's getting very cold, and the castle creaks and the radiators bang with the attempt to keep the temperature up.  The boiler has been making "funny noises". One of the Bullough pictures fell off the wall the other night when we were having dinner with friends...there was a huge crash and we thought it was burglars, but the string had perished that was holding the frame up...There've been unexpected fire alarms going off recently due to power outages...every time one goes off you have to go and inspect the control panel to find out where it is - and in a castle, that can be a lot of places. The deafening middle-of-the night one woke us at 2.30 in the morning and the panel told us that the alarm had gone off in the "Old Beer Cellar".  "That sounds nice," I say optimistically. It wasn't, it's under a huge trapdoor in the middle of the courtyard that is too heavy for one person to lift, with stone steps going down into a scary and freezing cold basement...We stand in the courtyard in our slippers in the dark struggling to hold the "lid" of the cellar up and I vow I am never, ever going down into it.  There is no smell of smoke so we close it again.  "Probably a spider got into the alarm," Mel shrugs.  Spiders, crows, fire alarms, power cuts, heating out, internet down...I don't like winter! But hopefully the crow isn't actually IN the chimney...maybe on top of it.   Nearly spilling my tea I move carefully out of the room and am going to listen from afar...

It really is getting near to winter now, and reading our favourite local newsletter "West Word" (the best £1.20 you will ever spend on a newspaper!) we can see that there is lots going on out on the mainland to help people get through those dark days.  West Word is an amazing institution, well known beyond the Lochaber region that it serves.  There is a regular page called "West Word around the World" featuring fans holding up their copies in various parts of the globe ranging from Skegness to Malawi to Adelaide.   Besides telling you all you need to know about tide times, council meetings and ferry and railway timetables, it also has regular slots with updates on the Lifeboat "shouts" for the past month (from serious to hilarious), results of local school games and other competitions, articles about the history of local families and places, wildlife top tips, adverts for logs, and (my favourite), "Family Announcements" featuring births, marriages and deaths, usually with grateful letters from families addressed to the doctors, nurses, priests, bridesmaids, helpers etc who got them through these life-changing events. Grateful letters from tourists also feature strongly - this month there is a long letter from "Two Yorkshire Ladies" (not us!) whose car broke down but was repaired in double quick time by the local garage to enable them to get home.  There are lots of in-jokes that I don't yet understand, often based around families who have lived in the region for generations.  This month, there is a long story about Davey Davidson, a driver for the West Highland Steam Railway (the "Jacobite") for many years, who recently died.  In accordance with his father's wishes, his son Dave Davidson convinced the railway managers to allow him to carry his father's ashes on a last journey to the Glenfinnan Viaduct before scattering them - not over the viaduct, as I expected, but into the engine's firebox! And so Davey, the article concludes, lives on forever in the "Jacobite".

Tales of crime are included at times - luckily there is not much of it, but it can be bad (poachers abandoning deer carcases on the railway!) or simply funny (the roadsigns warning about deer on the roads have been amended to show rhinos instead!).  There is heated debate for and against Scottish Independence and recently also a shocking article by a local Councillor about how he had been ousted from office while absent.  But he still seems to be there as he is in this month's edition too. 

The reports from Mallaig and the news about the huge variety of clubs people can join (swimming, Highland dancing, Zumba, the Women's Institute, angling, knitting) and democratic organisations they can belong to (lots of community associations here) are a great reminder of the community that exists out on the mainland and how strong and close-knit it can be.  There are also reports from the other islands (Eigg, Canna, Muck) and near-island (Knoydart, which can only be reached by sea or on foot), that tell us of farming successes, theatre and music events and sponsored shoe-wearing (a lady on Knoydart has 48 pairs of shoes and got sponsored to wear a different pair every day for a month, not easy in our climate but she won!). 

Reading these, I realise this is what I expected Rum to be like as well - I thought living on an island here would be like living on the local mainland.  But Rum is really, really different.  We don't have "culture", farming (as such), clubs or even a "close-knit community".  The community is still finding itself, it can be unwelcoming, its processes are opaque, sometimes it seems downright dysfunctional, although it can also make amazing things happen.  I wonder why here is so different but it's obvious really: the island "community" has only existed for a few years.  Unlike Eigg and Muck, let alone the mainland, it's not got a history of private housing, businesses, or much practice in running its own organisations.  The Community Trust was set up only in 2007 and the assets handed over from SNH only in 2009/10.  That means that the island has only really been a self-directing community for most of its inhabitants for four years at most.  Hence it feels, still, like an experiment and like all experiments it can be hugely exciting to be a part of it, or just really frustrating when things don't work.  Just as an example, West Word sometimes tells us things we didn't know about Rum and that we should have known - I found out this month only by reading it that CalMac is trialling a new "passenger only" speedboat service alongside a "freight only" ferry service to our island - no-one here had told us. (It's a v. bad idea as most would-be tourists are not keen on the idea of getting on a speedboat to cross the choppy Little Minch, especially in the rain, snow etc even if it was able to run then anyway.  During the recent "replacement ferry service" we lost quite a few tourists, hostel bookings and catering orders due to tourists losing their nerve, plus had lots of complaints about "feeling sick".)

Oh, "community" - what does it mean?! Tomorrow I am responsible for the Community Tea-Shop - as opposed to the "normal" tea-shop, the Community one is run on a voluntary basis to make sure we have a tea-shop on a Sunday.  Before we went away I was approached by several people separately (not quite in dark alleys) with the seemingly casual suggestion, "You know you said you like working in the tea-shop...would you like to put forward an application to run it next year?" Although Claire's tea-shop is great, there have been mutterings that it would be nice to have a change or an alternative using more local produce, keeping it open for more hours, offering different dishes etc...Hmm.  I agree it would be nice, but there are things that need sorting out first...

Lots has been achieved since 2009 - the crofts, the community hall, a housing plan, a management plan - but lots of things that we take for granted elsewhere just don't exist.  Imagine those really frustrating work meetings you sometimes have where everything goes round in a circle - well it can be just like that, but without the organisational "rules" that you can usually refer back to at work.  The Directors of the Trust are still relatively new to the job, and some of the people on the island just want to do their own thing.  It's a dilemma - should everyone who lives here feel like they are part of one organisation, as if living here was a "job"?  Or should we just all do what we like, without worrying about what other people are up to?  For example some people don't want to pay the road charge that is levied every year (£36 for the year) that pays for the roads to be repaired.  "I don't care if they're repaired or not," they say, "so why should I pay?" Because if you don't then the Trust can't afford to keep them maintained and the whole island suffers.  It's pretty much the same question that applies to the rest of society as well, but on a smaller scale.  But the difference here is that you can actually influence what your "taxes" are spent on fairly directly, whereas in the bigger scheme of things you can only influence this very very slowly.  And it frustrates me beyond belief that some people are not in the least bit interested in influencing what happens - they just want to stand outside the shop and complain about it, not realising how lucky they are to have the chance to change things.

But I've realised it's not easy.  Theoretically I subscribe to the idea that living here means you are part of a community, not just on your own and I try to act accordingly.  But I'm taking it slowly - I need to check things out first.  Despite pressure from "above" I realise I'm not ready to apply to run the tea shop next year, as it turns out there's a whole lot of island politics bound up in this that I don't want to get involved in at the moment (plus I don't rate my cooking highly enough!).  I also can't measure yet how long it takes to "make things happen" if you do want to get involved in projects or how much energy it would take up.  There is a new project going on to build a community bunkhouse and a new visitor centre, which will be amazing.  But it's going to take a lot of arguing, stamina and optimism to get there...

I vow I will try harder!

So, I haven't heard any more "cawing" from the chimney...I am going to have to risk going back in...will keep you updated!  Off now to bake some pies.

So what's it all about, then, eh?

There has been quite a break since I last wrote a proper blog post.  Sorry. But I was thinking about you! I thought I'd run out of things to say.  It would be boring (I said to myself) for people yet again to read about eagles and how the weather makes all the big decisions about what happens here. Then I realised that there was another reason.  Phase 1 of being here had finished and I'd entered a different phase that I didn't like much.  New things are always exciting, not to mention a new life.   But of course after a while the newness is gone and you start to go more deeply into the experience, which means that you start to wonder more about how you fit into it and what it can do for you, rather than just thinking about it as a neutral observer.

There's a really good German phrase: an die eigenen Grenzen stoßen.  This literally means, "to bump into your own limits".  Before we came here I cheerily said to many people that I was terrified because it meant I would be diving into the totally unknown.  It was true, I was terrified for many reasons (not all of which I admitted to), but as usual, the excitement won out and I felt I had to do it.  What I didn't think about was that constantly bumping into your own limits means you end up with a fair amount of bruising.  What I'm now experiencing is the feeling you have when you don't want to move off the sofa because every bit of you is going "ouch" - literally and figuratively. 

It's getting very cold now and I wear a hat and scarf even on sunny days.  But before we went away, autumn was still golden, and I did have an exciting eagle experience, as it happens.  I decided to struggle up Coire Dubh (the path behind the castle), not being at all in the mood, and get Beyond the Dam (the point where I've usually had enough and turn back, and the point where it goes into proper mountain country).  It wasn't so much "Come on! I can climb a mountain," as, "I don't want to but I'm going to".  Spurred on by friends who had just climbed Hallival, a REAL mountain, I wanted to know what it is like to conquer my limits - to see what it would be like to do something really hard.  And I was intrigued by the weather - for once it wasn't even cloudy and the mountains looked like we were in Spain or the Alps.  Suddenly I got my excitement back - I was in a foreign country! A blazing hot sun, too bright blue sky, nothing stirring except now and again a breeze in the rowans, and the waterfalls sparkling in the afternoon light. The hills were bare, deserted, the grass turning brown, not because of the heat but because of the autumn.  But it felt like Mallorca and I felt like it was summer. 

Just above the dam on Coire Dubh (Photo (c) L Becker)

Each time I got to one of the natural resting places I was keen to stop.  I had to keep removing layers because of the heat, I was sweating and grumpy, kept looking down and thinking, why don't I just turn back.  But something drove me on.  It was stony and I tripped up a lot, but I also kept seeing how far I had come.  I was a long way up and it was totally silent (at least once I'd got far enough not to hear Dave's annoying jet-ski).  Eventually, I crossed the "lip" of the coire - over the edge on to flat land, a green basin within the rocks, just a stream moving.  I felt I'd crossed into another world - another island.  The rocks stood up like statues.  And as I looked up there was suddenly a huge eagle up above me.  I could see a difference to the golden eagles we'd seen the previous day, and realised it must be a sea eagle, its giant, slow flapping movements taking it impossibly far into each glide. It circled above, seeming to approach and I felt frightened - it was just me and him (or her) in this lonely landscape.  An eagle, the sun and me. Irrational though it was part of me wanted to run away; part of me wanted to stay until evening, go even further up, scramble up those rocks and reach a pinnacle.  But I didn't.  I was too sensible or too scared - one or the other.  I also wanted to leave the eagle alone - somehow it felt like it wasn't my landscape, it belonged to her (or him). I had to get down.  I began almost to run, although it was too rocky to run.  Once at the dam, I breathed again.  I couldn't see the eagle any more.  Just the sea far below and the tiny symbols of human habitation: the castle, Gav and Laura's croft (which is finally taking shape), Nic and Adi's caravan, yurts, houses, boats. Part of me wanted to stay - part of me to go.

I was hugely excited to have seen a sea eagle, and I told people all about how amazing it was. But I wouldn't admit that alongside the excitement I was definitely scared.  Eagles never attack humans unless they are in danger themselves and so I felt like an idiot.  But it was something to do with feeling isolated - however much we love the eagles, they will never love us back or if they do, we'll never know.  And this is how it should be - all we can do for them is leave them alone.  And that is why I am struggling - because this is the first place I've ever lived that is not set up for humans at all.  We have a bit of a foothold, but not much, and we're still working out what we should/can take and what we can give back.  I like the idea of "living in harmony with nature" - but what does it actually mean when you're a human?

I was struggling even more on Tuesday when we attempted to get to Bloodstone Hill.  This is a magnificent, terrifying bit of rock on the other side of the island, which you can only get to by cycling four miles to Malcolm's Bridge, then struggling up a barely-marked path, through a bog and over a "beleach" (the dip between two mountains).  Once we got to the beleach, the view was incredible - right across to Canna, a tiny island set in a bright blue sea, and down the dizzying slopes to Guirdil, the bothy on the beach that can only be reached by "contouring down" the hill (i.e. guessing where you might be able to put your feet next). We could hear stags roaring in the glen below and then we saw them - they looked impossibly tiny. That was how far up we were.  One of the most beautiful views I've ever seen...

View of Canna from above Glen Guirdil - Guirdil bothy right at the bottom (Photo (c) "Kinley" from the Scottish Hills Forum)

I never made it to Bloodstone - maybe next time.  I got quite a long way, but I was exhausted and grumpy from not knowing where the path was (because there wasn't a proper one - don't argue with me Scottish mountain-climbers, there definitely WASN'T) and continually falling into the bog - much to the amusement of certain other people (you know who you are). "The island hates me!" I groaned childishly after the seventh or eighth bit of clumpy grass fell away beneath my feet to deposit me in a foot of mud.  Footpaths!  How I long for a lovely Ordnance Survey map with the footpaths clearly marked - I don't care how steep or how muddy, at least they are there! We don't realise how lucky we are in England. 

One of our better "paths" (not me on it...) (Photo (c) "Kinley" SHF)

I want to think more about how people interact with landscapes that they don't have much control over and so I've been desperately trying to find books that help me out.  One of them is Simon Barnes' How to be Wild. (He also wrote the better known book How to be a Bad Birder). He tries to analyse why we as humans are so unhappy in the human-filled world we've made and why we need outdoor spaces, animals and "nature" to be truly ourselves, and urges us to find the "wildness" in our lives, whether that is in the African desert or in our local park.  So far I agree, it's a vital message.  But Simon (though he's travelled widely, and to far more dangerous spots than I have) lives in Suffolk.  Presumably he has a local council, local buses and local doctors.  Also, and more importantly, he has footpaths. The countryside he lives in may be rural, but rural England is a place where people belong, generally.  Here, we don't.  That means our relationship with the island is very different.

I want to love the wilds (and I do), but actually living in them makes you think about your priorities and who you really are.  Does it matter that we spend so much time planning how to obtain, grow or order food?  No - it's a good thing, it makes you realise what harvest festival is all about and you appreciate every individual parsnip or potato when it's had to be ordered a week in advance and travel to the island by ferry, or be grown with months of care and hard work, and protected from destruction by bad weather, turkeys or pigs. Does it matter that there are no pubs?  Yes it does! 

Looking for help, I opened up a book at random - Letters from Iceland by W.H Auden and Louis MacNeice.  The two poets travelled around Iceland in the 1930s, partly to escape their growing dread of war and fascism in Europe.  Iceland at the time was a remote, tiny civilisation of farmers and fishermen - kind of similar to Rum, really.  I'd never read the book before.  So maybe it was fate that I opened it at the page (p. 27 if you're curious and have the Faber edition) where Christopher Isherwood is asking Auden in a letter:

                What feelings did your visit give you about life on small islands?

Auden replies:

If you have no particular intellectual interests or ambitions and are content with the company  of your family and friends, then life on Iceland must be very pleasant, because the inhabitants are friendly, tolerant and sane.  They are genuinely proud of their country and its history, but without the least trace of hysterical nationalism.  I have always found that they welcomed criticism.  But I had the feeling, also, that for myself it was already too late. We are all too deeply involved with Europe to be able, or even to wish to escape [...] I think that in the long run, the Scandinavian sanity would be too much for you, as it is for me.  The truth is, we are both only really happy living among lunatics.

Substitute "the mainland" for "Europe", and "Rum" for "Scandinavian", and there you are!

Auden is torn, it seems, between the satisfaction of dealing with the struggles of everyday life where politics don't seem to matter, and the need to engage with that "insanity" back in Europe.  Insanity wins - eventually.

But just after this, Auden's companion MacNeice wrote to another friend:

               

                           ...what am I doing here?...

                The reason for hereness seems beyond conjecture,
                There are no trees or trains or architecture,
                Fruits and greens are insufficient for health,
                And culture is limited by lack of wealth.
                The tourist sights have nothing like Stonehenge...
                And yet I like it if only because this nation
                Enjoys a scarcity of population...
                [We] do not remember
                The necessity of silence of the islands.

 He too seems to be idealising island life - huh, I think, it's easy to be snobby about "culture" when you're surrounded by London!  If only! But then he writes:

                We are not changing ground to escape from facts
                But rather to find them.

Maybe it's not a straightforward choice between boring "sanity" and exciting, if exhausting "insanity" in the "real world".  Maybe it's a bit more complex.  Maybe living here in this environment that demands such different skills to "back home", and is so silent, does act as a balance or a learning curve to deal with all that stuff happening out on the mainland: all those really noisy things that can make you feel helpless, angry or sad - but that still need dealing with.  Looking inside myself, I realise that humans are full of struggles and they are still looking for where they belong. 

I clearly need to give this whole island thing a bit more of a go.

P.S. We do have a bit of architecture (not much) and some trees. We also have a lot of silence.

Looking across to Orval and Bloodstone from the other side (Photo (c) Kinley, SHF)

One of the "top ten railway journeys in the world" starts here...

We hit a deer on the way back up to Fort William. It was already dark and the train was running fast to Spean Bridge when there was suddenly a loud bang and the train ground to a halt while we heard an uneven bumping rolling away under the train.  Everyone stopped and looked at each other but in a moment the train started up again. "It was a deer," confirmed Mel after a few minutes looking out, "I saw the body roll away."

It wasn't a good omen for our travel back to the island after a few days' break to do "practical" stuff on the mainland.  But the advantage of doing the journey during the day instead of overnight was that we got to see how empty the landscape became as the sun set over Loch Lomond and the water turned pink and gold in the light.  It was beautiful and the sadness I felt about the deer didn't last long - I've seen it happen too often in mountainous places - although I have thought about it a lot since then.  But it heightened the sense of anxiety creeping up on me - I didn't really want to go back. All the things I was worried about before I left London (what am I going to DO there? who will I talk to? who will I turn into if I live on a tiny island?!) were all proving well-founded fears...but first of all I have to deal with a Saturday night train ride from Glasgow through to Mallaig, which is an experience in itself...

We leave Glasgow around 6 pm - it's the shoppers' train that will at some point turn into the clubbers' train.  The shoppers have spent an exciting day in Glasgow and are worn out with buying stuff and are either falling asleep over their M&S, Accessorise and Primark bags (the teenagers) or sitting in groups drinking wine and giggling (the middle aged ladies).  As the journey goes on, more and more shoppers get off at the little towns or villages, while more and more teenagers get on, intent on a night out "up to toon" in Fort William.  A distinct smell of cigarettes and then of weed drifts down the carriage and now I understand why all the windows have been opened...Shortly before Fort William someone gets on and sits behind me, and the smell of ciggies and weed grows stronger.  He has recognised a young couple who are sitting nearby and decides to chat with them.  His observations are short but to the point: "It's fooking freezing, aye."  Pause.  "Aye, it's fooking freezing.  Youse guys going up to toon?" (Inaudible response from the couple).  "Aye. I fooking am an' all."  Another inaudible remark from the  couple.  "Aye. Fooking right". Pause. "Fooking freezing, though, aye."  There is another pause and then the conversation continues as a very loud monologue from the person behind me, which I can't understand most of as it's in broad Glaswegian.  I can only make out "Un' then he said...'n' I was fooking like, FOOK...fer fook's sake...fooking FREEZING it fooking was."

From the deep voice and the bad smokers' cough that is going on behind me, I imagine a tall, rugged, scary Glaswegian man, maybe in his late thirties with a habit of going out and getting pissed on the train and who doesn't wrap up warm enough on autumn evenings.  Hope he doesn't notice we're gay.  Maybe he and his mates will beat us up at the next stop...Maybe I should offer him my coat. I don't dare look round in case he catches my eye and asks me what the fook I am staring at. 

The next stop IS Fort William and I breathe a sigh of relief as I hear sounds of preparing departure from behind. Finally I dare to turn my head.  A short, spotty boy with a snub nose and a bad red anorak is sat behind me, quite a bit shorter than I am.  He looks about twelve years old.  "Aye, well I'm fooking off now,"  he says unnecessarily to the couple, and departs.  They follow, quietly.

It is now extremely cold (he was right about that) and once the majority of travellers have departed for their pubs and clubs I shut the windows.  The next group of people to get on is more sedate...mostly middle aged types who look as if they are going on holiday to do birdspotting and they probably are; and an "alternative" looking American in a baseball cap reading the Guardian and wearing a Death Metal T-shirt (I know he's American because he asks one of the passengers for a light).  Two of the teenagers have stayed on, one of them is a girl obviously training to be an actress, also American and very loud:  "And then these guys made me wear this crazy costume, and wanted me to cut my hair off, and it made me look like a LESBEEYUN!" In the carriage up ahead there is a rowdy group of four gentlemen, one of which I recognise as the only non-white man I've seen so far in Mallaig - one of the bartenders from the Steam Inn, where we are staying tonight.  I'm enjoying this cross-section of the Scottish population: teenagers, geeks, on-train smokers, bartenders, shoppers, birdwatchers, elderly ladies...but by the time we get to Mallaig I've had enough of it and just want to go to bed. It's nearly midnight, after all.

As we leave the train I see that the table where the Steam Inn group was sitting.  It's impressively covered in three bottles of whisky, a huge number of cigarette papers and about 10 empty cans of Tennents.  It's trashed and so are the guys. Pretty much next to the notice on the train that tells you that ScotRail no longer allow alcohol on trains after 9 pm.  Someone had a fun night!  They are all still stood on the platform smoking cigarettes in a wobbly fashion.  The bartender looks at us suspiciously, he knows he's seen us before.

We get to the Steam Inn.  Mel says, "Great, now we just have to walk into a small Scottish pub at midnight and tell them we've booked a room together."  "It'll be fine," I say without conviction. We walk in.  There are three teenagers sat at the bar, one couple playing pool and an extremely drunken group of bar staff sat in a corner.  It's a bit quiet.  Mel approaches the small person behind the bar, who seems also to be a teenager.  "Er...we've booked a double room."  Silence.  "I'll have a look for youse".  Teenager consults the book.  "No, um, nothing here." "Well, we definitely booked it". Teenager consults another book. "Oh...umm....maybe...was your name Melanie?" "Yes it was."  "Be with you in a minute".  Teenager grabs a key and goes over to the group of drunken staff. She says something I think means she's going to show us to our room so will be gone for a minute or so.  The most drunken member of staff, who must be the chef judging from her trousers, turns round to look at us.  "FUCK!" she shouts.  "Don't worry," the girl says to us, "it's been one of those days...she's just hammered."

We follow her up the stairs and just as we are getting to the room she does a double-take and goes back a couple of steps to a different door.  "Sorry, we don't have a double after all. Is a twin ok?" Fine, anything is fine.  She unlocks the door and then you can't see her for dust...

I am torn between despairing about where I have come to live and finding it hilarious. After about twenty seconds I can't stop laughing. This is the road to the isles and I want to enjoy it while I still have a sense of humour!  Even though it's not quite what they put in the tourist brochures.

things I have seen on Rum this week

a pair of stonechat by the pier
a yellow wagtail on the battlements
swallows in the rain getting ready to fly away
then no swallows
14 oystercatchers in the bay
1 seal
4 sunrises over the mainland mountains
3 mornings of rain
1 curlew
several herons
5 ponies being taken up the mountain to Harris
4 roaring stags
50 (?) hinds in the dunes
antlers on a hut
gannets diving
a gull-and-gannet feeding frenzy far out to sea
1 minke whale in the middle of it, following the fish
2 eagles in the sun
the rusty wreck of George Bullough's car from ca. 1910, suddenly appearing on the beach as the tide drops
midges
3 black labradors
hundreds of geese
1 palmate newt
a road with no people on it

Stags, whales, cows, ponies...who owns this island anyway?!

Time to get out of the village and find out more about the rest of this amazing island...

There are only two "proper" roads on Rum (i.e. tracks made specially for humans...there are lots of so-called "pony tracks" that humans are allowed to use too, if their boots are good enough).  One leads to Kilmory - the other, to Harris.  They are both completely different places, almost as if they were on different islands.  Autumn is stag rutting time so that means it's time to go to Kilmory!



Stag at Kilmory (Photo (c) Ali Morris)

Kilmory faces north, to Skye, Soay and the mainland, a sheltered beach at the end of a valley full of deer.  It's bleak, stony and isolated, a few houses dotted about to remind us of when this used to be home to just two girls who spent all summer here doing laundry for the grand folk up at the castle (Lady Monica and George didn't like to see knickers hanging from a washing line).  Now it's home to Rum's deer research team, two or three people (and their laundry) who spend their days tracking the animals to find out what they get up to, which ones are the most successful breeders, which ones are most likely to get ill and which have the loudest roar (I may have made that one up - proper info on www.isleofrum.com/wildlifedeer.php).  If you've seen Autumnwatch over the last few years, you'll have met some of our stags and hinds on TV - and our researchers have names for them all.

Kilmory Beach (with bathing beauty) (Photo (c) L Becker)

We leave our bikes at "the junction" (the bit where the proper track stops and turns into just stones).  It's a long, lonely walk down the glen with no-one and nothing about, not even an eagle...until we spot our first group of hinds. Their stag can't be far away, and sure enough, there he is - up on the hillside tracking us, making sure we're not about to threaten his harem. Even at a distance we can tell he's a big, experienced beast - he'll have won some battles in his time to prove he's the best.  He's dark, looking threatening against the hills - a deliberate ploy from rolling in peat to make himself appear more impressive.  Soon we spot the competition too - and hear it.  There are at least four stags roaming the hills, three with their own hinds, but one without.  He's moving into a strategic spot, ready to challenge the other stags, trying to get the ladies to come over to join him and leave their current mate.  Stags don't always fight - it's dangerous and they try to avoid it if possible, so they start off with roaring to impress the hinds with their big voices.  They will "face off" each other as well, trying to stare each other down.  If this doesn't work, they'll fight, horrendous battles where they are liable to be maimed or even killed.  Their necks swell up and their roars echo down the valley - nearly as far as the village.

Inquisitive hind (Photo (c) L Becker)

At the beach, there are hinds everywhere, hiding in the dunes, wandering by the shore and listening out for the stags calling to them.  It's hard to tell where the noise is coming from, it bounces off the rocks and sounds as if there's a stag just behind our picnic spot.  We try to stay out of their way - they can be dangerous during the rut.  The former laundry house is now the chief research hut - no-one to be seen, but a pair of antlers hanging above the door gives it a strange, primitive look.  One of the huts is full of antlers found in the hills; an even bleaker hut, mended with gaffer tape at the moment, is for the volunteers who come here each year to help out.  We walk back up to the village, after a brief chat to a volunteer who doesn't even know the hostel moved out of the castle in June; she has spent the last two months just at Kilmory. I try to imagine what kind of life they lead, and why they might do something so lonely. The deer are not friendly, although they're not hostile either unless you get in their way; they keep to themselves, with the occasional foray down to Kinloch to steal food.

A bit different from our trip to Harris a couple of weeks ago! That was full of inquisitive creatures...and it was the first time I'd actually made it out of the village to the other side of Rum.  Just in time - I'd started to feel there was no other side.  It was a blazingly hot day and we borrowed mountain bikes to attempt the stony eight mile mountain track.  Within about 10 minutes I was already pushing the bike as even the first part of the journey up to the "deer gate" (the barrier to stop the deer wandering into the village and eating everyone's beans and cabbages) was too steep for me to manage.  I thought I'd got fitter in London but getting through a Keiser Cycle class is not the same as scaling an actual mountain! Oh, alright...we hadn't even got to the mountain bit yet, it was just the path up to it.  Mel was sympathetic: "When I first came here I had to push the bike all the way there...you're doing really well." Really?  I feel like an idiot but I'm determined to show I'm not a useless towny tourist.  I keep going as much as I can as the landscape gets more and more amazing.  Pretty soon we are heading along Kinloch Glen, where the eagles hang out. No eagles today but views right across to Skye and the mainland, a pure blue sky and my lungs nearly bursting with the determination to keep cycling.   Every time I thought it had to get a bit easier, it just got harder.  "Don't worry, after the first four miles it's all downhill to the sea."  Four miles uphill?! We stopped now and again at the waterfalls that came down the mountain.  Rain comes straight off the tops here - clouds drift over from the Atlantic or the mainland and hit the mountain peaks, so that from a boat looking back Rum looks like the Forbidden Island it was once known as, with dark clouds swirling over the island like a whirlpool.  But if you're on the right side of the mountain, you'd never even realise it was raining.  That's what it's like today - we have even got our own weather, shared it seems only with the Rum ponies and Highland cattle, as we don't spot anyone else.

Photo (c) L Becker

Up and up we go, until eventually Mel's promise comes true and we can freewheel down the terrifyingly steep and stony track to Harris Bay.  My hands are numb with clinging to the handlebars, the wheels are bouncing off the track and I'm trying to concentrate on the road rather than get distracted by the views.  Trying to slow down to avoid a curious herd of Highland cows, it occurs to me at this late juncture that I will probably die if my bike hits a rock and I fly off....Mel is already a mile ahead down the spiralling path as she never puts the brakes on downhill - I grit my teeth and try to be as brave.



View down to Harris from the track (Photo (c) L Becker)

This is where the Bullough family are buried and where George wanted to build the castle.  Instead, only the Bullough mausoleum rests in splendid isolation at the edge of the coast: George, his father John and the lovely Lady M. are buried here.  The Atlantic rolls in, breaking on the jagged rocks and sheer cliffs.  It's like a different world to the tranquil bay of Kinloch.  For the first time I feel like I'm on holiday in a truly foreign country.  All my worries seem to have been left behind and I feel free just to sit and look out over the sea that is glittering in the sunlight.  We watch for dolphin and I spot a porpoise.  Butterflies land on us and we fall asleep.  I feel that in some indefinable way I've reached a milestone in my adventure - I'm able to move around the island without depending on anyone else, I've "conquered" part of my new world.  But the ponies and cows we meet are quick to remind us it's not just ours...I'm wary as I approach them, but they are determined to check us out. I get the feeling they know much more about us than we do about them...

Ponies small - or far away?

Ponies a bit nearer... (Photos (c) L Becker)

It's a weird feeling and makes me realise how distant things are here from my "former life". In London part of my job was trying to get other people to realise that we're part of nature - it's not an alien force we have to control but something that is integral to who and what we are, it's beautiful, it's amazing.  But here, our total dependency on natural forces (the ferry didn't come today as it was too windy...) is so obvious, that your interactions with the island take on a very personal feel - it feels like a personal achievement (so I've been told..) to be able to scale one of these mountains, or even just to cross the island on one of its exposed and risky roads. Yes, in London you're at risk from all sorts of other things - but generally danger is related to other people (will they steal my phone/job/seat on the Tube...will I get run over if I bike to work...?) not usually from the weather or animals.  Humans don't have much control over things here, at least not as much as I'm used to.  Here you can leave your bike, even your house unlocked and not worry, but a swift change of weather or a slip in the wrong place and going up on the mountains could potentially kill you (or more likely leave you waiting unromantically at the bottom of a wet and cold hill for the helicopter to arrive and winch you to safety).  It's easy to long romantically for a more "natural" way of life, when you're (too) safe in your London flat, but once you're out in the open fighting a gale to get home and the roof is threatening to cave in with the amount of water coming out of those massive clouds, or when a cow with very big and pointy horns is refusing to get out of your way on the only path, your relationship with "Nature" becomes a lot more interesting!



I'm not scary really (Photo (c) L Becker)

But in some way, it seems to make us happy...though maybe only because underneath we still feel that certainty that we do have some control.  On the other hand it's a challenge for conservationists - you want people to connect more with nature, but what happens once you've started to actually live this close to "nature" as a reality, not just visit it at weekends?  How much and what kind of "civilisation" do we really want and need?  What kind of island do we want? Who is the island "for"?  Humans don't like nature to get too out of hand; being here makes me realise how many primitive fears we still have about animals, the weather, the wilderness.  Maybe that's why some people feel an urge to cover it all in concrete or drill for oil in the Arctic. They haven't found a way to live with wildness.  I'm glad we're in a place where some of it still exists - and I will learn to get over my fear of cows!



Harris Bay (Photo (c) L Becker)



Outside looking in...inside looking out

Human needs (1)...somewhere to wash, something to look at (Photo (c) L Becker)

What makes a home a home?  What makes a place somewhere you want to go to, somewhere you want to stay?  Is it the state of the décor? The cleanliness of the bathrooms?  Or is it more about the things it lets you dream of?

It's been a strange week, visitors coming to look at us, inspecting our progress, discussing our home.  People looking from the outside in - and us trying to get them to see it from the inside out.  And autumn is now definitely no longer merely approaching but in the porch taking its wellies off and getting ready to settle down in front of the fire (when the fire lights, that is...).  Autumn is here - and the island's moods are changing with it.  We're subdued, and we're thinking about what the future may hold.  So in advance, I apologise for a slightly more serious blog...with a bit of history and some drunken ranting thrown in for free!

The last few days have seen lots of comings and goings with visits from "SNH folk" - Scottish Natural Heritage, the government body that looks after the nature reserve and used to own the whole of the island's assets after Lady Monica sold Rum to them for a knock-down price in 1957.  Now, most of the assets belong to the Community Trust, set up to make the island a place people can call home, an independent community with businesses and its own infrastructure.  Once upon a time, Rum was known as the "Forbidden Island" - first forbidden to ordinary folk by its wealthy London owners, then, after Lady Monica sold it to SNH, reserved for birds, beasts and conservationists, with anyone else tolerated if they were lucky, not welcomed.  Tensions ran high at times between "locals" and "government busybodies".  That's changed now, with all of us doing our best to look after the island in the way it needs - the Community Trust owning most of Kinloch, the only village, and SNH looking after the nature reserve, castle, roads and electrical supply.  But now suddenly, a visit from one of the SNH Board members from far-away Edinburgh means that someone is looking at us from the outside - and their grasp of what the island does, what it means and how it all works, is a long way removed from ours.

We know we don't have much money.  We know that the castle costs a lot to maintain, and that it's a real problem for SNH to know what to do with it.  But it feels wrong to have someone look at the castle and basically see it as just a statistic, a big piece of brickwork draining money from the coffers.  I realise I have a confession to make - I've fallen in love with the castle and I want to make other people realise just how special it is.

We're meeting in the hall to welcome our visitor and for a meet and mingle event where islanders can ask questions and find out what SNH is planning for the castle and NNR, and how the Trust and SNH are going to work together in the future.  Wine flows; canapés, lovingly prepared by Claire, are eaten.  But many people are too shy or too unaccustomed to negotiation to discuss their concerns in public with a Government representative.  Clearly, that representative - Andrew - is trying to show "the community" that SNH is on their side now.  They don't want to stop things developing, on the contrary.  They want...what do they want?  There is an awkward moment where Andrew, having giving his talk, asks for questions and no-one speaks up for a while.  I think we're not sure what to say.  He's spoken vaguely about SNH has to do what government wants and how this means they won't invest in island and castle unless we can show it will bring "socio-economic benefits".  But who gets to decide what this means? Does this in plain language just mean everything has to turn a profit?  Or does the word "benefit" have a more holistic meaning? I get the feeling that he thinks islanders are still wanting to "move on" from its SNH past and from the elite world that the castle represents...

After I've had another glass of wine or so, I manage to get a proper word with him and ask what he's trying to say - especially about the castle.  From what he says, it feels as though SNH think the castle is an anomaly, something that shouldn't really be there, or at least shouldn't be on the island taking money away from more important things.  True, it's not SNH's normal remit to look after old buildings. But Lady Monica was insistent - the island and the castle belong together, you can't have one without the other.

And I agree. Lady Monica was way ahead of her time, doing what academics now call "cultural geography" - believing that landscapes and people interact to create identity. Cultural geography suggests that a landscape isn't made up of opposing elements that can be separated out simply into "natural" and "man-made".  Memory, fantasy and action shape our landscapes, even those that seem most untouched.  All of Rum has been shaped by human beings and their behaviours - there are traces of farms, burial places, religious sites and tracks going way back into pre-historic times. The castle is part of a long tradition of humans on the island, but it means something more.  It represents what Rum was in a very specific bit of the past, but it also represents the Bulloughs' fantasies about what an island should be - a refuge, a fairy-tale, a holiday home, a hunter's paradise, a "wild" place, a business.  That hasn't changed.  The island itself is all these things for different people in our time, from conservationists to mountaineers to hikers to deerstalking addicts, to those who are simply wanting to "get away from it all".   Most of those people recognise the castle as part of the whole identity of Rum, not something that takes away from it.



Fantasy island.  Where George and Monica insisted on being buried on Rum...

And I think most islanders feel similarly.  For most of us, "Rum" is more than the sum of its parts.  Like the mountains, the deer, the sea and the shearwaters, Kinloch Castle (and all the other "historic" bits of Rum) is part of the reality of the island, both its past and its present.  People, including those who mainly come to Rum to climb mountains, are passionate about the castle.  They fall in love with its bizarre history and its even more bizarre furnishings.  They want to know more about it.  They want to stay in it (sorry you can't yet!).  They spend money here coming to see it and many insist that there's potential for it to be used even more, in all sorts of ways, and ask why we're not doing more to get people to come and see it. In other words...they dream.



...and how they chose to live. Ever fallen in love with somewhere you shouldn't have fallen in love with? (Photos (c) L Becker)

Yes, says Andrew, but in times of Government cuts how can we justify the expense of the castle's upkeep? This is a common argument at the moment, but to me it doesn't make sense. Yes, if by not restoring the castle we could eliminate child poverty in Scotland - great, let's do it! But it doesn't work that way. Would that money really go into helping others?  More to the point (as SNH really does have a responsibility towards the island) would abandoning the castle help Rum? I think it wouldn't, though I don't expect them to keep paying for it - I believe eventually the castle should pay for itself with enough investment. But I've moved on now from just making an economic argument, I realise I'm arguing a bigger point, maybe against an invisible opponent. I try to explain (on my third glass of wine now) that no-one would think of demolishing the Tower of London or Westminster Abbey because the money could be "better spent elsewhere".  Those things have a different meaning to schools or new roads. They are part of our history, part of what it means to be human.  And the castle has a special place in history here in Rum, a place seen as nearly uninhabitable for much of its history.  The Bulloughs with their castle changed that, they made it not only a desirable, but an ultra-desirable place to live, a place where dreams could come true.  I think it still inspires people to dream, dreams that Rum could become a place not only with a thriving community, but a place that has a bigger significance within Scotland and beyond.  People don't visit places (or even live in them) just because they have shops and schools.  They visit them because something about them speaks to their inner fantasies and needs.  And Rum speaks to a lot of people in this way. It's a place with an 8,000 year human history, a cultural as well as a natural asset, and our castle is an essential part of that.  It's got so much to teach people and means that our island isn't just about economic survival - it means way more...

I don't know if I managed to get any of this across in my slightly tipsy, if passionate discussion with Mr Thinne - the poor man was probably desperately hoping someone would come and take me away.  But I was desperate to get him to see the island and the castle from the "inside" not just the outside.  And it made me realise that despite all my reservations, I am becoming more of an "insider" - not just a strange Southerner with a hankering to live in a castle.  (And the next day I found out it wasn't just me getting passionate about the island - apparently too much wine flowed after I'd left and an inter-islander fight nearly broke out at the shop over a question of policy...) I guess having an "outsider" looking into our world, made us realise that our community is still fragile and there are still many unresolved questions about what's going to happen to Rum and what should happen to it.  That's why we need those on the outside to listen to us on the inside and understand what it means to live on Rum, as opposed to merely reading statistics about it.

But why now? Well, it's not just a coincidence that these visits are happening now (we've also had visits from an independent conservator (who loves the castle*) and other SNH staff).  Listen up, castle-lovers - Kinloch Castle is at a crossroads.  Currently an options appraisal is going on to decide the immediate fate of our very own "temple to Edwardian decadence". There are lots of ideas, but a consultation showed that most islanders want the castle to stay, with the museum at the front and the empty parts at the back turned into housing and "posh" visitor accommodation (to attract wealthier visitors, for example groups who might want to do deerstalking.)  This is a perfect example of how SNH and the Community Trust could work together to improve things for Rum - we can offer fantastic stalking for those who want to pay for it.  But currently, there's nowhere appropriate for them to stay.  If we could invest enough in the castle to turn this around, it would be a huge benefit for the island as a whole. 

Will Government listen?  Can we show that investment is desperately needed, but also that it will eventually pay for itself - perhaps eventually even taking the castle off the government's hands? We have to fight our corner and do our best to get the help we need....and we hope that all those people who love the island will make their voices heard too. 



Human needs (2)...dream castle and a few more human necessities (Photo (c) L Becker)



*On cultural geography: our conservator, Rob, told me about how he'd gone out to Africa a few years back as part of his job.  Why?  Because Nigeria has medieval castles and churches hidden away in its forests, that are going to be restored.  I fantasise about historians and conservators of the future approaching Rum in their teletransporting units, and digging beneath the layers of sand, mud and rock to find a pink Edwardian castle...complete with jet-spraying jacuzzi bath.  It would be sad if it had gone...

22nd September - Harvest time, a harvest moon and all about shearwaters

Blasda today - the Scottish celebration of local food and drink and an excuse to bring everyone together for a slap-up meal! 

Preparation has been going on for some time with those amongst us who love cooking busy planning meals and harvesting produce from their polytunnels and gardens.  And those amongst us who just love eating were invited to come along and join in!  In the end, 26 big people and four little ones turned up - and there was, as always, just enough food with a little bit to spare.  Among the islanders were some visitors too - Sean's Mum and Dad, and our singers and story-tellers from yesterday's shearwater festival (more of which anon).  It was lovely to have a mix of locals old and less old along with people who just enjoy visiting us, and we set up one long table down the middle of the community hall to make sure everyone felt part of the day.

Now where's the next course?

For me as a newbie it hasn't been so easy to source "local produce".  My patch in the community polytunnel remains so far just a patch.  My optimistic order to the Co-op ("Scottish marmelade please, NOT Golden Shred") for my marmelade puddings, resulted in three jars of...Golden Shred.  Likewise, I did not milk my own cow to get the cream for the cranachan (a dairy is one thing we lack on Rum, although the Victorian dairy house is still there!)  However, eggs were very local indeed as were the raspberries (kindly given to me by Vikki) and the blackberries (picked by me at enormous expense to my fingers and clothing).  But other people managed cabbages, turnips, carrots, onions, fennel, chervil, chives, potatoes, courgettes, venison...resulting in an impressive three course menu.  Among the more exotic items was a chili venison curry and home-made custard made with goose eggs!

Cranachan - just add cream, raspberries, blackberries, oats, honey, whiskey...

Having eaten until we could eat no more, we would probably have been happy just to sit around and gently nod off over the tea and biscuits, but suddenly Tim, one of the visitors, got up and unpacked his accordion.  Last night he had played to us mournful and funny Icelandic and Gaelic songs of birds, the sea, unrequited love and, er, egg-hunting  - from St Kilda, Orkney and Iceland, where in the "old days" young ladies tested their admirers by setting them near-impossible tasks such as scaling huge cliffs to collect gannet eggs.  Today he and Danny, who plays the guitar, struck up a medley of tunes ranging from the Charleston to traditional folk music.  We all gradually joined in playing whatever instruments lay to hand - mainly spoons, coffee cups, tables and glasses, but with a good deal of clapping and stamping too.  Most of us adults didn't quite manage to get over our self-consciousness enough to dance, but one five-year-old didn't stop from the moment the accordion was unpacked to the moment it was put back into its case.  We wonder if Tim might be persuaded to come back for the Hogmanay ceilidh - our band has fallen through and we are worried there might be no live music at all (anyone with an idea, let me know!)

It was a lovely and inspiring end to my difficult "Week Five", when, as I am reliably informed, disillusion can start to set in for newcomers who've spent four weeks in an idealistic haze of excitement ("I'm living on an island! No-one lives on an island! It's amazing! I live in a castle!  On an island!" etc etc etc).  The point at which you start to realise this could be for the long haul - or it could turn out to be a disaster.  The point at which you question everything everyone does and wonder if you can really bear to live in a place with only 40 people and no "normal" structures (all the things you take for granted in a mostly functioning society -  all the structures we've put in place to allow us to cope with conflict and make decisions without actually killing each other, starting from the bottom with things like sports clubs and choirs, parent-teacher associations and village councils, through to the judiciary, government and the EU. And that's before I've even got on to the lack of shops, entertainment, pubs and restaurants); we're still in the process of creating those decision-making structures or getting the ones we already have to work. This is part of the excitement but sometimes it can feel very hard. I'm not employed here, I don't have a role - I'm not a manager, a doctor, a farmer or even, as yet, an official volunteer.  So what is my position here?

It was a relief last night not to have to worry about it, just sitting back and going "Wow" while someone else does something amazing.  Yesterday we had a visit from a touring duo, Tim and Malcolm.  Both multi-talented enthusiasts about Scotland, music, the sea and seabirds, they are touring the islands to perform their "Shearwater" play and hold workshops for islanders (http://vimeo.com/51081620).  And before you stop reading and go "oh no, not birds again" - let me try to get you interested.  Shearwaters are amazing black and white birds, the albatross of the northern hemisphere.  They can travel up to five million miles in their lifetime and on a single fishing expedition may travel up to 1200 miles.  Imagine going 1200 miles to the supermarket every time your fridge was empty! (oh, hang on, that's a bit like us...) They mate for life, and can live for 40-50 years or even longer. They lay a single egg each year in burrow underground, and their fluffy grey chicks fledge at night when their parents are far out to sea, running (or waddling) down to the ocean by the light of the moon - or in the dark if they're lucky, moonlight is dangerous as it means the fat little chicks can easily be picked off by predators.  They make a crazy noise to the extent that the Vikings (and many people after them) thought there were trolls and demons in the mountains, when it was in fact just the shearwaters.  That's why (we believe) one of our mountains is called "Trollval".  Thousands of them make their burrows up behind Coire Dubh and in September you can go up to view them at night, if you're brave enough to go up a mountain in the dark that is (I'm not yet).

Manx Shearwater (copyright www.surfbird.com)

The play talked about why we love nature, how we love it but often destroy it.  Global warming means there is no food left for many sea birds in the north of Britain and their numbers are plummeting.  But as well as the sadness there was the excitement about being somewhere where we're lucky enough still to be close to such strange beings.  Why do humans love being close to birds and animals? Maybe once upon a time we used to be closer to them still.  We are totally unlike birds but in some ways we are like them, or maybe want to be like them.  Bonding for life is just one example...they do it, and we just try our best. 

 We all sat enthralled before leaving to prepare our Blasda food...I am determined to get up the troll mountain one day! And it reminded me too that we (I) need more than organisations and structures to survive and be happy, we need songs, good food, friends, mountains and amazing places.  A bit like being on Rum.  Sometimes.

Harvest moon, 19th September