15th September - the storm has arrived...

So, as we walked home in the dark to the castle after the quiz night (£107 raised for the hall roof to add to the growing funds...whoop whoop! We need £11,000 to make the roof wind- and watertight, get rid of the woodworm and repair the big hole that no-one is allowed to mention any more until we can afford to get it done), the wind was getting up and by the time we were in bed we could hear the first blasts booming around the castle.  The wind doesn't whistle here...it makes a noise a bit like a door slamming (sometimes it IS a door slamming - they were fitted with patent anti-slam devices in 1899 that have the effect of making the doors slam much louder than normal doors - but mostly it's just the wind booming in the turrets...)

In the morning I was woken up by actual doors slamming and Mel racing backwards and forwards with saucepans and towels. "There's water coming through in the tower, let's hope it's not the water tank." There's an especially big turret in the middle of the castle which we go up sometimes at night to look at the stars.  You get to the top via a very narrow, steep spiral staircase with rope at the sides to help you and half-way up there is a door leading into "The Water Tank".  This is a giant lead container holding all the water for the castle and has a room all to itself.  Much like the boiler downstairs in the cellar which has been going since 1897 and has a big scary button on it saying "STOP".  "What's that button for?" I asked. "That's what you press if you see flames coming out of the cellar - it shuts off the kerosene supply."  "Aha - where does the kerosene come from?" The kerosene is in a giant reinforced plastic barrel out the back of the castle, there's a big ladder leaning up against it. "What's the ladder for?" "That's so you can climb up and poke the kerosene with a big stick to see how much is left." Um....

Doors of the original boiler - still powering our showers today!

Indeed.

We worry whether our friends living in yurts, caravans etc are ok.  The wind seems to be dropping overnight but we haven't gone to inspect the damage yet.  Claire told us that once she did wake up in the morning after a windy night and looked out of her yurt and there was an entirely different view to the one she'd had the previous day. This is why some people "go off" the island in winter.  It is fun to read about but not so much fun really living in a static caravan on a hillside in a gale in winter, on an island.  However, Nic and Adi think they will try to brave it out this year.  "It just feels wrong to leave, this is our home."  The children are quite excited. As our visitors, my friend and former au-pair child Katharina and her boyfriend, told us, Rum brings out your adventurish side. I hope they are ok in Mallaig today and can get back to where they need to be.

Having our first visitors here was lovely and it made me feel proud to be here. I was worried they'd be bored or anxious when the weather was bad, but instead they braved the elements and went out walking, falling in many bogs, getting followed by many animals and taking many photos of  mountains in the rain (and even in the sunshine).  Already I've started to worry less about rain and just go out in it and get wet.  It was an experience "climbing" the Kilmory Glen road in wet weather - the clouds had come down almost as far as the path and you couldn't see far.  A buzzard flapped right past us, unwilling to go higher into the mists.  Everything smelt of heather, wet earth and smoke.  The air was wet too.  By the time we got to the deer gate we were all dripping and quite cold, but kept on until we warmed up again.  A quick break by the waterfall with tea and whiskey helped! We chatted about German and English politics, neo-Nazis in Germany and the British attitude to Europe, our visitors' impressions of the island (good), whether rolling your own cigarettes is better than buying them readymade (their cigarette papers had got wet on their first walk and never recovered), and why you can't wear trainers to walk on Rum.  Katharina and Julian were keen to get up into the mountains but I had to explain that is is actually dangerous in bad weather and how swiftly good weather can change.  I don't think they believed me until they saw it for themselves.  Luckily, their last day was a golden day and we actually got up to Coire Dubh where Katharina went off-piste and decided to scale a (small) mountain. We followed her up across the non-path to a rocky outcrop where we were above the hills on the other side of the island so that we could see the lakes that are hidden on their summits, bright blue in their reflections of a perfectly blue sky.  It felt dizzy - the first time I've been onto the mountain proper, as opposed to wandering about beneath it.

For me and our visitors these changes were dramatic enough, but I know that soon winter will be here and what we've experienced so far will be nothing in comparison.  The boats are cancelled today and tomorrow, and so there won't be another until Wednesday.  This is with predicted 50 mph gales but it can get much worse! That's why I want to see as much of the island as I can now - so that I can picture it in my head even when in reality it's become inaccessible.

14th September - Perfect autumn days...and some big storms ahead!



On the Dibidil trail, looking across to the mainland...

...and to Eigg

There have been some perfect autumn days recently.  Walks up to Coire Dubh, on the Dibidil Path or (more ambitiously) across to Harris in the sunshine are like gold dust now though - things are changing and the weather can turn at any moment!  But not only the weather changes - everything on Rum is moving with the seasons.

 

Baby foal Fraoch ("Heather"), in this picture just a month old

At two-and-a-bit months old, the foal in front of the castle is filling out and becoming a foal teenager. But she still follows her mum and aunt around the field copying everything they do and occasionally kicking up some high jinks of her own (literally).  At the moment, she is doing her regular "I've been shot!" pose collapsed on the ground - it's exhausting growing up! The ponies are getting moved to the field behind the castle instead so soon we won't be able to watch them while we have breakfast.  The baby robins which are everywhere on the island are also getting older, gradually losing their brown spots and starting to get orange fluff on their chests (a bit like teenage boys growing their first "beards").  They are not very shy and will hop up to see what you're doing, staring at you from their tiny black eyes.

The mountains across the "channel" are mostly hidden in mist still, but every now and then one will emerge, then fold back into the clouds.  The heather is out across the island - a medley of different purples - and the rowanberries are bright orange.  The burns are in full spate with all the rain that's come down off the mountains. People are doing the chores that need doing in autumn.  We are hoping to use our fireplace and so we asked "Mr Reese" to chop up some firewood for us - he kindly obliged so we had to go and fetch it in with a trolley last Friday morning.  Three trips back and forth to the woodland behind our house - all done by hand! 


 

Finding the logs...



and filling up the trolley!

There is no landfill or paper recycling here, so we also lit a bonfire to burn our cardboard collection - it was a cheery sight with the robin that lives behind the castle flitting about watching us.  Other islanders are making jam and preserves and, more urgently, sorting out their (and their animals') accommodation for the winter.  Not everyone here has a proper home yet.  One family is in a static caravan until their house sale in England goes through and they can finally build their croft; another couple is desperately hoping the weather will keep fine enough for them to get their croft finished by November, when their first baby is due - until then they're staying with friends or in their yurt.  Others are repairing their houses (or yurts) and making them wind- and watertight, or arranging to stay with other people temporarily until housing can be found. 

Taking out the rubbish...and keeping warm!

There is other autumn work too going on here, more invisible.  The ghillies are here for the deer cull and most evenings will bring a deer or two off down the mountain, with the Rum ponies to help them.  The Rum ponies have done this work for generations and are bred to it.  The other evening I was coming back from the pier on my bike when I saw the two ponies gently ambling down the lane ahead with the stags tied to their backs, the ghillies leading them.  It was a sight that you could have seen a hundred years ago when the deer were being shot for sport as well as to keep the population stable (the rationale for the cull is that deer left unchecked are a bit like possum in New Zealand - they eat all the vegetation; also, if the weaker-gened stags are not removed, diseased and deformed animals become more common.  But it's also a business - selling venison is important here).  

Bringing a stag down from the mountains

It was an awe-inspiring sight, because I knew the work that had gone into it and the care taken to kill the deer as quickly and painlessly as possible - our resident "hunter"  Marcel is an outstanding shot.  The venison is sold on the island and beyond.  If you are going to eat meat, then it's a good way to eat it - much as if you're going to eat fish, the best way is to go out and catch it yourself, as many people do here.  I am to be sent an eight-foot fishing rod I've inherited from my grandma (I never knew she or my grandad fished!) and one of my many projects is to learn to catch my own mackerel from a sea canoe and try to avoid buying fish that's come off a trawler.  Not quite Lady Monica catching her own tarpon in the Caribbean off a 200 foot yacht - but almost.

So while autumn here is stunningly beautiful it's all about the work as well.  Even the foal will have work to do one day.  Yesterday Marcel visited the ponies, leaving a deer skin on the fence around their field, getting them used to the smell of it.  He was with them for a silent hour, letting them become familiar with him and the dog.  The ponies are not quite tame and not quite wild, but they are friendly.  Our friends met the ponies living wild(er) up at Harris - they were followed by them for quite a way, as they are very curious, but they live their own lives up there with their own social hierarchies - when we went up there was an obvious leader of the group that came to us first, checked us out and made sure we were "safe" before the other ponies could come over.

Teenage foal learning..."that could be me one day!"

I like the way that animals and people live alongside each other here and with their own tasks.  I like knowing that we're all involved in making things happen and everyone has a part to play, even if my part is so far limited to writing a list of "Things I want to learn on Rum" and contributing to the island coffers by spending wisely at the tea shop...and I like the fact that although the island is so beautiful, the beauty of it can change in hours to scary storms. 

Our guests have to leave early because the forecast for the next few days is "Magenta" - winds of up to 60 mph mean that boats might not be able to get here, especially the universally loathed "Bhrusda" - the replacement "ferry" that takes over when our CalMac Loch Nevis is off for her yearly repairs.  This year the repairs are earlier than usual, due to the Nevis being needed at half-term in October, and so "the Brick" as the Bhrusda is lovingly called, is on duty from 14th September.  Mel and I have been checking the weather forecast all week but it only seems to get worse.  Luckily there is another option, the "Orion", a sea safari boat that whizzes across the waves to Mallaig in 45 minutes, as opposed to rolling up and down for six hours while everyone is sick, like the Bhrusda. Our guests have decided to go with the Orion option and we make sure we are at the pier early - the boat is likely to leave fast as the storm approaches.  We are there by 6.45 and the boat arrives just after.  Everyone scrambles on while the boatsman exchanges gossip with our "harbourmaster" Dave in broad Scots that I can't always make out.  Stood on the slippery ramp with their ciggies hanging out of their mouths they exchange cynical remarks about the state of the Bhrusda, the general lateness of tourists and the fact that the ferry company has been selling "trip only" tickets for those who don't want to disembark but just want to have a nice journey around the Small Isles.  "There's not enough places for those who need to get off the islands as it is...although I heard the Bhrusda only picked up six this morning from Eigg, I've got 31 now, there'll be no more room soon.  Can't understand why."  I say that probably it's because the islanders tell everyone not to go on the Bhrusda if they don't want to be stuck in a box in a Force 6 gale for six hours. "Ah, you could be right there at that, but I've no seats left if any more get on."  Two tourists arrive in a sweat, explaining there are still two to come who are straggling.  "Tuh, they said they wanted take some pretty pictures...can't believe it, I told them to pull their fecking finger out and get a move on."  The Orion skipper nods.  "Was there a female with them by any chance?" "Aye, there was." "Ah, well, that explains it.  But you can't swear at females now, can you?"  "I can," volunteers Dave.  "Ah, but that's the Irish in you.  I'm from the Scots mainland, we don't do that kind of thing." "You're never from the mainland Rob. You're just trying to make yourself out a gentleman for this young lady here" (me).

Two more hikers arrive and stand about chatting about who might still be on the island.  We tell them they'd better just get on the boat.  The skipper is now getting worried.  "I know it says 7.30 on the schedule but I need to get off.  There's a storm coming."  And you can see it across the bay - Mallaig and Skye are already covered in cloud. I suggest that I cycle back to the village and tell any stragglers still on their way to hurry up.  "Yeah, tell'em to get the feck on with it or they'll be left here for the next four days."  I pass one sweating hiker who is nearly there.  "The boat's wanting to leave, there's storm coming, is there anyone else?" "Er, my mate wanted to take some pictures of the castle, can you go and pick him up in one of your trucks?" "Um, no, we don't have enough people, sorry..." I continue on, eventually passing the unfortunate man who is already hurrying along. It will take him another 15 minutes at least to get to the boat and I dread to think what reception he'll get!  Some time later, having arrived at the community hall for the Quiz Night, I see the boat departing in the distance...hopefully they'll make the mainland before the storm hits.

Storm's a-coming...

 

Three weeks on the island...and a trip to the mainland

I've been reading back over the past weeks and feel slightly dizzy. So much has happened, and continues to happen, and it can range from being totally overwhelming and awesome (a sky so dark you can view another galaxy at the edge of our Milky Way), to being just a bit too much and you want to put your head under a blanket until it goes away (five days of continuous rain and no TV, working radio or heating), to the totally surreal; watching "Kick-Ass" on a laptop in an Edwardian millionaire's dressing room, which is now painted orange and full of teddy bears, before donning a head torch to visit the millionaire's bathroom, has got to be one of the more surreal experiences I have had in my life to date.

Writing a blog is a good way of connecting with that earlier self that arrived here just three weeks ago, as otherwise things can move so fast, it becomes easy to forget how it was at the beginning.  And because it's not just for me to read, it's a good way of forcing me to step outside my immediate experience and reflect on it a bit more. It helps to deal with what I now understand is a Rum phenomenon (maybe an island phenomenon) - it's not only me, but other people also are prone to days where you just miss "normal" life, your friends and the familiar.  It's not like homesickness (at least not for me).  It's not the wish to be elsewhere or dislike of where you are.  It's more like a sudden realisation of how disconnected you are from what you used to find normal.  It happens particularly when people have "gone off" - i.e. gone off island and then come back.

When civilisation beckons

We "went off" last week to go to Fort William, home of shops!  There were lots of practical things to do (the priority being haircuts, closely followed by a need to eat chips), but also I just wanted to know what it felt like to re-connect with "normality".  Strange, was what it felt like.  Although actually, it wasn't strange until we came back.  Getting on the ferry to go to Mallaig was very exciting!  Mel hadn't "been off" since June but it wasn't only Mel who had cravings for chips and a ferry trip.  We realised we were islanders when we didn't stay up on deck to "watch for wildlife" but ran below to get a seat in the cafe and be first in line for CalMac's amazing bowls of chips.  And we didn't really move after the chips either...we were enjoying being "elsewhere", able to passively sit in the warmth and relax, while mad tourists stood outside in the cold and enjoyed the scenery.  Scenery? Who needed it?

Preciousssssss....my preciousssss.....

The mainland was full of wonders! I bought a mountain bike (with massive wheels so I can actually get around the island), kitted myself out with new "proper" walking boots (again an essential, not a luxury here) and we had proper pints of beer in a proper pub (the brilliant Grog and Gruel in Fort William, if you're ever up here, where we were also accosted by a bearded man from Hebden Bridge who wanted to bond over real ale and tales of "alternative" Yorkshire folk.  He was giving a French friend a tour of Scotland and was wondering where to get dinner. "Why not here in the pub?" "Sadly, I don't think my French friend will appreciate the chips.")  We'd actually watched TV in our lovely B&B; Mel had stayed there twice before when coming up for her interview, and the landlady knew the whole history of our move to Rum - Mel and she were old friends by now.  We'd marvelled at the array of toiletries on sale in Superdrug and the bizarre things people need for "normal" life ("What's an air inhibitor spray tanner?"), and at the complete lack of interest in customers shown by the majority of Fort William shop assistants.  In the pub it suddenly dawned on me that it was relaxing to be somewhere where no-one knew or cared who I was or why I was there - within just three weeks I'd almost forgotten what it feels like to be anonymous.

But after just two days, in Mallaig I started to get homesick for the island.  It was raining (of course) and very windy and I rejoiced inwardly at the feeling of soon being able to shake off the odd mainland sensation of having to be "grown up", not take up too much space, fit in around everyone else...It's hard to explain. 

Do you remember being eight years old?  Or maybe a bit older or a bit younger...whatever age it was when you were first allowed out to play on your own, with your friends, outdoors.  I was lucky enough to be able to run around in fields and bike up and down on the estate as much as I liked.  And I liked it a lot - I was outside.  Much as I like being grown-up in other ways, it can often be stifling - offices, cars, the gym, pubs, restaurants, bars...there are hundreds of indoor places you can go, but the outdoors can become a weekend place if you're lucky, or it can mean a nice walk around the park, rather than the more elemental experience we have here.  That's why I was happy in Mallaig that it was raining and windy, and longed to get back on to the island, where the weather is all around you, all the time.  I wanted to be what the RSPB calls "connecting with nature."  I certainly was - the journey back was queasily choppy in "a heavy swell coming in from the north-west" according to the CalMac man.  I spent the first twenty minutes outside on deck, just me and lots and lots of rain, until a lot of the sea came over the side as well.  Then I went in again.  But it was fun.

Connecting with nature again!

Getting back on the island in the rain was strange though.  I was completely exhausted and it wasn't just that all the shopping had worn me out.  Both Mel and I spent the rest of the day in almost complete silence.  The mainland was so loud.  We had talked to so many people and had so much "noise" thrown at us - just everyday noises of cars, machinery, music, chatter in the pub, adverts on the TV in the B&B plus ten minutes in Morrisons of sheer madness: tills beeping, shop announcements on the tannoy and riverdance on the sound system.  Apart from Morrisons it was great, I'd enjoyed nearly every minute, but now we were back, we were re-adjusting to the quiet.  I was relieved but also scared.   Did this mean it was more "natural" to be quieter? Were our body clocks more attuned to island life than mainland life and if so, how fast did this happen? But it's not just your body clock that has to adjust, it's your mental "clock" as well - your sense of what is normal, what is "natural" and what is "right" - they're not all the same thing.  I can tell that this question of what is a more "natural" way of life is going to be a question for a long time.  People on the island tell us that it's essential to "go off island" at least every couple of months - otherwise the danger is that you lose the ability to go between one reality and another and the sense of disconnection gets just too much (much like Edwardian bathrooms and "Kick-Ass", really).  They are very different realities and it's hard to imagine one while you are "in" the other.  It's just as well that the journey between the two is so long - although it's not exactly a normal journey either - the West Highland Line has become our shopping commute!

Coming back...the train journey between Mallaig and Fort William