Our house is a very, very, very fine house..........

We’ve been coming backwards and forwards to The Outer Hebrides since about 2008. The first time we were here we just used the tent and camped on the dunes in Kneep in North Harris and at Seilebost campsite when we were on Harris & Lewis. We drove up and down the road through Borve a couple of times that year and have driven it dozens of times on our visits here.

This end of the island has a number of tourist spots – all of them well worth seeing and talking about but my favourite spot at the moment is our little crofthouse. The more I settle in the more delighted I am with where we have chosen to live for the time being.

We’re just renting and what you need from a rented property is different from what you look for when you are buying a property. First a foremost this property is lovely and clean and well cared for. The landlady has been calling in on at least a weekly basis, she told us, to switch on the heating and keep the place aired. She told us she inherited it from a family member back in the late 1990s and has been renting it out ever since. The garden is separated from the rest of the croft with a very simple fence and their small flock of sheep spend a few weeks at a time on different crofts belonging to the family. When the sheep are lambing they take them to the croft nearest to their house to keep an eye on them. Two sheep had triplets this year which they shared out amongst other ewes who had single lambs.

Even though the garden is much smaller than the main croft, it’s still big enough for 2 five bar gates – one to drive vehicles up to the house and then another for access to the croft itself. We had three vehicles in here at the beginning of last week and there was still plenty of room .

One of the vehicles had a spare passenger seat.  Naturally that seat held a box that contained a hexicopter with a radio controlled camera lashed to it.  I suppose one of the advantages of belonging to slightly bonkers family is that the slightly bonkers things they make can have quite spectacular results.

My brother’s hexicopter is the same kind of thing that is used for aerial reconnaissance of archaeological sites, you may have seen something like it on Time Team or other TV programmes where the archaeologist guides a camera attached to a flying gadget in order to seek out tell-tale signs of walls and buildings from the air that might be ordinarily missed on the ground.

There are not many people who have an aerial video of their house!

I knew the sea was in view of the kitchen when we first came to view this property. When the wind is in the right direction you can hear the waves breaking on the shore a couple of hundred yards away. A little further away you can see waves breaking on the shore from the kitchen window but there is no direct view of the beach. 

The coastline within walking distance is very rocky and high with few access points to the shore but the strip of land between the crofts and the rocks is traditional Hebridean machair. The machair is a strip of very fertile grazing land only found on the  Atlantic coasts of Scotland and it’s western islands and a small part of Northern Ireland. The combination of calcium from the shell sand and seaweed used as a fertiliser is said to balance out the acidic nature of the peaty soil creating an amazing carpet of wildflowers in the summer. Different areas appear to be different colours as different species of wildflower take hold. Right now the flowers are just starting to take hold but having previously been here at a later time in the summer I know the treat we’re in for as the machair blooms and blossoms to its fullest in late June and July through to August. The scent in a few weeks will be incredible and I remember when we came back for the second time suddenly being hit by the aroma of wildflowers on the breeze. 

The start of the machair on 4th June

King cups everywhere

The water lilies are also just starting to bud on the lochs and lochans. I never knew about the water lilies. I used to think they were an exotic, delicate species of flower and to discover that virtually every roadside pool and pond is smothered in a floating carpet of porcelain-like flowers is a sight to behold.

Water lilies on the road to Huisinish

 
Apart from being just yards away from sweet smelling machair another advantage of being on the edge of the Atlantic coastline is watching the sun going down and being in awe of the spectacular sunsets that unfold right outside the kitchen window. Of course, being this far north at this time of the year means that we’re waiting until 11pm to see what colours the setting sun will create across the atmosphere. We were truly spoilt on our first night as the clouds turned coral and pink and purple creating a surreal backdrop to the sparkling sea and the realisation that this is now where we live.

 

Watching 'our' sunset on the first night here.

Monday 3rd June

Tuesday 4th June

Sunday 9th June

It all seems a little bit unreal at the moment and I can’t believe how lucky I am to have the opportunity to experience it all. We've experienced such good weather and been to some beautiful places in the short week that we've been here. I can't wait to experience all the drama that the Hebridean weather will bring us.