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It’s suddenly the end of May

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It’s suddenly the end of May

I’ve done it again. After promising to write more often, I’ve neglected this poor blog for three straight months. Whoops.

Setting aside the reasons for my absence, it’s suddenly the end of May. This time of year is so beautiful – it’s no wonder this is the month people start arriving in camper vans, driving very slowly along the road so they can catch the view.

Hey, I get it. It’s gorgeous out here.

It’s prime gardening weather, too. I spent last weekend turning a bramble forest (literally) into a habitable patch of garden again. Previously hidden behind a fallen gate and an enormous New Zealand flax plant, it’s now accessible without a machete in hand.

Here’s a before photo.

I’d spent about two hours cutting through the giant flax plant’s leaves with a pair of shears – and if you’ve ever done that, you know how difficult it is. When I turned the corner and found myself face to fact with this, I have to admit I hesitated for a moment.

Then I broke out the electric hedge trimmer and began slashing my way through the brambles like Joan of Arc (incidentally my namesake). By the time I got to the butterfly bush, I began thinking, “Ah – this must be what it feels like to be a swordsman. I bet their shoulders hurt after a battle, too.”

In total, it took me three days to shear the entire area (carefully avoiding bluebells as I went along) and coppice the willow hedge enclosing two sides of the area.

Here’s what it looks like now.

There’s the polytunnel on the left: beloved by some and hated by others. It’s been a great place to grow plants that don’t appreciate the changeable Scottish weather or need extra heat. At the moment, it’s filled with flowering sage, onions, accidental romaine lettuce (I let a plant go to seed last year, and now its babies carpet the gravel between the raised beds), potatoes, strawberries, spinach, random calendula and various types of pepper, including the infamous Dorset Naga. That’ll blow the top of your head off.

I digress.

There’s still work to do up in the “secret garden” – I’ve exposed several metres of cliff face on the right there, and now have summit fever and want to tear the canes off the rest of it. More fool me, as I react badly to bramble scratches and thorns. Clearly I’m a glutton for punishment.

This project hasn’t been the only one I’ve plowed through recently. A couple of weeks ago, I turned our pond area from this…

…into this.

The five or six canna lilies I’ve had languishing in the greenhouse for a couple of years now have a new home on the edge of the water. I’m not sure how they’ll cope with limited hours of light, but they’ll love the boggy soil.

That’s it for now. I’ll leave you with a photo of what neglected sage and self-sown calendula look like in a vase. Rather pretty, actually.

Sunshine

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Sunshine

You know the feeling when a headache suddenly clears? Everything seems better and brighter from one moment to another.

Well, that’s what happened when Camille and I went up to Dunan Muasdale (colloquially known as Muasdale Dun) for the first time this year. Described by Canmore as an “almost circular dun measuring 13.5m by 12m internally”, this old lookout spot sits on top of a rocky hill about a mile from the ocean.

Whenever I walk up the road toward the peninsula’s interior, I think, “What must it have been like to carry fish up from the sea to feed the people who kept watch in this thing?” At one point, the four-metre-thick walls were much taller. There’s probably been some type of structure there since prehistoric times – it’s such an obvious spot for a dun.

But nobody knows. Well, officially. Out here, there are still many things to discover and many structures yet to record.

Trudge up the road a couple more miles and you’ll walk straight into the clear remains of a prehistoric village, with multiple hut circles, a mound and a cist. Several thousand years ago, babies were born there and brought out to see the sun set over Islay. There were wolves and lynx living in the old-growth forest, and native wild boar on the menu for supper.

You won’t find that place marked on an Ordnance Survey map – not yet. It’s there, though.

It feels grounding to walk the same routes as our ancestors. The soil here is rich; excellent for crops. Neolithic farmers knew that when they began rolling the biggest boulders onto the edges of the ancient fields they dug. Humans know where best to settle.

I’ll show you around when it gets warmer and brighter. We’ll go to the half-built mansion house, now mostly fallen away. Then, we’ll take the winding route up to what we call “Heart Rock” – a wide, flat stone by the roadway, covered in cup marks – before visiting an ancient settlement nestling in forestry land at the top of the hill. Finally, we’ll hike back down into the woods and explore Achaglass, with its cottages, sheep pens and illegal whisky still (well, what’s left of it) embedded in the rocky burnside.

For now, here’s a glimmering view from the top of the dun. Isn’t it beautiful?

Dreaming of spring

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Dreaming of spring

The weather hasn’t been friendly today. In fact, it’s “blowing a hooley”, and has been for most of the afternoon, with sustained gale-force winds and 70mph gusts. The storm isn’t supposed to die down until midnight.

I can feel the heavy weight of winter on my shoulders. I haven’t walked the loop in five days. Thankfully, tomorrow’s forecast looks much better – especially in the morning.

Camille’s been waiting a whole week to walk with me, so I’ll brew coffee, drink a cup and then head up the hill with her in tow. We’ll hike as far as we can before the mud stops us: past the burn, along the winding track toward the first abandoned farm. Then we’ll turn back, head down the road to the beach and hunt for sea glass, shells and other ocean treasures thrown up by the westerly.

It won’t be long until signs of spring begin to appear. First, we’ll see snowdrops, then Solomon’s Seal, wild narcissus and tiny yellow primroses. Soon, the sea stacks will shimmer with bluebells, and there’ll be a purple haze on the hill behind the house again.

But not yet. Not quite yet.

Rain

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Rain

It’s relentlessly wet. After two days of relatively decent weather, we’re back to endless wind and rain.

Even the sheep seem a bit pissed off – and sheep are not easily vexed. The last time I walked “the loop” on Sunday (a circa 2.5-mile hike into the peninsula, emerging at the south end of the village), I ran into a group of sodden ewes. Our eyes met as I passed.

“Ba-a-a-ah,” I said.

“Is it nearly spring yet?” they all replied, wordlessly.

This close to the sea, the air is damp in any season. The rubber seals at the bottom of my car windows provide a habitat for long-stemmed moss, even in summer, which I find fascinating (and perhaps a little disconcerting).

But January takes precipitation to another level. Farm and forestry roads turn into temporary rivers and wash away underfoot, and one by one, hillsides develop deep, brown wounds as layers of grass slide away.

There’s usually a break between storms, but not this week. High winds and sleet every single day for the foreseeable future.

Ah – hear that? It’s hailing again. Goodness me.

Only 69 more days until the next equinox.