Home Sweet Homestead

My mother is from a little island in the Outer Hebrides in northern Scotland, and our school holidays were spent at the family farm on the Isle of Benbecula. Summers on the island revolved around eating freshly caught seafood, scoffing fresh scones and sitting around the Rayburn cast-iron stove to dry off from the summer rain. We would spend days on the island’s deserted white-sand beaches, not paying too much attention to the water temperature, fossicking for hours in the sand dunes and discovering creatures in the rock pools. Chasing bicycles down gravel roads, feeding orphaned lambs, and getting our ankles nipped by the farm dogs as they herded us back to the farm when we wandered too far. Getting covered in midge bites or stung by nettles when we were exploring where we shouldn’t. They were simple childhood summers that were a whirlwind away from our city life. While my friends were all heading off to Disneyland or Europe, I was happy to be heading to the island instead.