Summer holiday #2: North Steading Cottage, Isle of Lismore, Scotland

What an amazing place this is!!!! I cannot begin to describe its beauty. What I can relay to u is just how incredibly LUCKY! we feel to have found THE place to stay in THE most gorrrrgeous part of an already fabulous country. The land, the sea, the mountains, the people. We will be back to this lovely little isle with its foot ferry passage to mainlaind Scotland just 20mins sth of Glencoe on the shores of Loch Linnhe.

While here, we’ve feasted on fresh mussels, razor shellfish, wild salmon, mouth-wateringly delectable lobster, and I must say the juiciest pork saussies ever………..!!! Christian has been out running 10kms every other morning……I may need to join him from the amounts that I am imbibing;) Tommorrow night we will hopefully find our way to a Ceillidh (pronounced ‘kelly’) to boogie down with the locals traditional Gaelic style. We need to hitch a ride from our cottage to the Town Hall some 5 miles inland (we’ve left Darth Vader – our big 7-seater Volvo, on the mainland). We’ve been (knowledgeably) informed by the wife of the ferryman, that offers of whisky should ensure us a lift there and back LOL! Also what I find particularly lovely are all the parallels with New Zealand that we find here. Sooooo many people have either travelled or want to travel or family who lives, or who are planning to live in New Zealand.

Way of life here on the island is in fact very simple which is a major part of the attraction for Christian and I. It’s been very good to have this experience tho’ as we both have discovered just how simple we’d like eventually for our own lives to be (or not;) Christian, for example, needs his fresh bread each morning. I’ve been baking our bread most days and while it’s not too bad – in fact I am rapt at the compliments am getting, I’m certainly not up to ‘croissant-capability’ (yet!) He also needs to SEE people every so often. Myself? I need broadband and internet connection. I can rough anything else. Nikita and Jojo need other kids to play with. And the twins? I suspect they don’t need anything else except ‘vroom vroom’ and ‘bateaux’ (boats).