Hebridean Summer

I've just come back from the Isle of Mull, where the family spent a wonderful two weeks relaxing, enjoying the countryside, watching the wildlife, and enjoying peace and tranquillity and lots of books. I'm so relaxed I can barely stand.

Every morning I got up and made myself a cup of tea before everyone else got up, as I do practically every day of my life. Then I stood at the window looking out at the robins and blackbirds who came to harvest the wild strawberries from the plants growing out of the old wall behind. Then I'd open the front door and the dogs would hurtle out after the bunnies who showed them a white flash of tail as they scarpered confidently into the bushes. Gave all of them a good run. We breakfasted on black pudding from Stornoway and eggs before going out on our big walks on the island.

In addition to the wild strawberries and the brambles, there were also wild raspberries all over the island; I've never seen them before but in some areas the air was heavy with the scent. There are apparently over 5000 species of flora on the Isle and certainly everywhere we went the wild flowers were extraordinary, with dozens of species coexisting in carpets on the clifftop, or by the lochside or on the forest floor. In the local park a short walk in one direction took you to the water's edge and sailing boats, and in the other to a loch with yellow and white waterlilies. Wildflowers gladden my heart, so I was very happy.

Martin's thing is birds, so he was in heaven. The big two he wanted to see were a sea eagle and a golden eagle. Birdwatching with two dogs and, sometimes, two noisy kids is something of a challenge but by the last day he'd seen both. We also saw oystercatchers, scaups, curlews, herons and assorted ducks and geese which we don't normally see at home. [Although, as an aside, my daughter and I went to walk our dogs yesterday on the local Forestry Commission land and passed a rather confused cormorant fluttering helplessly, trying to fly off the road. We called the RSPB to rescue it. With two large dogs in tow we couldn't do much. But I've never been up so close - out of water it's an extraordinarily clumsy looking bird, like a heron with short legs...]

We also watched basking grey seals, over a dozen of them, slug-like on a rock off the coast. The kids thought they looked like grey bananas, heads and tails up-turned in the sun. On one occasion we saw a mother and her pup playing briefly and joyfully in the water until she'd had enough and started to make for the shore. You could almost hear the pup calling "Oh, Mum!" before reluctantly trailing her back to the rock. We also saw common seals playing in the tide. Martin saw, on one of his all-day treks, a stag posing for him on a crag. He came back very rosy-cheeked that day!

One day we went over to the holy island of Iona, where St Columba founded a monastery back in (I think) the 14th century. The Abbey is only 19th century, but there are the remains of Columba's old nunnery there, and the whole place is deeply moving, somehow, respectful and solemn. Everything in these islands is utterly unspoilt, so on Iona there is one restaurant and one shop by the ferry terminal (it's only a foot passenger ferry because there's only about a couple of miles of road on Iona.) It adds to the air of tranquillity.

I also spent a couple of hours at Duart Castle, the ancient seat of the macLeans of Duart. The current incumbent, Lachlan Maclean, is the latest Clan Chief, there are many photos around of him and his happy, upper-crust family. However nothing can take away from the fact that this is a dismal old 14th century castle with walls advisedly built 4.9metres thick to keep out the wind as well as the invaders. The dungeons feature dummies of the escapees from the rout of the Spanish Armada by Elizabeth I's fleet in 1588. These men, mercenaries mainly, ill-advisedly sought refuge in this most royalist of homes. They were allowed to stay as long as they promised to act as paid assassins for the macLeans, knocking off their enemies all over Scotland and England. The dungeons were grim. damp, dank and dark, ridden with rats. But even in the main house and castle there were only slits in the wall for the archers to use but apart from that no light came in. Even the stairs are built for combat; constructed in such a way that one right-handed swordsman could fight off his enemies as he went down them. Now the wind whistles, even in August, through the enlarged and ill-fitting windows, and one thinks of how dreadful it must have been in those olden days. But how much worse for the crofters in their little two-roomed cottages, when the laird could put them out or move them on without a reason, and obviously did.

We spent days on the coast at Langamull, a small sandy bay, where the children collected jellyfish and gathered them into a rockpool which was designated a jellyfish sanctuary. They were small and colourful. My children informed me that the red ones were the stingers. Apparently "Everyone knows that." Daughter and Pup competed for the crabs, she to collect the shells and he to eat them all whole.

Along a mile or so was Calgary bay, after which, apparently, the Canadian city is named. It's a beautiful sandy bay. Even when the carpark was full, the beach seemed almost deserted.

I have to mention food. It was terrific. There was a time when Scotland had a reputation for disgusting food. But what we had was amazing. I've mentioned black pudding, which I think is a great culinary treat - grilled for breakfast, or accompanying scallops and pea puree as a really special supper. The kids learned to love it, and they are converts to haggis, the ultimate Scottish delicacy "chieftain o' the pudding race" as Burns put it. We had haggis three times, with neeps and tatties (that's swede and potato to you) and whisky cream, all washed with a dram of the local Scotch. Well, the kids missed out on that bit. And then the dogs feasted on the sheep's stomach casing. The scallops were bought from a tiny shed which was the local fish processing plant. We went in at 6pm to find one man shucking scallops solemnly in the corner. There was fish and chip van on the harbour called "The Fish and Chip Van", which proudly displayed a "Les Routiers" sign. I've never seen that but it was deserved - fantastic fish and chips. They also offered haggis and chips and scallops and chips. All in all - Wonderful!

There's too much to say to cover it fully, but suffice to say, we haven't had enough and I think it's very safe to say that we'll be back.