It is so important to note that visitors are the life blood of the island economy and even though I know that it doesn’t help me. I am quite the solitary wanderer and, happily, I know where to wander where I can’t be found. Predictably the beaches will see more folk so they are to be avoided as well as our island coffee shops. I am blessed to have my own studio van so for the next 6 weeks or so it is van picnic time as I seek out small corners of the island that visitors are yet to find.

I get up early and I am away to post my orders before driving out to find a spot to walk the dog before settling down to some work.

Corners of small car parks that lead to walks can be good as long as I reverse in so that my side door faces the micro landscape and not the other cars. Just to watch the life beyond the door can be captivating and as folk come and go I linger.

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I have a fascination for old cemeteries so I can be found there recording interesting information or sketching quietly in a corner. I love how nature responds to these spaces and highly recommend the book by Benoit Gallot entitled The Secret Life of a Cemetery.

I tend to walk up at this time of year seeking quite spots among the hills where I can sit for a while surrounded by nature. It is in these quiet moments that I do my best thinking and so I am grateful that there are plenty of these spots to discover on the island. I think we all owe it to ourelves to carve out days that speak well to us. We are all unique and therefore only we can know what serves us well. For me it is quietness, space and time and you can find all of that in abundance on the wee island I call home.

Soon enough, the madness of this busy time will be over for another year and I will be able to park outside the bank again. This is my litmus test for how busy the island is. There is no chance of parking outside the bank for the next few weeks and I am fine with that. I simply shift my priorities around and when not out in the van I am held up on the property that I am custodian of. I have two acres of woodland to explore and a wild garden that is thriving at this time of year. A favourite occupation at this busy time is to stay home and take a slow stitching project out into the garden and find somewhere to sit. With long graases in seed you get to sit amongst the butterflies and bees who use the grass as a space to drop into when they feel the need to hide. If I sit quietly enough something will land on me and rest a while….

From my garden I can hear the children in the park in the distance and I can hear cars pass and the bus pull up at the stop just below my garden. It gives me that familiar feeling that the world is going on just beyond my garden gate but that I am, somehow, separate from that. Often folk move to small islands seeking a sense of quietness and a more solitude life.

On the occasion when it gets a wee bit overwhelming hubby and I take the small ferry off the top of the island in his bigger van for a few days break on Kintyre. Kintyre is more remote that our island despite it being part of the ‘mainland’ so it rarely gets busy. Our wee island is only two hours from Glasgow making it a popular choice for day trips and holidays. Kintryre is a favourite place to decompress from daily life.

So, for the next six weeks or so I will find my joyful moments outwith my regular routines and that can only be a good thing. I will remind myself how much I love a picnic in the van and I will honour my wee house and garden as I should. All is not lost folks, until next time.

Fiona xx

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About the author

I am a mixed media artist living on the Isle of Arran in Scotland. Here on Substack I write free content weekly focusing on seasonal creativity. I also run a paid subscription and as I write this I am about to open a new doorway. Through the other side will be a quiet, gentle space that will focus on the relationship between creativity and the meditative mind. The Stillness Studio will bring together my two teaching areas into one place and we shall wander along together working on creative tasks that speak well to the meditative mind. This, in turn, speaks well to our sense of physical and mental wellness.

I often wonder is that is where it all began. Encounters with the natural world are a blessing in my world on a small Scottish island. As an artist they have become my moment by moment existence and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I can hear the rain beginning that will bring to an end these warm temperatures that have seen me a wee bit trapped inside as I tend to wilt in the bright sunshine. I have just returned from a walk in the forest meeting half the island dog parents in the car park as we complete the walk before the threatened storms. We can do storms on Arran. We all left at the same time, took different routes and ended back at the same time and then just smiled and waved as we could sense the switch on the kettle going down at the same time too.

If you live on a small Scottish island you are acutely aware of changing weather. Our ferry service is a life line for the island and I am aware of that more than some as if the ferries don’t sail the helicopter is often despatched to collect a medical emergency and it lands just below my garden. My dog, Frank, thinks this is the very best thing that could happen to his day and goes bonkers. Medical evacuations are often at night…..

On my walk before the rain I was completely thrilled to see the honeysuckle beginning to flower. I have worked with flowers almost all my life one way or another and the honeysuckle is my crown flower. It weaves and winds its way through the forest giving us all beautiful pops of colour and scent. The shape of the flower is so distinctive and it is always such a welcome moment in my year. I set my Patreons and myself a wee challenge in our latest zoom - who can let the winding honeysuckle make a beautiful natural crown as you walk near it. I am very competitive but even I don’t think I can convince them that this is a crown but it is a start.

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As the days pass on this walk I will no doubt ace this particular challenge. Encounters with nature are the cornerstone of my Patreon offering and I can tell you that the ladies in that group never miss a thing. If you do the same walk for a week that teaches you all you need to know about encounters with the natural world as you will see new things each day. Nature doesn't stand still.

The honeysuckle is among my most prized moments of the year as it comes into flower. However stressful daily life can be, whenever I spot the first flowers my heart literally fills up with joy. I always take at least one flower to press each year but not until the plant is in full bloom. Last year I took my pressed specimens and lay them on my scanner to create a digital image that I could then work with.

In my paid membership we made an artist book this time last year and I used the honeysuckle as my central theme. I created a perspex print block using sculptured pieces of masking tape and a sharp knife. This gave me a lovely print.

This year I have been making paper honeysuckles out of old book pages.

I might be getting carried away but I did do a wee film for all of you of the honeysuckle encounter this morning is a beautiful forest walk on the Isle of Arran. I hope you like it.

The noise you can hear is a stream in the background. That flows down from the waterfall further up the hill. With the rain forecast I can guarantee you that I will meet some of the same people at the car park tomorrow eager to see the waterfall. Our collective connection with nature on a small Scottish island. Just joyful and yet another reason I moved here and then stayed.

Until next time,

Fiona xx

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About the author

I am a mixed media artist living on the Isle of Arran in Scotland. Here on Substack I write free content weekly focusing on seasonal creativity. I also run a paid subscription and as I write this I am about to open a new doorway. Through the other side will be a quiet, gentle space that will focus on the relationship between creativity and the meditative mind. The Stillness Studio will bring together my two teaching areas into one place and we shall wander along together working on creative tasks that speak well to the meditative mind. This, in turn, speaks well to our sense of physical and mental wellness

A wee back story

We moved here with our four young children in 2002. My dad had died some years earlier and my mum needed a wee bit of support. They had both moved here in 1984 after dropping me off at university. I always told my dad I would never live on Arran and he used to reply ‘you never know’. He would be smiling that we made the decision to move to the island and support mum. It was always designed as a temporary move and for a while that is how it turned out as we moved to Derbyshire once mum was in a better place. However, we moved back in 2010 after the recession hit and the flower farm we were running was hit very badly and it was sensible to move back to the island to re-group. However, we never left again! So we have been here continuously since 2010 and it is very much home. Personal cirumstances might have initiated the move but the magic of the island meant we stayed.

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Moving here was a very big change for all of us. I had left a senior academic job in the university of Winchester and we put our house on the market and planned the move with no jobs in place. Arran worked its first magic though as, by the time the sale was completed, both hubby and I had secured jobs. He moved from being a secondary school teacher to a teaching assistant in a primary school as there were no teaching jobs available. He intended to apply for a teaching job when one came up but never did, more on that in time. I secured a dance development job for school holidays so we were the perfect fit. It meant one of us was always home with the children.

Although initially, the children attended one of the island primary schools we signalled our interest in home schooling on arrival and the school was very supportive. After a year or so in the school we began home schooling, initially for a term to see how we all got on. The children never went back to school. Much of my time was spent home schooling while I built a creative business around their studies.

Moving to the island facilitated these major changes. It gave us the time and space to reflect on the lives we had been living and we could easily see how busy and complex they had been. I was always working, hubby was juggling part time teaching with child care duties and the children that were in school were simply not thriving. Living on a small Scottish island simplifies everything and it is as if a magic wand is waved over your life and natural changes just fall into place. If we had stayed living in the south of England we woudn’t have home schooled as the opposition was overwhelming. We were one of the first families on the island to start home schooling but now there are many families making that choice. Folk often ask me why we home schooled our children. I have two things to say. When we made the decision three out of our four children were in school. Molly was in the high school and two boys (Harry and George) were in primary. None of them were thriving. The second reasons is broader than just my children. By definition, school is one method of educating children and in what other aspect of life does one method fit all? Scotland was following England’s example and introducing a national curriculum and assessment was on the rise. I wasn’t a fan of either elements. Beyond those two primary reasons I wanted the children to learn outdoors as much as possible and the island provided the perfect context.

So, there we were with our lives changed forever and for the better. Everyone was happier.

The isle of Arran is approximately 27 miles in length and (at its widest) 15 miles wide. It has approximately 5000 residents but this number swells dramatically during the busy season as it is a popular holiday destination. It is just a couple of hours west of Glasgow making it one of the most accessible Scottish islands. Tourism is a siginifcant part of the economy but I would say island businesses often perform way beyond expectations developing national and international contexts. Farming is still a feature mainly in the south of the island. The villages are mainly dotted around the edge of the island with Brodick being the largest and where the ferries come in. The island has its own high school, medical centres, dentist and even hospital. Medical emergencies can be airlifted off by helicopter, if required.

Some villages have their own general stores but post offices are few and far between and most villages have a community hall which hold all sorts of events. The island has its own small, but perfectly formed, library and we are also blessed with annual art, storytelling, music events etc.

So that is a bit of our background and a wee bit about the basics of island life. The plan now is to offer writing that serves to give folks an insight into my life now living on Arran with the odd reference to the past as necessary. If it has a writing genre it is more aligned with a diary or journal than anything else. As with my 2013 writing experiment I find that this style illuminates island living really well. After all, wherever we live has its own daily ebb and flow.

The children are all grown up now. Two live off island, two on! Most of you will probably know my daughter, from here or her youtube channel. Harry is our eldest son and he converted part of our house into a flat and runs his own plastering business. George is an outdoor instructor currently working in Aberfoyle but he will start his Masters in September with Cumbria University. Max is our youngest and he is still at home working at an island cafe while running a few side hustles! Hubby now works part time at the island outdoor shop, Arran Active and I work part time as an artist and teacher.

I hope you all now know enough for my diary entries to make sense and it will be lovely to have you wandering along with me as I share what living on a small Scottish island is like on a day by day basis. I will pop up with my first proper instalment soon.

I will sign off by telling you that we live on a ten acre property which includes our house and two cottages - the cottages have other family members in. We own approximately 2 acres which includes a wild garden and a woodland. You can expect me to share, often, our outside space as it is fundamental to the way we all live here. Regular readers will already know I have a studio van, called Willow and if I shift up a wee bit I can probably squeeze you all in as I travel around the island.

Until next time,

Fiona x

About the author

I am a mixed media artist living on the Isle of Arran in Scotland. Here on Substack I write free content weekly focusing on seasonal creativity. I also run a paid subscription and as I write this I am about to open a new doorway. Through the other side will be a quiet, gentle space that will focus on the relationship between creativity and the meditative mind. The Stillness Studio will bring together my two teaching areas into one place and we shall wander along together working on creative tasks that speak well to the meditative mind. This, in turn, speaks well to our sense of physical and mental wellness.