Merging A Place With Your Soul
We all have visited places that stayed with us after we left them.
I am not talking about memories of adventures, or the feeling of the hot sun on our skin. It is more about a deep feeling of belonging. A feeling of connecting your soul with a place. I re-visited mine last week and I am longing to go back there.
We have the unique fortune of being a member of a community of families that have a long term lease for house, a couple of barns and a plot of land in the Highlands.
The place is situated on the Applecross peninsula on the Scottish West Coast and it is pretty much as remote as you can get there. Our house is the only inhabited building in the whole bay. No mobile phone signal, no street lights and only a single track road that slows you down to 20mph most of the time.
Given the pace of life at the moment, there is no better place on earth in my opinion.
Sure the weather is incredibly unpredictable. And for anyone who has not been to Scotland: you do not understand what that means! Sunshine one minute and without any warning you will have pouring rain the next, but this is rain that does not come from up high, but it moves sideways! In our five days in October, we went from a wonderful 16 degrees and sunshine to 2 degrees and snow on the hills (see pictures here).
But that remoteness and lack of modern conveniences (the house is mainly heated through wood-fired stoves) does something to you.
Here are my five special moments that I will hold dear until we return. Think of them as the little box herbs that Sam carries in the Lord of the Rings movies, something to remind you of when the world was at peace and something to keep you on track to get back where you want to be.
There is no better activity than chopping wood. The feeling of muscle-ache after a solid hour of wheeling blocks of wood up the hill, swinging the axe and splitting wood is beyond satisfying.
Sitting amongst twisted birch trees in a little woodland that me and the kids christened "Elven Woods". This is a truly magical place. The trees are really old and bent in all directions, but the biodiversity around them is something I have not seen before in such a space. Maybe woodland elves do exist?
That fresh morning breeze. Stepping out of the house, which still holds the remainder of the evening's wood-fired heat, and getting hit with the wind that carries the smell of the sea and the fresh mountain air... the best start to any day.
The feeling of the paddle gliding through the water, gently propelling the canoe forwards. The house comes with its own little island that is inhabitated by sea birds only. Paddling around it means for us to head out into the sea loch (this is a Scottish lake that is directly linked to the ocean) towards some pretty dramatic mountain ranges and most times we have a friendly seal following our boat. The ultimate getaway.
The chilled out evenings. Kids in bed, fire roaring, comfy armchair and a good book. No emails, no calls to return, no one knocking on my door for anything. Peace.
