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I’ve sometimes - OK, OK, frequently! - commented on my love of peace and quiet, and how much I enjoyed my visits to the mainly empty mountains around Los Angeles. I’d add to my list of favoured quiet places the Mojave Desert, the Australian Bush, Norway and a number of others including the emptier parts of Scotland.
So I was interested to read that a restored three-bedroomed cottage on the island of Canna, the MacIssacs Cottage, is looking for a family to occupy it. More accurately, it is the National Trust for Scotland which have owned the island since 1981 that seek new tenants.
I’d only vaguely heard of Canna. It is just 7 kilometres long by 1.5 kilometres wide and is the westernmost of the four Small Isles, in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. Ferries call regularly at the island whose nearest neighbour is the island of Sanday to which it is connected by a bridge. There are ten working crofts and a current population of twenty-one. Since 1938 the island has been a bird sanctuary, and 157 different species of birds have been monitored annually in recent years. It has links to the Neolithic, Columban and Viking eras and has nine scheduled monuments on it.
There is a telephone link, a red phone box, but the island does have broadband connections even though there is no mobile phone reception. Unsurprisingly, the crime rate is low and, if you need medical help, there is a doctor on the neighbouring island of Eigg. As it is privately-owned, the island is a road tax-free zone. Electricity, produced by a generator, is available between 0600 and midnight.
The downside of this invitation is that whoever takes the cottage will either have to bring their work with them or, alternatively, create a role for themselves in ‘the arts, crafts, tourism or fishing industries’.
It is very tempting. What could be better? Peace and quiet even if it might be hard work!
But I am now too old and, even supposing I was a younger person and had children, could they manage without fast-food outlets and all the paraphernalia that children seem to want these days? Alas, probably not!
.
I’ve sometimes - OK, OK, frequently! - commented on my love of peace and quiet, and how much I enjoyed my visits to the mainly empty mountains around Los Angeles. I’d add to my list of favoured quiet places the Mojave Desert, the Australian Bush, Norway and a number of others including the emptier parts of Scotland.
So I was interested to read that a restored three-bedroomed cottage on the island of Canna, the MacIssacs Cottage, is looking for a family to occupy it. More accurately, it is the National Trust for Scotland which have owned the island since 1981 that seek new tenants.
I’d only vaguely heard of Canna. It is just 7 kilometres long by 1.5 kilometres wide and is the westernmost of the four Small Isles, in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. Ferries call regularly at the island whose nearest neighbour is the island of Sanday to which it is connected by a bridge. There are ten working crofts and a current population of twenty-one. Since 1938 the island has been a bird sanctuary, and 157 different species of birds have been monitored annually in recent years. It has links to the Neolithic, Columban and Viking eras and has nine scheduled monuments on it.
There is a telephone link, a red phone box, but the island does have broadband connections even though there is no mobile phone reception. Unsurprisingly, the crime rate is low and, if you need medical help, there is a doctor on the neighbouring island of Eigg. As it is privately-owned, the island is a road tax-free zone. Electricity, produced by a generator, is available between 0600 and midnight.
The downside of this invitation is that whoever takes the cottage will either have to bring their work with them or, alternatively, create a role for themselves in ‘the arts, crafts, tourism or fishing industries’.
It is very tempting. What could be better? Peace and quiet even if it might be hard work!
But I am now too old and, even supposing I was a younger person and had children, could they manage without fast-food outlets and all the paraphernalia that children seem to want these days? Alas, probably not!
.
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