Notes from the Isles

I shall treasure Christmas 2021 for the rest of my life. My daughter Mary and I left here at 5am on 23 December to catch the ferry from Uig, on Skye, to our family base in the Outer Hebrides, for four days of phenomenal joy.

There were 24 of us: eight of my immediate family were absent on in-law duty, so we were only nine in the house, including my recently widowed brother-in-law, whose children and their families were in three cottages nearby.

When we bought the house, 50 years ago, it had been the trade centre for the