Just a quick blog post to wish all our guests – past, present and future – a Happy New Year!
A Mull New Year
I am writing this on New Year’s night. I am trying to stay awake in order to go and collect our teenager from the New Year’s Dance in Dervaig Village Hall. The start of the day was like any other winter day, as the sheep still need to be fed. But after that we took some time off!
New Year’s Day picnic
We were planning a family picnic down on the beach at Haunn. Somerset roasted a bit of Treshnish shoulder of lamb and baked some potatoes. My brothers and their families arrived. We collected tin plates and cups, and flasks of hot water for tea. Then we all headed down to the shore from the Haunn Cottages.
Eye of the Needle
The beach at Haunn is below the sphinx-like Dun. It is a rocky shaley beach, at the bottom of the old track, where Donald Sutherland gets shot in the 1981 classic film, The Eye of the Needle. It has become a regular haunt for a winter picnic for us. We were sheltered from the wind there today, and the sunset over the Treshnish Isles was beautiful!
The first fire
We lit a bonfire, having brought some dry kindling with us. This beach always seems to have driftwood on it. We never burn driftwood in the wood burning stoves as it destroys the chimneys. So it is not wasteful to burn it on the beach.
Somerset did a #twominutebeachclean and filled a sack with beach plastic. The boy cousins were careful to make sure we put the fire out before heading back home for more tea.