David's Daughter Isobel's House, Lismore

(Another) Stunning day which I didn’t have time or energy to write about when we got in last night. We took the car across to Lismore, on the new-to-us ferry Loch Riddon. We’ve only ever walked on the island before, and there were parts we couldn’t reach, so car it had to be. The sun shone, the birds sang and we were often the only people in the world. Magic.

Lismore is a beautiful soft green and gentle island, and like many others once you step off that ferry, the years drop away. You are transported back to a carefree time of hot summers, free from the noise of engines, strimmers, chain saws and booming sound systems. There is only the sound of bird song, the soft shush of the sea, and occasionally on the wind, the whistling of the farmer speaking to his dogs as they move sheep. If, like me, you remember the era of Famous Five books, it's easy to imagine you will see them just round the next corner, with Timmy, tongue lolling, running alongside their bikes.

In the centre of the island there is one café and a museum, friendly folk and good home cooked food. Next to the museum is “David’ Daughter Isobel’s House”. It was reconstructed in 2002 in the traditional way, where it always stood. The walls are a metre deep, beautiful stone, as is the floor. The roof is made from rafters or sarking, whole poles of Lochaber Birch, which support upside down Lismore turf topped by a thatch of local reed from the lochs on the island. I’ve never seen a roof like this before.

It doesn’t seem to be on record who David or Isabel were, but the cottage housed a series of cottars over the years. They would have hauled water and even fuel up the slope some 50 metres. Fuel would be wood or coal, the inferior peat of Lismore had run out by the 1890’s. They might have kept a few hens, but being landless, would have had to work for someone else, where and when possible. A hard life, not the romanticised version we dream up when we step off the boat.