They do it all. They use every single minute of their time in their ‘home’, connecting with their roots, roots none of us knew about until fairly recently, and roots which have explained the feeling of being HOME when on this Hebridean island. For them, t’is obvious. They were either born here or came as wee smouts, one still in terry towelling nappies. Good lord they were a struggle to force into anything beyond huge lacy knickers under a skater dress, which tutu-ed no matter how much mother ironed the skirt. Boys (in blue) just looked ridonculous, all bottom and with a bow-legged gait. I digress.

Family have been here. I’m guessing you guessed that. Just a week, but not just a week, because of all the moments they filled with adventure. Come on, let’s go! I heard that many times even if I was just beginning on a bacon roll. Just bring it, just get on, just hurry up. I am, at heart, an adventurer. I love spontaneity, and the let’s go of most things, and this dynamic wondered me and remembered me, the me who experienced this bonkers and, mostly inconvenient, adventureness, and did I go back then? Maybe, but maybe not. I would have been shackled down to dinners and guests and the endless wotwot of hospitality, not that I felt hospitable a lot of the time. Did I miss my children’s rise into the wild, or did I, somehow, by waving them off time after time, with bacon butties or cake or a kiss, teach them what was always in my heart? Go, go, go my beloveds, go, and have the best fun. Perhaps.

This time, those ‘children’ are fathers and mothers, with their own adventurers, and, I am delighted to say, this adventure thing is very encouraged. Seek, Ask, Search, See, don’t just look. Stop, Notice, Challenge boundaries, Find opportunity and connect. Seize the moment, the sunset, the sunrise, the call of the wild, and follow, follow, follow. They’re like wild creatures when they are here, my kids, and they bring their own kids to catch the scent of it, the catch of connection to adventure delivered down the line, colouring the hearts and minds of young absorbers.

They caught the tide and found ‘out there’ beaches for a barbecue. They watched the sun sink into the Long Sea as oystercatchers, curlews, many gulls and whitetails cruised the pinkling sky. They traversed woodland walks, walked the machair, swam, dived, paddle boarded, fished for crabs in the rain, picked blueberries, raspberries and blackcurrants from the lovely community garden. They caught newts and released them. We talked about clouds and rain and colour and sunshine and how steam clouds granny’s glasses when she checks a pizza in the oven. I watched the grand girls, backflip, drive my quad barefoot, show me a better way to do this, and that.

They beyondicous me. And it is a joy.