A Brief History

In 2003 my husband and I left Africa where we both were born, with our past in two suitcases, and headed for the UK where my father had ended his life and M’s grandmother had started hers. At the Airport waving goodbye as our plane left the runway, were our two eldest sons, daughter-in-law and our new grandson. M was stoic, we had to stay upbeat for our family but as we settled on the plane my heart was tearing in two. The other two sons were already in the UK with their fiancés and had been there for over a year but I was mourning for the ones we were leaving behind. We were a very close family… living and working together on the ancestral farm - which we later bought - in isolated conditions had meant that we relied on each other more than families used to the support systems and diversions provided by modern Western life. With in-laws hundreds and, in the case of my mother, thousands of miles away we had functioned pretty much as an autonomous unit. This was heartbreaking! In the space of three years after selling the family farm, we had been scattered and I was not taking it well. Now we had to make a new start in a new country. Fast forward to the present and after three years and many moves, first from Cornwall to London, then by stages to where we are now, the wilds of Western Scotland. Back to a place where we can once again breathe, waking each day to the world outside our door and settle into the rhythms of the seasons. I wish I could say that we are all together again but we work to that end.