Life on the Edge

There’s remote and there’s more remote: right now we’re merely remote, situated, as we are, in a camping field on a cliff-top in southwest Wales. At least, it feels remote, looking out at a sea with no boats and all around nothing but the odd farmhouse or holiday cottage. The nearest shop is a 20 minute walk away and, although I know the same can be said of many a suburb, it’s the lack of people and motors that makes the difference. The sense of remoteness, however, is deceptive: within an hour we could drive to a sizeable town, with a high street full of Italian-themed coffee shops occupying former premium retail premises.

“More remote” describes the place we were at last week: Fionnaphort, on the western-most tip of the Isle of Mull, is essentially a transit point for the busloads of tourists who turn up daily for the ten-minute ferry ride west to the Isle of Iona. However, it does have a shop and, within it, a Post Office, where my partner selected a postcard and asked for a stamp. Without any hint of humour, the man took the money for the postcard and asked her to step slightly to the left where the Post Office counter is located so that the stamp could be sold under a separate transaction. Amused by this, we then attempted to book a boat trip to the uninhabited Isle of Staffa. There was no booking office, simply a hoarding bearing the times, prices and a phone number. However, there is no phone signal and the public phone is out of order. “Och, jest tern up,” advised the young girl in the seafood kiosk but when we did, the boat was full. “It’s because the weather’s nice,” said the captain/bosun/purser/guide, “Do you want to book for tomorrow?” We did. He scribbled my name on the back of a scrap of paper and sailed off. One soon comes to accept that informality and idiosyncrasy are part of the charm of life on the edge.

The weather next day was even fairer, so we determined to be at the quay early and, while we were waiting, try the seafood at the kiosk. There was, unfortunately, no dressed crab – my favourite – but the girl assured us that her dad was out in the boat and would soon arrive with fresh supplies. So I made do with langoustines and we sat outside watching the tourists come and go from Iona, while a young piper busked alongside. I took the time to contemplate the attraction of this place to its visitors, many of whom are foreigners: North Americans of Scottish extraction, drawn to their ancestral lands, like salmon returning to their spawning grounds; land-locked Europeans, savouring the novelty of rugged coastlines at the very edge of their continent; and British townies like us, getting a fix of nature, at little cost and in relative safety and comfort. As for the locals, those who choose to call the place home, I can only speculate why as, to my shame, I have not transcended the visitor experience to engage with them on a personal level.

There is, incongruously, a ‘fine-dining’ restaurant, Ninth Wave in a house outside Fionnaphort, where we and a party of friends had dinner one evening. It remains a mystery to me how it sustains a customer base, being in such a remote spot (our friends had to drive 90 minutes, each way), but the cooking is exquisite, in a finicky-foodie sort of way. More to our liking, however, was The Crofters’ Kitchen, two miles up the road to nowhere, where a group of what used to be called hippies has opened a shop and cafe offering home-grown produce, baked goods and bought-in wholefoods. These two ventures are admirable additions to run-of-the-mill tourist catering but I do fret about how they will fare in the winter, when life on the edge must get quite bleak. I would like to be there to find out and, in the process, make deeper contact with the locals.