Island life has humbled me in ways I never expected

Humility, I’ve found, has a lot of different flavours. And I feel as though I’ve managed to sample a taste of everything since moving to the Isle of Rum.

It’s not the awe-inspiring, nature-filled, poetic kind of humility you read about, but instead, the kind that comes with a thud, a smell, or an ache in your bones.

I’ve always had a keen sense of smell, and for the last few weeks, it’s been tested quite dramatically. I’ve spoken about my 20-minute run to take the bins out before - we don’t have bin lorries on Rum, just our wheelbarrows or our own vehicles and some skips at the end of the pier. But when those skips are full and the sun has been blaring for weeks now, it switches up your routine quickly.

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Our general waste skip has been full for a few weeks now, and the bin bags at home are beginning to pile high. Just before they reached peak capacity, I thought I’d be able to squeeze one or two more into the large yellow containers. But the precarious tower of rubbish bags became dislodged, upset at my attempts to add to their........

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