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Elle Duffy

Elle Duffy

Herald Scotland

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Life on a Scottish island: 'This place is just magical, isn’t it?' They’ve spent the day at Harris on the Isle of Rum - a beautiful stretch of land to the south west, home to the famous Bullough mausoleum, an old hunting lodge and a hoard of highland cows and wild ponies. It’s a 18km walk in total. The boys have returned with a glow to them. In my husband’s case, it has gotten angrier with every second since, and has turned into the most horrific sunburn and prickly heat. The locals have already ribbed him for succumbing to the first sunny day of the season, even though temperatures only reached 13 degrees.

It’s five o’clock, and my husband, his brother and stepfather have just traipsed into the Bunkhouse. Their boots have been thrown off their weary...

14.04.2025 3

Herald Scotland

Elle Duffy

They say trolls live in the hills on my Scottish island - and I think I've heard them I like to imagine them to be small, almost rock-like, covered in moss with beady eyes and long, folded ears. But perhaps they’re larger, more grotesque and a murkish green, dragging their feet and hunching their shoulders.

The hills on Rum are said to be home to trolls. I like to imagine them to be small, almost rock-like, covered in moss with beady eyes and long, folded...

31.03.2025 5

Herald Scotland

Elle Duffy

Visitors from across world come to my Scottish island. I can't wait to welcome them

There’s a wee burn next to our cottage that I can see from our kitchen window. It almost acts as a border between my house and Rum’s National...

25.03.2025 7

Herald Scotland

Elle Duffy

This battered old red telephone box stands as a testament to islanders' spirit

For the last few weeks, there’s been a sense of excitement among a lot of islanders. They told me to keep an ear out for an almost theatrical...

17.03.2025 9

Herald Scotland

Elle Duffy

Nurse's visit reminded me the island way of doing things is sometimes the best way

“Sorry about the cat, she’s curious.” I’m sitting on the couch in my living room, a cup of tea in hand, and my health records strewn on the...

10.03.2025 5

Herald Scotland

Elle Duffy

After months of dirt track roads, I'm heading to Glasgow for super-sensory overload

There’s something thrilling about hitting your first piece of smooth tarmac roads after months of dirt track roads. It started with the off-ramp;...

03.03.2025 5

Herald Scotland

Elle Duffy

I get dressed up to put the bins out. You've got to make an effort if you live on Rum They warned me that island time was not something to scoff at. And in the 25 minutes it takes me to take out the bins on Rum, I understand now. There’s no quick wheelie bin trip to the end of the driveway, no noisy collection in the wee hours. There’s just me, my car, and the bumpy road to the skips at the pier.

They warned me that island time was not something to scoff at. And in the 25 minutes it takes me to put out the bins, I understand it now. It’s...

24.02.2025 5

Herald Scotland

Elle Duffy

Elle Duffy: Forget crass commercialism, my island is Scotland's most romantic place Love is in the air on Valentine's Day but, says Elle Duffy, romance on her Scottish island is something wilder and deeper. "It’s found not in grand gestures, not boxes of chocolates nor rose bouquets - it’s in the everyday. It’s in the way the waves return to the shore, the way the wind moves through the trees, the way we find each other, again and again, in the places we call home."

There are two stags wandering the beach in Kinloch. One is larger, and its antlers stretch back and point to the sky; he walks proudly ahead, checking...

17.02.2025 6

Herald Scotland

Elle Duffy

I went star-spotting on a Scottish island - and it was out of this world

On the dirt track road on the way to Kilmory, it feels as though I’m at the centre of the universe. The darkness is like nothing I have ever seen...

10.02.2025 6

Herald Scotland

Elle Duffy

Elle Duffy: I broke my Dry January on an island with no pub How does Rum do date night? There’s no swanky cocktail bars here, no neon mini-golf courses; there’s nowhere I can spend £30 on a mediocre platter of cheese, or have wine from a glass fresh out of a steaming hot dishwasher. But what we do have is a community that knows how to make their own fun

It’s one of the first things that people ask me; is there a pub on the Isle of Rum? And then, the incredulous ‘what do you do without one?’. And...

03.02.2025 7

Herald Scotland

Elle Duffy

I found a sense of community on this Scots isle I had never experienced anywhere else

Many of us dream about giving up the rat race for a new life in the country but Elle Duffy actually did it. She gave up her job as a journalist in...

27.01.2025 20

Herald Scotland

Elle Duffy