Island: Diary of a Year on Easdale

This is a detailed and illustrated account of a newly married couple’s first idyllic year on the tiny Scottish island of Easdale.

It all began over 20 years ago with a chance meeting on a train heading for Scotland. Garth Waite, a widower in his late 50s, was on his way to a holiday on South Uist; Vicky, a widow in her mid-fifties, was off to the island of Seil in search of peace and quiet. They talked, exchanged names and addresses, and began a friendship that 18 months later led to marriage.

Their honeymoon of course had to be spent in Scotland, and it was while in a cottage on Easdale that Vicky had her great idea: “What about retiring early and coming to live here?”. It was a decision that they were not to regret, and the wish to record the pleasures, sights and sounds of their first year on Easdale suggested a way of pooling their talents.

This book is the fruit of Garth’s lifelong love of the natural world – he was already a keen naturalist at the age of five – and of Vicky’s passion for painting.