Island: Diary of a Year on Easdale

Island: Diary of a Year on Easdale by Waite, Vicky. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780712607667.

This is a detailed and illustrated account of a newly married couples 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 Garths lifelong love of the natural world - he was already a keen naturalist at the age of five - and of Vickys passion for painting.