Fulfilling A Dream To Live By The Sea Again.
The first time I lived by the sea
Killiney Bay with Bray Head and the Sugarloaf mountain in the distance
We’ve done it! We’ve fulfilled our dream to live on an island with a view of the sea. We’ve moved to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute.
The first time I lived close to the sea was when my family returned to Ireland from Zambia. I was 16. We lived close to the top of a windswept hill overlooking Dun Laoghaire Harbour and Dublin Bay.
Further up to the top of Killiney Hill one is rewarded with views south to Bray Head, Killiney Bay and north to Dalkey. To this day it is my go to place, my favourite walk, when I’m back in Dublin to visit family.
The view from the top of Killiney Hill towards Dalkey and Dalkey Island
Dalkey Island at dawn
Top of Table Mountain looking over Cape Town
When I left art college I moved to Cape Town. Now that’s a pretty spectacular place - the Cape Peninsula is surrounded by the ocean - two in fact, the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean.
On any given day you can choose which ocean you want to spend the day beside. When I was working in the hot summer months, we would take our lunch break at Seapoint Beach. A quick refreshing swim in the ice cold waters of the Atlantic (the current coming up from the Antarctic) was just what we needed to cool off and increase the afternoon’s productivity.
For the last 33 years I’ve lived in the centre of the north of England. Until last week, I hadn’t fully grasped just how much I missed living within sight of the sea. Now here I am, having fulfilled that dream - we now live on the small Scottish island of Bute, and yet we are within sight of the mainland and a short ferry ride to Wemyss Bay, just an hour from Glasgow.
It’s a hard feeling to describe. I can see the horizon. I can breeeeathe! I can see the light as it changes all day long from the moment I get up until last thing at night. Who bloody CARES if it’s wet and grey! It’s beautiful! I cannot quite believe we actually pulled this off. I keep pinching myself to check it’s real!
It was a wet, grey day when we took the ferry from Gourock to Rothesay
But just look at that sky!
Our new home looks out over Rothesay Bay. The ferries to Wemyss Bay come and go from early morning to early evening. We are 3-4 minutes walk from the sea front promenade. The island is 15 miles long and less than 5 miles wide. You can drive around the whole of the island in about an hour - if you don’t stop to gawp at the landscape and the views out to sea.
First morning on the first new day in our new house
Just look at that dawn sky!
I’m not normally a morning person. Since I’ve arrived I’ve been up with the dawn to watch the sun come up. I’ve got into the car many mornings and driven to different parts of the island just to drink it all in and to sketch - not a regular activity for me. I still cannot quite believe we get to call this home.
Etterick Bay on the west side of the island before the sun came over the horizon
Looking back to May this year, when we decided to put our house on the market, neither Chris nor I were convinced our dream would become a reality. It felt like a huge scary step upending our settled life of 33 years in Hexham! We decided to take it one step at a time.
OK … let’s see if we can find a buyer for our house. Oh, so we’ve got a buyer! Let’s see if we can now find a house to live in. Ooooh, we’ve found a house, well, let’s see how smoothly the buying/selling process goes … if our buyer drops out, that’s a sign it wasn’t meant to be. They didn’t! If the seller won’t wait because I have to have surgery, it probably wasn’t meant to be … He was happy to wait! It . all . fitted . together . like . a . glove!
Looking east from Etterick Bay at sunrise
We’d been in Hexham longer than we’d lived anywhere else. What we both knew for sure was, we had at least one big adventure left in us. You only get one life. We hated the idea of just winding down into old age and infirmity. We are still young enough and fit enough to grasp life by the horns and see what life still has to offer us.
You’d think it was simply meant to be!