Tony De Saulles illustrator

It's quite an effort to pack everything needed to work away from the studio for a month. I was sleeping in the van last night having driven for nine hours to reach the Kennacraig ferry on the West coast before the forecast snow arrived and I was cold and so was the dog (who had left his bed to try and sap some warmth from me) and we were both wondering why we were bothering with it all.

It takes two hours to reach Islay followed by a five minute hop across to Jura in a smaller ferry. There is one single track road on Jura which follows the east coast for seven miles to the village of Craighouse. Craighouse has a distillery, a hotel and a tiny Spa shop and our wooden cabin lies four miles further north by Corran Sands.

Iain, the owner was mending a gate when we arrived. "Ah, hello Tony. Can you hold this for wee bit?" he asked and we caught up on things while I held the gate level and he fixed new hinges. "It's been a wet Winter, nothing but rain." I was cheerfully informed.

I unpacked most of the van but then the heavens opened. Toby and I decided to have a snooze and when we awoke the sun was going down and things had cheered up enough for a late walk. We strolled down to the beach.

My iPhone doesn't work in the cabin. I can only get a signal (sometimes) on the beach or in the window seat in the hotel bar. Very convenient.

It took ten minutes of wandering around before the elusive signal was caught and I heard the joyous beep of incoming emails and texts. While Toby chased around with large stalks of kelp, I caught up with things. Joe had emailed to say that he'd take a look at my blog and that he'd uploaded some photos from his recent trip to Sumatra. Janet texted with an update on the chicken saga. Scraggy, who we think was trying to keep warm in the icy weather, had wedged herself under the chicken house. Apparently, Dave from over the road (who knows about chickens) poked her with a broom handle from behind while his son grabbed her and pulled from the front. Scraggy's out and seems none the worse for wear although the other chickens are now bullying her because they haven't seen her for two days and have forgotten who she is. So Scraggy is doing a spot of solitary while she recovers.

We walked back from the beach to catch the end of the Scotland/England Six Nations match. Toby had  that skip in his step that tells me he's a happy dog and I think I might have had a skip in my step too. We'd remembered why we were bothering with it all.