Winter Entertainment on the Ross

How has January already come to an end? I'm still getting over Christmas and recovering from the New Year!

It has been nearly 14 months since I posted anything on Mull Musings, so I don't suppose I should be too surprised that January 2009 seems to have disappeared completely under my nose - I lost the whole of 2008 in a wee bit of a blur.

Well what I can say about January on Mull?

Events have really been controlled by the weather I suppose and like most places the weather is a constant source of gossip, conversation, speculation and conjecture. Unpredictable to say the least - a wee bit like life really.

In between the showers, the torrential down pours, the face peeling sidewinder hail storms, arctic northerly winds and wintry westerly gales, the buffeting easterlies and the stormy southerlies, there have been brighter moments which have allowed us to get out and about, dispel the cabin fever and breath in some fresh air.

Funnily enough, one of the many questions we are regularly asked by summer visitors, is "What do you do in the winter months?" Some folk really do lack imagination and cannot comprehend a life without artificial stimulus and the need to spend a pile of money! Believe it or not, in between the decorating (boo hoo), walks with Megan (yee ha) and the long lies (most mornings during the winter) there are a surprising number of diverse activities and pursuits to engage in all around the island.

This week by chance I was asked by a neighbour who was undertaking a project on the history of the village hall (which up until the 1970's was the local primary school) as part of her degree (in Gaelic) just what was the village hall used for, her question uncovered an amazing variety of uses including: yoga, Tai Chi, country dancing, the Brownies, Poetry Evenings, Story Telling Nights around the Fire, weddings, birthday parties, Christmas parties, Burns Suppers, PTA fund raising events, Crofters meetings, Film shows, soup kitchens, Church Meetings, local produce and farmers markets, local elections, celebration of life memorial services, WRI meetings, Art Courses, RYA Skippers Courses, Sunday School, Mendelssohn Concerts along with residential facilities for groups and organisations who come each year to stay for a week or so.

I was as pleasantly surprised as my neighbour, not least because despite the remoteness of our community on the island there is a wealth of talent out there, many of whom steadfastly refuse to give in to the couch potato brigade, remote control, political drivel and cheap quick fix television masquerading as entertainment.

And just to prove a point, despite sub-zero temperatures and a wind swept drive to the next village I enrolled on a short course entitled The Geology and Landscape of Mull & Iona.

Watch this space.................................................