Buth Scalpaigh

[purejuice]

The isle of Scalpay (pop. some 300) is a six-square-mile addendum to the south end of Harris, famous for its tweeds. Some of the oldest stones in the world make up the Outer Hebrides, and people have been there raising sheep, spinning, weaving, and fishing for tens of thousands of years.

They all have computers, and one of my favorite blogs is Scalpay Linen, not least for its cottage industry, communitarianism, baby ducks, border collies, sheep stuck on high cliffs rescued by one's Supercrofter husband dressed in a coverall and Wellington boots, as well as glimpses of life truly self-contained, cosmopolitan for millennia, and yet on the edge of civilization.

Now it happens that the island store closed a few years ago, and no one stepped forward to run it. The people are selling shares to run it as a community store, selling local produce and divine handicrafts. (Scalpay Linen, whose actual name is Sheila Roderick, just wove several hundred yards of linen for the Hobbit movies and may in fact be a Hobbit herself.)

I am thinking of buying a share in memory of Aunt Cherie. One of her roistering personnae was an Isle of Skye warrior.