The Summer Edition - Karen's Corner - 30.08.26

Well… it’s been a while!

Three months, in fact, since my last Karen’s Corner, which probably tells you everything you need to know about the pace of life around here this summer. It has been full! ... of work, people, music, growing, travelling, celebrating, fixing, cutting, cooking, laughing and, at times, stopping to remember just how precious all of this ordinary life really is.

Summer at Fossoway

At Fossoway Stables, summer is the season when everything seems to need your attention at exactly the same time. The grass grows faster than you can cut it, the weeds grow faster than absolutely everything, fences reveal all the bits that didn't survive Spring storms, the market garden is bursting into life, animals need tending, produce needs picking and veg boxes need packing!

Those veg boxes have continued to be one of the loveliest stories of our year. Our little scheme has continued to grow over the summer, and I still get such a buzz from packing the boxes each week and sending them off into kitchens around our local community. Every lovely email or doorstep conversation reminds me why we started doing it in the first place.

As always we're desperately trying to keep up with the weeds, and I can confirm that we are currently losing that particular battle ... but we persist!

There has been an endless cycle of grass cutting, fence fixing, weeding and all the other jobs that come with looking after this place in summer. It’s hard work, but there’s also something deeply satisfying about seeing the land at this time of year - green, productive and very much alive.

We also had a particularly lovely visit from Coinneach MacLeod, The Hebridean Baker, and his gorgeous partner Peter. We spent the afternoon chatting about crofting, cooking and the realities of trying to run a place sustainably. I always enjoy conversations with people who are thinking about similar questions to us - how we look after land, create something viable from it and make decisions that feel aligned with the way we want to live. There are rarely simple answers, but there’s lots to be learned from sharing experiences.

The estate has been full of another kind of creativity too ... earlier in the summer, John went firmly into producer mode, with musicians travelling over from America to finish a record they’ve been working on for TEN YEARS. There’s something quite wonderful about a project finally reaching that stage after such a long gestation, and we love having musicians coming and going from Fossoway. It’s exactly how I always imagined this place -full of people making things.

An Analogue Summer

Once the schools broke up, we decided we wanted to be a little more intentional about how we spent the holidays. Like most parents of teenagers, we are forever navigating the balance between allowing the kids to enjoy the technology that is simply part of their world and occasionally wanting to throw every device in the house into a locked cupboard! And so, An Analogue Summer was born. Not a complete ban on screens, nobody needs that kind of conflict, but a conscious effort to fill the summer with more real things. Going places, doing things, seeing people, being outside and making memories that exist somewhere other than a camera roll.

For Callan, that has meant LOTS of golf. Cora has been off on various day trips and adventures, and we had a brilliant trip to Lost Shore, the surfing centre in Edinburgh. The kids absolutely loved it and I very much enjoyed watching them from the safety of dry land!

They also headed off camping with their dad, and amongst it all we've had plenty of time with friends and the usual comings and goings of a busy summer house.

There have also been birthdays. Lots of them. Mum, Dad, me and Callan all have summer birthdays, so there has been a steady stream of cakes, meals, gatherings and reasons to celebrate and, perhaps most excitingly of all on the home front … NEW CARPETS.

I appreciate this is the kind of sentence that confirms I am firmly in midlife, but honestly, the joy! After all the work we’ve been doing on the house, seeing rooms finally coming back together has been ridiculously satisfying.

Music, Mull & a Few Different Hats

John has spent a big chunk of the summer out on the road with the John McCusker Trio, and it’s been such a fun project for me too. I’ve somehow found myself acting as booking agent, tour manager and social media manager, often simultaneously, and I’ve loved it. The tour received some wonderful reviews, the audiences have been brilliant, and it’s been hugely satisfying watching a project I’ve worked on behind the scenes come alive on stage.

It also confirms something I've increasingly realised over the past couple of years ... I really enjoy this work. Bringing the pieces together, telling the story, working with venues and promoters, building an audience - all the invisible bits that help make the visible bit happen.

Thankfully, touring eventually stopped long enough for John and me to escape to Mull for a few days of relaxed bliss.

Mull has a bit of magic for us that we've struggled to replicate elsewhere, and it was exactly what we needed. We walked, ate, read, pottered and generally did very little. We did, however, make the trip out to Staffa to see the puffins. The puffins themselves? Won-der-ful! Tiny, characterful, completely unbothered by us and an absolute joy to see so close. The choppy boat journey required to reach said puffins? Less wonderful. Neither John nor I is about to retrain as a sailor, but I’m very glad we did it.

We also ventured into Edinburgh for a little taste of the Fringe. We were perhaps not blessed with our choice of show - John’s review was simply that it felt like “time going backwards” but that's part of the Fringe, isn't it? Sometimes you find something extraordinary and sometimes you spend an hour wondering what exactly is happening to you. Either way, I love being in Edinburgh at that time of year ... the whole city feels alive with possibility and creativity.

The People Who Make the Summer

One of the most special trips of the summer took us to Ireland to celebrate John’s mum Bridie turning 80. We met up with his mum and dad, sister and brother-in-law and spent time in the place where Bridie was born. It was incredibly special to see for myself the places I’ve heard her talk about so fondly over the years and to hear the stories of her childhood while actually standing in the landscape where they happened. There’s something about seeing where people come from that adds another layer to how you understand them. Places hold stories, and it felt like a real privilege to spend that time together and celebrate such an important birthday.

Summer also brought a much sadder reminder of the importance of those connections when one of John’s friends died very suddenly. We attended his memorial service, which was heartbreaking but also incredibly beautiful - completely personal to him, full of stories, love and all the things that made him who he was.

Those moments have a way of cutting through all the noise, don't they? The lists, deadlines, emails, weeds, carpets, tour schedules and all the things that can feel terribly important on an ordinary Tuesday suddenly find their proper place because ultimately, it's the people.

It's having a house full of friends, celebrating birthdays, visiting your mum's childhood home, taking your kids surfing, sitting together over dinner, going to see the puffins even though the boat makes you feel dreadful, making the effort to meet up, saying yes to the trip and appreciating the very ordinary privilege of getting another day together.

Perhaps that's what this summer has been about for me. We tried to create an Analogue Summer for the kids to encourage them to look up from their screens and be more present in their own lives but maybe I needed the reminder just as much as they did.

Life here remains incredibly full. There are projects growing, businesses evolving, fields needing cut, veg needing picked, music being made and another season already beginning to appear around the edges but I don't want to be so busy building a life that I forget to actually live it.

So after three months away, that's probably a good place to leave this Summer Edition of Karen's Corner. More doing things, more seeing people, more making memories and perhaps a little less worrying about the weeds.

Until next month, and I promise it won't be three months this time!

Karen xx