When I was 20, I went to work on the far North West Coast of Scotland as a chambermaid. One of the ladies who lived locally had an old barn on her grounds, and she renovated it inside and created a craft shop and later a cafe. I recall being so envious. It was all I wanted: a house right by the sea in a remote rural area and a gallery or craft shop of my own. Over the next 15 years, I was to experience housing and financial chaos whilst bringing up my two boys alone. Constantly shifting and fighting to survive was not in my life’s vision. However, 30 years later, I appear to be back on track to achieving my vision.

At the beginning of October this year, we built the steel frame of my gallery, and the sheeting was finished at the end of October, so it is now wind and water-tight. It hasn’t been without its challenges, though. When I bought the house on Harris, there wasn’t any parking for a car; only a passing place that was generally accepted was used for parking for my home. I had this idea about building something on my grounds. It was an idea that didn’t want to go away and I know that if I truly feel that something is right, I will make it happen one way or the other.

So I got some plans drawn up and began on groundworks. Most of the land on the east side of the Isle of Harris consists of rocks that are impossibly expensive to break up or water-logged and deep peat. It turns out that my house sits on land made up of both, and ironically, we had to bring in lots of rock to fill the bottomless peat bog first. Half my original budget was spent on rock and diggers, and then I discovered that the price of timber had risen so much that I wouldn’t have enough saved to complete the build.

I began applying for a Business Gateway grant, but the grant form and terms and conditions were so strict and complex that the stress and time of applying for it outweighed any possible benefits. I started to face the possibility of ending up with just a big car parking area next to my house. As November came around, the build went on total hold, and my life turned upside down. My mum became seriously ill, and I swapped my beautiful, peaceful home in Harris for central Manchester that month. In the following weeks, I decided to drop the project and focus on getting through the days and weeks, realising that the stress was not something I could handle.

My body told me that calm was the most important thing in life as I experienced grief, burnout, adrenal fatigue and reactivation of my Long Covid and Epstein Barr virus. I intuitively knew that every possible safe signal to my nervous system was vital and that every stressor must be avoided at all costs. Withdrawing from the demands of social media, staying away from noise or anything that could overload my mind or emotions. Retreating into solitude and the landscape was my way forward. Grief and ill health also give you the gift of new perspectives, gratitude and a good hard look at how you live your life. They can pave the way for new beginnings.

I also realised more starkly than ever that you often don’t always see how the threads of life come together until they begin to weave themselves. My mum left me just enough money to continue the project, and my partner, Rob, suggested I consider a steel agricultural building as a simple and affordable way to get the gallery built. These two things combined meant that in a few months, I felt able to carry on, and I sourced a blue steel building that felt like it was always meant to be. Supported and encouraged by Rob and my mum, the vision of my own gallery came back to life.  I took things slowly without feeling pressured to have the building done quickly. Maintaining calm is a constant thought in my life now.

On the day the building was due to be delivered, I received a call that it was coming on the lorry that morning. It was essentially a load of cut steel parts for the frame and steel insulated sheeting stacked on pallets, delivered ready to assemble. The back of my house looks over croft land, a small lochan and up to a steep rocky hillside where the windy single-track road heads back to Tarbert. So I went out of my gate, wrapped up in a coat and blanket, to sit up behind the house on a rock and watch for the lorry arriving with the building. It eventually made its way slowly down the road towards me and offloaded onto my newly built car park where it would sit waiting for a few months until Rob had the time to come over and begin building. He has a busy full-time job on the mainland but took a week’s holiday to work even harder on the build. The journey from where he lives is at least 7 hours, so a day is always spent on either side of travelling.

Time was too tight to finish on that first trip over at the beginning of October. Biting, northerly winds battered the building site all day, and progress was slow due to a slab that wasn’t quite square or completely flat. So, we decided to leave the completed steel frame as phase one. It stood there proudly until Rob got another few days off work at the end of October. My neighbour Jack also agreed to help, and they worked tirelessly with every ounce of available daylight, barely stopping for lunch, fuelled by coffee and cake, knowing that every hour was crucial. The windows and doors were finally fitted less than an hour before Rob had to leave to catch his ferry back to the mainland.

That is how we reached the end of October 2024 with a building sitting outside my home in Geocrab on the Isle of Harris. Jack will fit the inside out in the coming weeks with plasterboard, and I will have to make many decisions regarding lighting, flooring, and design.

It’s a tiny, modest building- only 7 x 4.5 metres. But to me, it means so much more. It signifies something that has been fought for over the years – an uphill battle to where I am now, living this wonderful creative life on the Isle of Harris. Writing this post has also given me something unexpected: a new appreciation for how far I have come.

I will continue to update you on the interior progress of the gallery this winter.