‘By Christmas we were living to the rhythm of the tides.’
In 2002, following the collapse of his business and the loss of a much-loved family home, Mike Faulkner and his artist wife Lynn left Scotland for a cabin on Islandmore, an uninhabited island on Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland.
With no mains electricity, an erratic water supply and access to the mainland only possible by boat, life on Islandmore is one part catastrophe – storms, broken generators, escaping dinghies – to three parts idyll – long walks on the shore, early morning boat trips on the lough, sunsets from Eagle Hill, year-round picnics.
The result is a book imbued with sense of place; an honest, often funny, and moving account of one couple and two dogs living the kind of uncomplicated life that so many of us yearn for.