Stroll Around the Isle of Iona (I found gardens in Scotland to show you!)
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Hey there darlings. Welcome back to Roots and Refuge, the channel. Definitely not the farm.
I think I'm further away than I have ever been shooting a video for this channel. I am currently
in Scotland on the Isle of Iona, which is a small island in the Inner Hebrides and I've been on this
trip for the last few days. I've been filming clips and bits and pieces and I had this grand
idea in my mind about making some big compilation video kind of showing the overall the trip and
I'm still continuing to film with that idea in mind but this morning as I was preparing to go
walk around this island and take in all the gardens and all of that I thought you know
while a big cinematic compilation is a lovely idea it's really not my style.
Really my style is to just turn the camera on and talk to my friends and bring them along with me
So I spent the morning right here in this chair next to this little fireplace enjoying a fire in
the grate as I watched the rain outside and though I think I could do that for the rest of my day
I do want to see more of the island. Let's go check it out. The view from the front of my hotel
Staying here at the Argyle Hotel right off the ferry landing in Iona. So I've been documenting
this trip with photography, my camera, and I've also been doing quite a bit of writing. I've started
sharing some of that over on my sub stack so I'll put a link to that. You guys can go subscribe
and read all the things I write once I'm home as well but Scotland has really moved my heart in
such a beautiful way. Oh look at this garden. That's so sweet and beautiful. On this trip I'm
on a tour with a small group. A friend of mine does these tours and I saw her share about it
and Jeremiah gifted me this trip. I'm turning 40 this December. This is my 40th birthday gift
and it is a bucket list thing. I've wanted to go to Scotland always. So though I've not done a ton
of travel and I am, I say a reluctant traveler, I was glad to take this journey.
So I came in this store yesterday and joyfully bought some yarn. I want to take a little peek
in here. Hello. This morning when I was sitting by that fire for an hour and a half or two
after I had my breakfast I was crocheting with the yarn that I purchased in there yesterday.
What a dream right? Oh man I was a little hesitant to make this video today because I knew
I was just gonna be, I'm so emotional. I am so like just feeling everything at an 11 which that's
life anyway. And if you've been here with me for very long when I have shared any anything really
I guess you are aware that I have really chosen to feel my life fully. Some people don't want to
feel because when you feel the the lovely things you also feel the painful things and that's hard.
But I think that numbness comes at its own cost because though it may spare you from some of the
pain it also robs you of some of the joy. And so I have been joyfully crying constantly since I've
been here. I'll probably do it some more today. So Iona is known as the birthplace of Christianity
in Scotland. It's got a lot of history. Here is the ruin of a nunnery founded in 1200. This convent
flourished for more than 350 years. You can see the state of it now but it's just incredible when
you come into places like this what you can feel. It's just so much history and I just think places
remember the things that they've experienced and sometimes whenever you you do go into places that
have long stories like this I just they remember it. Normally I would speed up and time lapse a
I'm gonna have a stroll today rather than rushing through. I'm also making this video for myself
because I have a feeling I will for a long time yet want to come back and walk through the Isle
of Iona. I have no doubt that I will be back here. I want to bring my my babies back here.
Our heritage is Scottish and I want them to know that. So this island is very remote.
You have to take we had to take two ferries to get here and drive I don't know 45 minutes maybe
it's close to an hour across the Isle of Mull but you cannot reach this island without taking
at least the one ferry there and that means a lot of the people here grow a lot of food. The
hotels here like the hotel I'm staying at their menu changes daily and much of it comes from
local sources and then of the vegetables and the herbs and all that stuff they grow themselves
which is really neat. Last night I had a squash of course it's called courgette here
a squash and lemon and basil soup so good. I took a picture of it and of the description
because I'm definitely gonna have to go home and try to figure that one out
and then I had fish. I've been eating a lot of fish while we're over here on the coast
and it's so fresh and wonderful absolutely perfect really and then we ordered our dinner
in the morning because we order it in the morning and uh tonight is gonna be really good as well.
Look here actually here's the menu for the hotel I'm staying at and they've got
just a little list and then there's their garden so my hotel is like down that way
on the other side which isn't that neat. This is called McLean's Cross it was erected in 1500
and it was a public display of this you know powerful family support for the abbey and people
would stop here to pray on their way to the abbey. There are a lot of blackberries growing here this
morning they had a little breakfast buffet set up with fresh yogurt and granola and like a fruit
compote that was obviously made here and jars set out of jam and homemade bread it's just wonderful.
Last night a few of the ladies from my group and I went with them up here to the abbey which that's
this island is most known for is the abbey and they have service every night at nine and so we
came up here to worship and it was just really sweet it was very sweet but I was walking this
way it was you know very dusky it was almost completely dark but I was seeing all these
gardens which I hadn't explored this yesterday I've gone down more along the beach and I thought
I gotta go rubberneck on these gardens I definitely got to take my friends. I also wanted to post this
while I'm still over here I actually have good internet at this place that I'm staying
because I want my boys to see so I'm gonna send this to Maya and my babies I love you guys I miss
you and I cannot wait to bring you back here you're gonna love it it's so special you're gonna love it
oh let's peek into this garden so this is for one of the other hotels look they've got their
leaf mulch compost I see some potatoes out there and look at all of their lettuces
no carrots there I feel like such a creep hanging over this this stone waffle wall fence
so I can gawk at the kale but look at it isn't it pretty kale here's the heritage center
so all of that is blackberries in there we stopped at several places on the way here
we flew into edinburgh and we drove across and stopped at multiple little historical places
and there were just wild blackberries all over the place which you know I love I love a wild
blackberry we've got history oh whatever is going on in that building smells heavenly
it's a little cafe it smells so good in there
you do not need to stop and eat though we have plans for lunch
I'm actually going sailing this afternoon I've never been sailing before
and when I saw it was an option I thought yes I would like to go sailing
yesterday of course it rains here all the time and yesterday it was sunny and raining
so the entire day there were rainbows I lost count there were at least 20 different times
that I saw rainbows they're so vibrant and beautiful I've never seen so many rainbows
in a single day of my life more of this garden we've got a couple of tunnels back there which
someone told me last night that this garden belongs to the other kind of larger hotel
it's a little more modern than the one that I'm staying in the hotel I'm staying in my room key is
a skeleton key it is so quaint and lovely and the owner is there and so kind everyone has just been
so kind and joyful in service I have loved it yeah this is the Saint Columba Hotel oh
heck yes we invite you and all visitors to explore our organic garden you don't have to ask me twice
here we have their compost set up so I was just reading that sign and it actually stated
that not only do they grow their vegetables and their herbs for their food they also have
bees here which produces their honey and they use these botanicals for the production of their
spirits it's very cool here we have some fruit trees this sign says soil not dirt
there's actually a section in my book that is titled that that's funny
they have the varieties listed on some of these things different kales here they are definitely
doing the work to produce good soil that's some really lovely compost and mulch black
spanish round radishes oh I thought these were carrots from over there they are not
here's borage these are potatoes popping up oh there are the carrots they're underneath I bet
they deal with uh I think white flies isn't that something you guys deal with over here
some of you will be able to tell me lots of lettuces those are beets it's so lovely
oh this is neat did you know that one in three mouthfuls of food depends on pollinators
they're very mindful of that here so this is they're talking about hedgerows being a central
part of organic farms um for the multiple uses of housing the wildlife namely the pollinators
speaking of which some little bees working right there these are just lovely fennel last night that
was what my fish was on a puree that had fennel in it and it was delicious hyssop leeks there's
an option for potato leek soup tonight so I've known this for a while with obviously communicating
through with youtube viewers that lived in the UK but what is grown just like throughout the season
over here throughout the summer and late summer season is typically what my winter garden looks
like so I would not have like these gardens have like squash and some tomatoes still coming
especially in the high tunnels or hot houses they typically use those for tomatoes so I wouldn't
have like tomatoes coming on at the same time as my winter stuff but a lot of the things that grow
here throughout the summer is what I have to wait for winter to grow like the kale and
all the brassicas and all that look at this the structure has raspberries in it there's yellow
and golden raspberries and red raspberries lots of fruit lots of perennials that's rhubarb down
there on the end that's something I can grow but it has to go over the winter and I don't get a
great harvest of it I've seen lots of rose hips lots of roses growing everywhere down here and
see what we can find oh yeah I found the tomatoes other side is open I'll go that way more carrots
undercover so I'm assuming that definitely means there's a pest that likes those here
see that's not something I really have to worry about of course I grow my carrots over our winter
and we don't really have many pests that bother them there's celery
oh look at this working on some serious mulch there yeah check this out so it stays pretty
cool here it's not freezing but uh you know this whole week that we're here the highs and the lows
are pretty much all in the 50 degree fahrenheit you know like the seven celsius range so tomatoes
don't love that so obviously they're going to do better undercover and I assume the nearly constant
rain would also really affect them if they were out in the elements but these tomatoes look quite
happy don't you think I'd say it's going well here in this little hot house I got a few different
varieties here there's cucumbers along that back wall and they've got the doors propped open so
there are bees in here here we have some chili peppers marigolds interplanted which helps with
pests for night shades just awesome those are tomatillos right there they don't have a whole
lot on them beautiful all right we have seen the gardens okay one more little look I told
Joey we're not gonna rush on this look over on this side it's just too pretty to pass up don't
you think so I see horseradish back there lots of these flowers here's little johnny jump ups
cosmos and sunflowers and more marigolds oh and sweet peas so I'm assuming this is their little
botanical area because there are definitely some fragrant things in here that would be great for
using in spirits there's some mint those are beetroots that have gone to seed there and lots
that haven't so they're doing some really lovely succession so I like how they do their markers
on these slabs I haven't thought much about planting hedgerows through my garden I mean I
have a lot of things for pollinators that are you know semi-permanent things my roses stay on all
year and all of that but there's definitely something romantic about the hedgerows oh look
and the church bells artichokes
their gardens are quite extensive okay so this is the garden for
the hotel that I'm in which I don't know I don't know what the boundaries are which
of what belongs to who see that rainbow chart over there looking so bright
yep I ate my dinner and my breakfast out of this garden oh look at these birds
working I was telling one of the ladies here nothing makes me feel quite as uh
this place like I know I'm in like a foreign place like not knowing the names of the birds
and the trees specifically you know obviously whenever you're looking for a vegetable garden
there's a lot of familiar things around the world but um a lot of the trees I have no idea
and a lot of the birds I've never seen before in my life and that definitely makes me feel
quite far from home because at home I know all their names thank you oh look another craft store
take a look in here hello how are you I just want to go in all the little places
I don't want to miss anything
I got a little cool tea in there because I layered up and all this walking I'm actually
pretty warm believe it or not I think I'm adjusting pretty well the weather here
currently kind of feels more or less like our late November early December
not something that is foreign but I did see people swimming yesterday out in the
sea and I was like wow they're made of tougher stuff than I am so the crowds are starting to
kind of thicken quite a few more people walking up here but here's the Iona Abbey which is really
what Iona is most known for so this is St. Oren's Chapel the burial chapel of the
McDonald's Lords of the Isles built in the 1100s it is the oldest intact structure on Iona
being an American like being in a structure that was built in 1100
is just kind of unfathomable actually
the morning after we got here I woke up across the street you can see Edinburgh Castle
and I mean it was it had it begun construction in 1124
900 years old this is a 900 year old structure I mean obviously parts of it
I mean never in my life have I seen anything remotely that old that was man-made
I've been out to like the redwood forests and stuff and seen trees that are that old but
never anything like this
I actually do not have time to go explore the abbey right now
because I have to catch the ferry to get back for my appointment
learned sail but I'm very glad I got to spend the morning with you guys
look at this just these rock outcroppings that's just gorgeous to my babies I love you I miss you
I'm so thankful that I get to come home to you guys next week and that I get to look forward
to one day bringing you back here to everyone else thank you for hanging out with me today
and all the days you do I bless you until next time