Romanticising winter living alone on a Scottish island - 2026 intentions & cosy season bucket list

Waiting for bread to cool is a very painful experience. Also what the hell's happened to this? I've never had that before. I did really just rush this together so not my best. She's looking good though. I know it's got some steam coming from it but it has been cooling for an hour I promise. Update on living in the countryside without a vehicle to get around. Biggest challenge for this has been Nuala because Nuala's scared of cars so that's why I always drive her to the walks that I take her on because she couldn't walk along the road that is close to my house because she gets far too fearful and it's just a really not a nice thing to see to see her so scared and unable to move. So that's been the biggest struggle of this and definitely something I'm taking into consideration with where I move to next that I want to be able to walk my dog like out my front door for a length of time that's not gonna send her into a spiral because there's cars. But we're heading across to the beach again today and I feel in a much better headspace this morning so nice to do this walk again with you guys where I'm not grumpy and grumbling at you. I'm done my walk and I've just got back to the house and although I am feeling a lot better today than last time I spoke to you and I'm feeling so much better after my walk which always does help I am going to continue to make a little bit more time for mindfulness in my morning but you guys know it's been a bit of a rocky second half to the year for me. I had such a peak in happiness over my birthday but then since coming into December I've just felt a little bit of a lull but that is fine and like can so be expected and I think like the overwhelm of the festive season is probably quite a lot for when you're going through something quite tricky and also the thought of the new year and going into a year that's just very different from what you ever imagined it would look like that's just yeah it's been a lot for my mind to grapple with. So something that I actually added to my cosy season bucket list because it's something that I just realised needed to be a priority for me throughout winter to set me up for success going into the new year was to make more time for mindfulness and get myself into the swing of using headspace and since I have started using it truly truly been a game changer for me moving house as we know is one of the most stressful things someone can go through and although I am still having moments of stress not saying this is going to take away all the stress from your life but I just feel a little bit more level-headed about decisions that I'm making and steps that I'm taking headspace tells you how many minutes a day you're averaging using the app so I'm thinking about eight minutes a day which honestly if you think about the grand scheme of your day think about when you're like scrolling on your phone how quickly eight minutes could disappear eight minutes to sit and use headspace just be kind to your mind really not that much and it's actually been shown that as little as five minutes a day on headspace can reduce your stress one of the things that I love the absolute most about it is in a lot of the kind of guided meditations it'll keep reminding you like don't worry if your mind wanders just bring your focus back which I have been someone in the past who said I just can't meditate I just can't do it I just can't get in headspace but actually turns out it's very normal for your mind to wander and it's just the act of bringing your focus back that is really powerful a few days ago I done one called the holiday gratitude practice and this actually reduced me to tears not because it was like so overwhelming and brought up so much hard stuff for me just because it was so subtle and made me realize like the whole time I was just thinking about how thankful I was for all my friends and I hadn't just sat in a room in silence and just actually made time to think about that and especially with how much my friends have shown up for me recently I was just so emotional that again I'm someone that's always wanted to get into gratitude practice but felt quite overwhelmed by how to do it properly really learn after some time of using headspace there's no proper way to do it so I'll let you listen to the voice of the woman that does the holiday gratitude practice because she's so soothing welcome to this headspace holiday gratitude practice holidays provide us with a chance to slow down catch our breaths and reconnect with our family and friends another one that I've been loving is welcome to your sleep journey which this also had such an amazing exercise in it that I have something written down from I have been struggling a little bit with my sleep in the past few weeks so this felt like an important one for me to tackle I asked a series of three questions and then in the end kind of brought together your three answers from those questions but essentially what it tells you to do is that final answer that you write to write it down on a post-it note and have it somewhere it's like readily available to you to keep checking in with your why as to why you want to have better sleep to help motivate you to take the steps to help you sleep better what I came to was I want to improve my sleep because life excites me and I want to get as much out of it as I can and having energy is important for doing so thanks to Headspace I now have that clear written down motivation to take the steps like taking a five-minute meditation before bed to help me set myself up for success before getting into my bed at night and an excellent news you guys can get 60 days for free I really hope in that time you can discover what I'm talking about because it's been game-changing for me and I'm really glad to share this link with you and share this recommendation of Headspace with you because yeah as a girl who thought she couldn't meditate thought she couldn't make time for mindfulness thought she was just going to have to succumb to an unhappy brain as I navigate this time in my life I'm not saying there hasn't been unhappy moments there hasn't been moments of high stress and high anxiety but that doesn't mean you can't give yourself a tool to make things better for you once I finish talking to you guys I think I am going to go do one of the sessions in the calming an anxious mind course but what's happening today is I am going to get my van back but I'm also wanting to keep going with my cosy season bucket list so oh my gosh I have something to tick off because I hosted a crafternoon so that one's done some are quite hard to tick off because they're like watch a new movie every week so that one won't actually be ticked off really it'll just be kept going throughout the month I've also got try a new soup recipe so maybe I could have some soup for my dinner because I've made that bread this morning that's what I'll do have some soup and bread for my dinner so I'll try a new soup recipe this is why I love this cosy season bucket list because I can just dip in and bring a little sparkle of joy to my day it's so good I'm also still working away on my scarf so I should maybe get a little bit of time done on that today and I've got to do a jigsaw maybe I'll do a jigsaw tonight we'll see so I heard from the mechanic starting to panic and not even just because it means it's going to be another day without a van but I'm starting to get really worried about how much this is going to cost anyway distracting myself by writing some Christmas cards feels like a perfect time to do it because I'm in my head I'd be in for a tree right now so it feels like a little gift of I don't know an afternoon but how cute are these? I love them so much and lots of my friends have little dogs that look like that and obviously this one looks like Noah so I have 10 of them and then also I have three from Sauna Design they're Gaelic Christmas cards I'm just going to write the cards as people come to mind but I would love to become someone who has like a Christmas card list I just love an old school thing I might put a record on as well actually this could be really nice I'm going to do that I'm going to put on a record hopefully we'll be getting the bus in in the next few hours and I'll just take these in to portray and post them straight away otherwise they will just rattle around in a bag somewhere Christmas cards are done these ones are for posting these ones are for hand delivering definitely more people that I could have sent them to but I just started working through until I ran out of cards so if you're watching this and you think you should have got a card I'm very sorry but I still don't have my van so I couldn't go buy anymore and I made a mistake on one which I'm like I don't know why I just started writing happy Christmas at the top that was weird I am an essay writer on my Christmas cards so my hand is a bit sore so I probably had reached my capacity anyway I'm just about to open this little guy because something I really want to take forward into the new year this is becoming a bit of like cosy season bucket list slash starting to set myself up for the new year kind of vibes like something I really want to do I actually wrote my dissertation when I was at uni on the importance of printed imagery and images as a tactile object so I want to print my photos more I used 50 free prints in the end and I was kind of using like a big case and just storing them all in there but what I kind of think I'd rather do is get a journal that's like blank so like no lines or maybe I could have lines but essentially it has a photo book where it's like kind of a photo scrapbook but I just like as I go along journal through images that I took that day I'm a very like whenever I'm texting friends I really like just want to send photos all the time for visual reference of what I'm doing I'm a very visual person like that so I think it could really help my diary journaling I know sometimes like journaling is very like mindset-y but when I'm like just talking about what I've done with my day that's also something I want to get better at in the new year I've been watching loads of videos of people and their like journal ecosystems they call them so they'll have all these different ways that they journal so I'd quite like to sort that one out a little mini printer and I think you just hook up to your phone via the app store I wonder if it's charged called the Zoe mini one that I got this app told me and also this card has told me to charge it so I'm get I've just plugged it in and I'm guessing there's no charge in it to begin with so might not have much to show you for now but I'm excited to be more of a photo printer they're maybe a bit smaller than I thought they were going to be but I think that's fine I have some excellent news and also some bad news well there's no bad news apart from the fact that my van's probably just about to bankrupt me with how much this is going to cost but it's all fixed all ready to be collected and on time for me getting the last bus into Portree so thank the lord but also pray for my bank balance I got down to the bus stop and then I realised that I'd forgotten the Christmas cards that I wrote down with so much time to spare that I had time to walk back up to the house get the Christmas cards and come back down with time to spare the bus is six minutes late and I'm stressed now that it's not going to come did anyone else used to always love as a kid driving around with your parents to see all the really like elaborately lit up Christmas houses because I'm at one just now thought I would show you how some people of Skye do at Christmas the van has been retrieved we are back on the road and it wasn't looking good for a minute there I don't know if the bus that I was meant to get on was 40 minutes late or if it just never came and I actually got on the second bus but I got on a bus got to the van with like five minutes to spare and it was 840 pounds so that was fun needs must and I actually have been working really hard at making sure I always have my emergency fund savings pot also a separate car repairs fund because it's always the car that catches you out it just felt actually quite good like whenever the guy was phoning me to tell me all these extra things that needed done I was like just fix it just deal with it because I knew I had that cushion in that account anyway I felt quite chic in the co-op with this jacket and bag combo and also knee-high boots under a wide leg jean is my new favourite little fashion look something about the boots just gives the jean a really nice structure I love it so much I got some stuff for soup so the recipe that I saw was cauliflower and almond but I'm sure I had a soup in bulk recently that was cauliflower, almond and orange and it was insane so I bought an orange as well that I'm going to experiment with and squeeze into it this bread that I made this morning was so good by the way looked weird but tastes amazing I've kept just cutting a bit off today and using this red pepper and aubergine dip it's by a company called Dip by the looks of things and it's so good it's so tasty it's got like a bit of spice to it so so good let's make soup I feel like when you post your life online people just have this assumption that you have your life together and I just wanted to assure you that I don't and I finished making the soup and could not find my stick blender anywhere I've got no idea where it is so I had to use this blender that I've been keeping around for I mean obviously a moment like this but it's got this big slit up the side of it so I was trying to blend my soup but it's like just bleeding everywhere so we've managed to blend some of it there's still some chunks in there but I'm just gonna go with this okay don't ask me for the recipe on that soup because it was not good also sometimes when you've had a stressful time making something it ruins your enjoyment of it I think that's what happened I am keen to develop a soup recipe with orange in it because I'm going to do it with bog martell it's so good time to choose a movie kind of feel like watching one I've never watched before and it being a Christmas one let's have a wee look where did... oh is that Christmas? episode's at sleep now okay I'm gonna go for My Secret Santa because it's number two in films and seems like the perfect mushy festive vibe and I'll work away on my scarf as I go it's getting there and then I've got my cup of tea so what a perfect little setup I should probably have the fire on but I'm out of firewood oh my god this is so cringy and cheesy so bad it's good hello it's the next day I have been having a lovely old day of being back on the road I took Mila for her favourite walk which it was freaking wild but also just so good to be back in our favourite spots and I went and worked in Gasta because I'm just... I'm just sick of the sight of my house love my house but I did just need a little day of being out and about after being stuck here for a little while and then I came home I've been doing some work and now I'm going up to Staffen to The Hungry Girl for a craft night I've done knitting nights here before but it's an embroidery night tonight and I have never done embroidery I think it's like embroidering Christmas tree decorations don't have a Christmas tree but I can always hang them somewhere else and it'll just be nice and it was actually the person that's hosting it actually messaged me directly and was like I think you should come to this and I was like I think you're correct and I will so that's at Staffen so it's in an hour so I'll need a little bit to drive up there and I can't blame him anyway also something exciting that's happened today is I booked a car onto the ferry for Tiree Music Festival I had to book it on multiple days early and also I think I've booked it on for the wrong day back but trying to get a car on the ferry for Tiree Music Festival is no easy task and just thankful I've got one on at all I'm gonna have to problem solve how to make it the right dates another time about two or three days after where I was trying to get this printer to work and I'm finally getting around to it so let's choose some pictures to print most of my pictures go in my boiler and I have a lot of pictures of my friend's babies on there so I got a really sweet little photo when we were at the Sunday roast on last week of two of my friends and my friend's baby so I might do that one I think that might be on the wrong side why is there two circles? they're like stickers oh these ones aren't stickers okay I don't know why one half of it was stickers and the other wasn't but we're rolling also I have some granola in the oven just now because I've got my friends Gabby and Billy and Gabby's mum and dad coming to stay as of tomorrow night and I'm just getting some wee things prepped so I've made some granola for the breakfast one morning and I'm gonna do some bread tonight as well because we're gonna have stag ball tomorrow night so I'll do a little homemade bread to then make a garlic bread to go with the stag ball and yeah how impressed are we that I am simply doing stag ball and not attempting something brand new that I've never made before because that is usually very much my style but not this time no no there's actually a really cute picture that someone got of me and Gabby at that event we were at recently that I might actually print this isn't the picture I was meaning of me and Gabby but it's quite a cute one so I might do that one next I'm gonna do this one of all my friends at my birthday stay they're maybe printing a little dark they're not very good has anyone got one of these? why is that quality really rubbish? is it just because it's a tiny little printer and it's obviously going to be rubbish? granola is done and it smells so good people keep telling me to like not put the cranberries in when I'm actually cooking it but I quite like the way they like make little clusters okay I think the quality was maybe getting better as we go along so there's my new additions to the boiler good morning it is the Saturday before Christmas I have some excellent news and that is the rain has stopped although I think I did just feel a spit but we're gonna ignore that because it's a stunning morning and yeah living on sky is just so funny because you'll feel so down in the dumps about the rubbish weather and then you get one single day like this and everything just doesn't matter anymore and all the rain and horrible weather just feels so worth it just been at the vets with Nualat for her booster vaccinations which I was really stressed about because she really doesn't like the vets but she was so good so I feel really happy about that I was so up to high dough about it but she was an absolute angel so I just went and got myself a little lean to coffee as a treat for me being so brave and now taking Nualat to the beach to give her a treat for being so brave but I think I'll wrap the vlog up here guys and sign off for Christmas and potentially even New Year it might be 2026 by the time I next put up a video so I just want to say thank you so much everyone for all the support and love you've shown this channel this year it's been a truly life-changing year for me some sad and hard things but many many amazing things that I'll never really be able to wrap my head around so much of it is down to you guys showing up every Sunday and watching my videos and I just needed to take a moment to say a huge thank you for that because growing this community this year has been such a highlight of mine and something yeah that as I've said to you guys before that I've wanted for a long time so I'm just so thankful to you all for having been here and I really truly hope you all have the most merry merry Christmas and if you are like me and have had a funny year and feeling funny about Christmas don't put any pressure on yourself feel however you want to feel there's no right or wrong way to feel around Christmas you're not feeling festive? who cares? if anything as long as you speak to someone you love on Christmas day then I'd say that's a day well spent so just a little reminder about the Headspace link in the description for 60 days for free 2026 is going to be our year of having a good Headspace and setting ourselves up for success to live the life that we all deserve to live so I'm going to leave you with this beautiful scene of the beach I've just seen a rainbow appear over there thank you all so much and I'll see you in the new year