Run Away to the Summer Isles…..

That is exactly what I’ll be doing later next month.

Where are they, these ‘Summer Isles” ?
They are in the north west of Scotland, a little further than Ullapool. And they’ve been on my radar ever since the days when I was a tourist guide. Many tours would have at least one overnight in Ullapool, and a favourite thing to do was to take a little boat cruise with the “Summer Queen”. We would sail around those islands but never land and I was always curious about them.

Fast forward to 2012 and the opportunity to spend a few days on the Summer Isles presented itself.
Some decisions are made more or less straight away , and this was one of them. The chance to combine exploring these little islands with a few days away , immersing myself in maps ( well, the tourist guide part of my heart still loves maps ! ), other papery goodness, book making, and , I am led to believe, possibly a bit of chocolate eating as well. Done !

If you are also tempted to add a little bit of papery delight to your year, Rachel Hazell ( Queen of Book Making and other papery magic) is running quite a few courses all over the place ! And if you are quick off the mark you could even snap up one of the last couple of spots on the Summer Isles course.

( To give you a little taster, these blog posts are about her most recent workshop which was at a vinyard in California – a preview and then a review. )

You can find out a bit more about the course on the Summer Isles here , as well as how to book a place.