The Moon's Our Nearest Neighbour

by Ghillie Basan

Ghillie Basan and her husband decided to leave their home in Edinburgh and set up in a remote hillside cottage at the foot of the Cairngorms. Aiming to restore the cottage and build photographic studios out of the barns, the pair are constantly thwarted by the weather—bold, dramatic, and sometimes treacherous. But the beauty of the landscape almost compensates for the bleakness of such an existence, and the story is peppered with tales of whisky-breathed farmers, boiler engineers with a penchant for dressing in cowboy suits, the birth and death of lambs, the night skies and the northern lights, mothers-in-law arriving in high heels, getting stuck in snow drifts, and finally, two babies.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Scotland

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

I am a writer, broadcaster, and food anthropologist with fingers in several pies! As a single parent living off the beaten track in the Scottish highlands it is the only way to survive. In the media, I have been dubbed ‘The Original Spice Girl’ and ‘World Food Expert’ but really I’m simply a hospitable hermit! I love to live a little bit wild but I also love to share what I have.

I spent my childhood in East Africa and my teenage years in Scotland, followed by a Cordon Bleu Diploma in London and a degree in Social Anthropology from Edinburgh University. After working and travelling in Europe, Turkey, the Middle East, North America, India, Southeast Asia, and vast chunks of Africa as an English teacher, journalist, and food and travel writer, I returned to the Scottish Highlands. Here, in a remote part of the Cairngorms National Park I have gradually turned a ruined croft into a home where, snowbound in winter with a 3 mile cross-country ski to and from the car to bring in supplies, I have raised my children on my own.

Abridged from Ms Basan's website

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably the third time I've read this book. It's excellent at evoking the peace, isolation and enormity of the jump to leap from living in a city into a remote ramshackle old farmhouse in the high wastes of Scotland. No electricity, only a farm track to the door, a leaking roof, snow up to the upper story windows in the winter, there are trials to overcome that combat with the beauties of the scenery for their willingness to stay. And then there's the problems of earning a living - not the easiest thing out there.

Basan is an evocative writer, with an eye and ear for the right word and the details. The first two thirds of the book are brilliant as they buy the cottage, pull it back into an habitable state, endure their first winters, gradually acclimatise to live and conditions, try to build their careers as cookery writer and photographer and gather dogs and babies.

The final third drifts away from the writer though - the trajectory of the story disappears as it gets closer to the present day (or when it was written, anyway) and the book gets lost into a series of unconnected observations and incidents. It's because of this that I don't give it five stars - I almost went down to three stars, but felt that would have been mean.

You can now go to stay in Carrunuch, because Basan offers cookery courses and you can spend time with her and in this beautiful spot you've immersed yourself in. I was sad to read that the couple split up shortly after this book was written / published (which might explain the drifting of the last section, if Basan didn't want to included the arguments and bad times, which would have been understandable).

But it is a lovely book and I'll no doubt read it again some time.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ghillie Basan and her husband Jonathan buy a remote cottage in the Braes, restore it, and slowly start to build up a food and photography business from their remote location. Along the way, they meet a variety of interesting people and start a family. (NB: I recommend that anyone who is expecting a baby avoid reading this book until after their child arrives, since both Basan's deliveries were horrific!)

I loved the first half, describing how they found the cottage and started to settle in. Basan writes well and is able to evoke a real strong sense of place with her words. However, I found that once she moved on to writing about their daily life in the cottage, the book seemed to lose pace and focus, with a lot of repetitive, random anecdotes that seemed curiously impersonal. It seems that Basan's husband left her the year after this book was published, so perhaps that explains it. It was a shame that a book which started so well just petered out.

[Viv · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really lovely book which I don't think I will ever tire of reading. This lady from Edinburgh and her Turkish cookery writer husband went off to live in a remote cottage in the Cairngorms. There is something about the story that is so refreshing I feel like packing up and doing a similar thing myself! I bought the book at the Cairngorms Visitor Centre when I was there and it reminds me that I love the energy of that part of the world. It also reminds me that I have an old friend who now lives in Istanbul and has invited Glen and I over for a visit. She thinks nothing of having survived a fairly-high-on-the-richter-scale earthquake (6 I think) over there, not so sure about that side of things! Would love to taste the cooking first hand tho'.

A lovely real life story to lose yourself in, with great photos as well.

[Gill Shaddick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was brought up holidaying at a remote croft with no electricity or running water. My heart stays there still and I have often wondered what it would be like to live it. I bought one of Ghillie Basan's cookbooks and thought it was so good I sent her a message and found out about her family's adventure in the Cairngorms and had to buy the book straight away. There is just something so pleasing and genuine about the book - the resilience, the determination - the incongruity of trying to photograph Turkish food in a Highland winter - it is just a tale to make you smile.

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is basically my future life! Set near to where I always go in Scotland, I felt a personal attachment to it.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!!