A writing retreat and a bit of hygge

Felix Gade Hut is situated on the East Side of Lundy Island and was the Time Check office for the Quarry workers in 1863. Courtesy of the Boys Brigade (a group of men who visit Lundy each year) there is now a bench running around the circumference of the hut. This creates a seating area which is a perfect place to sit. So, on a late October day, I took along Anna who was a regular Lundy visitor from the Island of Seil, Ayrshire. We were supposed to be going swimming but that would wait till later, I had convinced her to come on a mini writing retreat.

After a walk round the quarry we ended up at the Felix Gade Hut, however there was already a lady there, who we later found out was called Nicky, she was sat waiting for friends who had gone off to Brazen Ward. We lit a fire and with Anna being half Danish we started to chat about Hygge, a Danish Way of living. This little hut with remnants of candles, bare walls and a fire felt very Hygge, especially when we unpacked cake and hot chocolate. As we chatted to Nicky, we discovered that she was a Publisher ! So we asked her to join our little writing group and to provide us with a topic to write about and so our little writing retreat began. The topic she gave us was ‘what makes us happy’ so we all wrote for a timed session and then shared our most noteworthy findings.

Just as we started to discuss our findings our retreat was interrupted by Nicky’s friends returning from Brazen Ward. They stayed to chat although this called a halt to our little writing retreat, it added to the hyggelige moment, by the fact that that a group of random strangers were sat in a stone hut on a granite rock with no place to be, no noise, no phones. Maybe that is Hygge but it is also Lundy!