That Siren call I can hear is the sound of silence

The chicken run was not enough and Rab finds himself in desperate need of a break. He longs for mountains, sea and quiet, somewhere his supermarket trousers are not a problem

Iam going stir-crazy. Apart from my sojourn with the chickens – and that just a 40-minute drive away – I haven’t been anywhere out of town since April. It’s ridiculous. I hadn’t even noticed, really, until everything started looking over-familiar: same desk, same computer, same view, same hill every single, samey day. Oh, for a break from the routine! For a day recently my computer broke down and it was such a liberation. But now it’s back and once more has a grip on my soul. I want to shout: “Nurse, the screen!”

At least I didn’t have to take it on a recent visit up town. I hadn’t even been there for an age and felt completely out of place. Sophisticated, cosmopolitan persons in sunglasses stravaiged hither and yon. The shops had changed. Even people’s clothes looked different – more fashionable, I guess – and I realised my jacket was about 20 years old, and my supermarket trousers weren’t really cutting it.

Quite a lot of men had beards, which I found deeply disturbing. Sharp hairstyles abounded, too, and I wished I’d worn a hat to cover up my self-cut hair, which probably had its usual, inadvertent Mohican down the back. Sometimes, I turn round in the supermarket queue and find people tittering at it. It all made me pine for Skye, where you can feel less judged and more at ease, not to mention far from the madding crowd. And you can wear a woolly hat all year round.

April – my last time anywhere (apart from the chickens) – was Skye. Indeed, though I’m doubtless forgetting somewhere – the odd day out in Fife

– I don’t think I’ve been anywhere else much in the last 10 years.

Must have been, but that’s what it feels like. I’ve got the free house in Skye again for two and a half weeks next month, and to say I just can’t wait grossly underestimates the urgency.

If I could sacrifice the next 30 days of my life and just go tomorrow, I would. Mountains, sea, silence: gimme, gimme.

All my friends are always going abroad all the time. Some just on cheapo beach-things to Spain, others to exotic places that don’t sell chips. When our yoga class split up for the summer, everyone talked about where they were going on holiday: Bosnia, Greece, California, Italy, Portugal, Spain, India, Canada.

“And where are you going, Rab?”

“I am going a 15-minute walk down the road, to look after the cats at Swanky Towers.”

Not that it makes me feel sorry for myself. I’ve been abroad and didn’t like it. Norwegians: rude. Dutch: rude. Czechs: inexpressibly rude. Even Americans: rude. French, mixed, but mostly rather nice (I wasn’t in Paris).

It’s not that I think islanders are any better – I definitely don’t; some of the most awful people I’ve ever met are crofters, at least in the Northern Isles – and I dislike rural supremacists intensely. The trick is never to get involved with the locals. Or the incomers. Just keep it between you, the mountains, the sea and the chip shop.

Oh, I can taste that massive, succulent haddock already. I can hear the silence and smell the sea. Just another month to go. Let it pass. Let me out of here!