I stand an inch taller than I did last year. I noticed it a few days ago. My husband and I, standing in front of one another, realised something was different. Where my eyes used to meet his, they now point directly towards his forehead. We checked our feet; we were both wearing socks. We checked our positioning; neither of us was on an incline. Everything was as it should be, and yet, it was different.
It should be said that I haven’t actually grown. I think at 27 years of age, my height is pretty set in stone. Nothing explained it until we remembered the most obvious change of the last twelve months: I carried a baby for nine months, gave birth to him in November, and have since carried him everywhere, no matter how much he squirms.
Apparently, if you spend enough time upright with a small human attached to you, your body eventually decides to behave properly. My habitual slouch has surrendered. I am now structurally improved.
So here I am, moving into 2026 with an extra inch. Not metaphorical confidence or emotional growth, but literal vertical gain. Though, if we’re being honest, the other kinds are there, too.
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This has been our first full year living on the Isle of Rum. Our first full year of total change. We’ve watched the island spin through its cycles. Dark winters that test your waterproofs and will, bright summers that reward you for sticking around, and all the messy weather in between.
It’s nice to reflect on that as we enter a new chapter. I remember bringing in the bells in the village hall - the makeshift MC in charge of the speaker had perhaps had one too many, and we missed the countdown by a solid minute, and trawled through the most painstakingly slow rendition of Auld Lang Syne until we took matters into our own hands and drowned out the soundtrack with our stomping feet.
We ventured back to the mainland at the end of February for our first time since moving to Rum. It felt like visiting another planet. There were supermarkets with aisles that went on forever, proper roads with traffic lights and pavements, and food that hadn’t been prepared by us in our own kitchen. We crammed days full of hugs, conversations, shopping, and eating, trying to absorb enough civilisation to last us a while.
Little did we know that the day after we returned to the island, our lives would change forever thanks to one tiny plus sign on a white stick. We took multiple tests to be sure, and then rolled in the morning sickness, which lasted all the way to the end of my second trimester. There are still smells that can transport me right back to those weeks whether I want to go or not.
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The summer went by in a blur. The infamous Rum midge arrived, and with them the masses of visitors to the island for the season. Our lives were a haze of room changes, mopping floors, replying to emails and, of course, meeting the hundreds of guests that came into our workplace, Rum Bunkhouse. We tried to meet every one of them properly, to remember names, faces and stories.
Now, as we look at the bookings coming in for 2026, it feels like seeing familiar friends pop their heads around the door again. We took trips to the mainland to see our little boy via hospital scans, wracking up hundreds of miles in the car and crying many happy tears along the way. And October came by in the blink of an eye. Our little Cailean arrived the day after his due date, and we’ve loved him every single day since. He has brought the island even closer around us, a community woven tighter, a house filled with warmth, a future that suddenly feels brighter and louder and busier.
So, yes, I do stand taller now. Physically, thanks to corrected posture. But also because this first full calendar year on this extraordinary island - and the arrival of the smallest, loudest person in my life - has changed me in ways I could never fully put into words.
Rum is not always easy. Motherhood is not always easy. But this wild, windswept, beautiful place is exactly where we are meant to be. Wishing you all the most wonderful year ahead, and I can’t wait to continue sharing this journey with you in 2026.
Elle Duffy lives and works on Rum
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