Lillian Beckwith, in this memoir of her convalescence on an isolated Hebridean island (fictionally called "Bruach") where "even the sheeps on the hills is lonely", observes, muses at, and joins the native crofters in their unique rhythm of life; where friends fistfight in the evening and discuss bruises the next morning; where the taxi-driver is also the lorry driver, coal merchant and undertaker; where the locals don't remove their hats during a funeral so their heads won't get cold; and where the post-office's 'opening hours' fit around the daily milking of cows and not the other way round!