A Poet's Sanctuary

Hidden on a hilltop, writer Dominic Cooper is inspired by the wild, stormy winters of the Ardnamurchan peninsula

- POLLY PULLAR

FROM high on a wind-pummelled hillside, rainbows send over Big Muck and send promises over Rum, Eigg, Muck and Canna. The vertiginous Cuillin Ridge and the hills of Knoydart lurk, snow-stippled. Shy one minute, crouching beneath ink smudge cloud, transforming to flamboyant grandeur as showers pass.

Savage sting-laden storms build in the Atlantic, driving in without warning, blotting the view.

On a clear day, you can see far to the Outer Hebrides and the tremendous northern mountain ranges on the mainland.

Writer and poet Dominic Cooper first came to Ardnamurchan to write in a friend's off-grid cottage in the winter of 1977, and was later offered a piece of land to build his own house by the local landowner. He'd been looking for a place on Mull and this proved the perfect solution.

He built his nest - a low Norwegian log house with a turf roof that requires careful nurture - in 1986 and has lived in this airy, hidden hilltop position ever since. The house blends seamlessly with the environment. When you are inside you hear creaks and groans, drips, and clicks its heartbeat. It calms.

Perhaps that, too is due to the atmosphere Dominic creates - the dynamic arboreal pine-scented walls, the pictures, black and white photographs, books, the classical music playing softly, and the glow of the wood burner, the sunsets from his windows.

When the wind shrieks like a wolf possessed and occasionally reaches hurricane force, this can feel like a vulnerable place. Like its owner, the house, too, suffers due to the vagaries of the increasingly fickle elements. In 1988, Dominic lost a third of his roof during a hurricane.

If you live in this far-flung land of sea and sky, the most westerly peninsula on the UK mainland, you understand the challenges of existence. Winters can seem eternally gale-lashed and rain-sodden.