News | Official Roddy Woomble - roddywoomble.com

Due to changes at the newspaper, Roddy will no longer be writing a weekly column for the Sunday Herald. In total he wrote 63 weekly columns, all of which are available to view on the sunday heralds website. His monthly 'woombles way' column in the TGO magazine is still very much alive, this month it's Ben Lomond. Anyway, here's his last herald column.....

'THE ISLE of Coll sits but 50 miles from the port of Oban, reached by trusty Caledonian MacBrayne ferry. I've mentioned it a few times here, the Isle Of Coll hotel especially, which is one of the best in the Scottish islands, with a great bar and restaurant to boot. But the island itself is a picture of Hebridean quiet and loveliness.
I'm over for a holiday, staying a week in a wooden house by a beach. The Cabin, built in the 1930s, is pretty much my ideal home. Inside, it looks like it has been made from driftwood, and you have to drive through a couple of fields to get to it. Five miles from the only village on the island, and just under three hours over the sea from the mainland ... to say it's remote would be correct, and therein lies much of the appeal.
Spring is always a welcome time of year and a cause for celebration. And whether you put significance on them or not, Easter eggs are a great invention, another cause for celebration, a seasonal excuse to eat chocolate. This year, I amassed quite a few, which I'm now enjoying sitting outside on the grass, watching the daffodils. They're poignant flowers, well known over time to stir the muse of many a romantic poet. I wouldn't go that far myself, but I can see their significance in heralding the coming of spring and warmer weather, and indeed how they hold the bright yellow of summer as well as the pale glow of winter.
I've written before about music you wouldn't necessarily associate with a place that nevertheless creates an unlikely soundtrack for the surroundings - my examples were dub reggae in Orkney and flamenco jazz in Tayside. Unusual maybe, but eerily compatible. Here in Coll, it's krautrock that's doing the trick. I'm talking about that clutch of experimental German rock bands in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a label that stuck to bands like Can, Neu! and Harmonia, my new favourite. There's something about their minimalist ambient workouts that really suit the mood of the Hebridean springtime. The bright sky, the lapping of the sea on the shore, gulls circling above. Whatever I'm doing, be it collecting wood for the fire, making jam or simply staring out into the distance over to Mull and the Treshnish islands, these pulsing krautrock rhythms are soundtracking it.
Not all the time, mind you, for there's nothing quite as nice as a silent sunset. Sitting here on the grass in front of the cottage, with bleating lambs in the field and daffodils blowing in a gentle Atlantic breeze, it's a vision of springtime if ever there was one. It also seems as good a place as any to leave this column, as this is my last weekly contribution. Hopefully you've enjoyed reading my ramblings over this past year or so as much as I've enjoyed writing them.'