What is it like to live in Northern Scotland?

[catonthekeyboard]

Hi, may I please ask what it's like in Northern Scotland because I'm fascinated by this. How cold is it? Does it rain most days? Do people speak Gaelic? If you're in the Highlands or the Hebrides, how do you get shopping etc and how long does the post take? Are the houses very cheap? How do you cope with isolation? Thanks!

Where do you currently reside so I can get an idea of what to compare / contrast?

It all depends how big your pockets are and the people you have around you to break up the bigger tasks of rural living.

Grass is always greener on the other side.

I’d recommend a holiday of at least 2-3 weeks to get an idea of it.

Living in London for 20 years, but originally from Southern Europe.

No it doesn't rain every day. Why do people think this? We get average weather and glorious sunshine - just like the rest of the country

You need to take an extended holiday in the area before deciding to move, preferably in February!

I wasn't planning to move up there. But I'm interested in it and we may go up this summer. But everyone says it rains all the time? I'm sure it can't do?

I don't live in the Highlands but spend a fair bit of time there visiting my in-laws. It is very beautiful and I agree the weather is variable and there are lots of sunny days too. People are friendly I find.
However, I do find it cold up there, even in the Summer. It's a mix of those couple of degrees colder than down south (live in the home counties) and a general disinclination to putting the heating on (in shops, cafes and at my in-laws house) and opening windows all the time. All my in-laws and DH walk round in a t-shirt even when the weather is freezing and go on about how glorious it is or how its too hot and even after 24 years I just don't get it and despite enjoying the company am always a little bit uncomfortable with the temperature (but then I like being warm).

Northern Scotland is bigger than it looks, weather is pretty average & all the services you're asking about vary from place to place. Post and deliveries vary too, sometimes you get things super quick & other times you're chasing late deliveries .
West coast is very midgie during Summertime, they're completely different to what you get in England or Wales. They are legion in number and they like to bite!
People do speak Gaelic but not exclusively so, it's mostly English that's spoken wherever I go anyway.

If you're thinking of moving up here it would be wise to take several trips to different areas to research them as well. Things like dentists, schools, hospitals, vets etc may need to be factored into your decision .Our village dentist recently closed and it's many miles to travel to get to another one now, just like the hospital & vets which are even further away.

To be fair, it does rain a lot in Scotland!! Just look at The Met Office precipitation map. Rain is heavier on the west coast across the UK but the average rainfall is still greater in Scotland than the rest of the UK. Flipside is all the lush green countryside : ) I grew up on the east coast of Scotland which could be pretty grey and bleak at times.

We live very rurally in the Highlands. We live near a popular ski resort, some years we get lots of snow and other years not so much. For instance I was coming home over Rannoch Moor on Thursday and it was a whiteout but only rain had been forecast, the weather can turn quite quickly in the mountains. It can be cold but I suppose we’re used to it as I’ve lived here all my life. I hate December as the days are so short and I count down to the longer days and the nights start getting lighter but I assume many people do that across the UK? We stock up with shopping from the end of November and normally have plenty ambient food in as well as cleaning stuff, the freezer is always stocked too. We have a butchers van and fish van that come to a local village once a week and I go there for fresh meat and fish. Asda, Morrisons and Tesco deliver as do a butcher and fish van but if the weather turns it’s a no go. It’s a 2 hour round drive the our nearest supermarket - we go there once a month or do a 4 hour drive, stay overnight and have a day out at Costco 😂

I don’t feel isolated at all, I regularly meet my friends for coffee or lunch in the village or go for a walk in the hills and we often do weekends away.

House prices are a sore point as many houses have been sold for holiday lets leaving very little affordable housing for local people, especially younger people trying to get on the housing ladder. I won’t start moaning about the hoards of motor homes in summer who leave litter and empty their toilets in the loch…

You can google climate stats eg average rainy days, average temperatures, hours of sunshine etc that you might find useful. The west is rainier than the east

I live in the northern highlands
How cold is it? it’s not the cold that I hate but the wind, it gets very very windy over winter, but had a decent amount of snow this winter too
Does it rain most days? it rains a lot but it’s currently a lovely sunny day
Do people speak Gaelic? not where I live but I assume more on the west coast
If you're in the Highlands or the Hebrides, how do you get shopping etc and how long does the post take?
i either get a click and collect from a Tesco van that comes to a nearby village and I do a trip to Inverness every month to do a big shop, RM is fairly quick, but not every place delivers.

Are the houses very cheap? depends where you live! Some are expensive, some are cheap depends on the area
How do you cope with isolation? I like it!

I don't live there, from London, like you. But I will say if you're planning a holiday there, do it! It is so amazingly beautiful in the very north, the highlands, the Hebrides, the Cairngorms. It takes your breath away. I have always found the people very friendly. The weather, we had some beautiful sunny days in the Hebrides and the highlands, but it's still nippy. Probably a similar amount of rain to the west county, but a bit colder. Just be prepared for those midges in the highlands. I have never seen so many!!

Google temperatures and rainfall, they vary by area. the Highlands and Islands is a huge area. Temperatures will of course be lower than London.

The big difference you will see is daylight hours. In the summer it never gets properly dark but in winter it doesn't get light till 9am and can get dark 3-4pm.

A lot of people speak Gaelic in the Western Isles, but not so much the mainland.

Royal Mail takes the same time as the rest of the UK. Some parcel delivery companies won't deliver.

People either go to bigger town to supermarkets or shop in local shops. There are a lot of larger co-op stores in a lot of the medium sized towns.

There is normally strong communities so not as isolated as you think.

Incredibly long days in the summer, really short days in the summer. I find the daylight more impactful than the weather.

I don’t live in Highlands and Islands but many friends do. I switch between thinking it’s the best place to live or the worst. Think bits of the highlands that are near supermarkets etc is a very different story to remote islands.

In some parts of the Hebrides you can’t put your washing out on a Sunday as it’s so religious. Sometimes more difficult to get medical attention as well as they don’t have testing machines etc easily accessible. It’s very location specific though. The scenery and community compensates for many.

The more rural/north/out of a town it is, the more it may be a huge adjustment for someone from London/Southern Europe- unless that Southern Europe place was very rural.

I’m very rural but somewhere like Inverness would be different and provides slightly more infrastructure.

Today’s weather is absolutely gorgeous but you have to prepared for 4 seasons in a day at some parts of the year.

The west is wetter but milder, east is colder but drier- like the rest of the U.K.

If you look up a 10 day forecast then it’ll give you an idea of the amount of rain to expect.

The upside is in the summer that the day light lasts much later - it can be superb as long as you aren’t trying to sleep/not getting eaten alive by midges!

Midges- I detest them. Need to suck it up in the summer if adventuring in dense greenery.

Gaelic is hit & miss. Depends where you are and whether something makes it obvious that someone has it. I know enough people in the area to chat in the local shop at least once a week.

Online shopping is the main way of getting food shop if you don’t want to spend in the co-op.

Same pros & cons to everyone else; random unhelpful substitutes, don’t get to see any reductions, short best before dates when doing an online food shop but saves on fuel and the time and energy that a 3h drive takes out of me.

No local pool / gym - 1.5h to closest one.

Housing… all depends on your requirements in terms of size and location and job commute.

A look on Rightmove will give you an idea.

Isolation - I’m under 30 and on mumsnet on one of my days off! 😂 kind of joking but I’m definitely online more than when I was in cities. Maybe other factors at play there :p

There are more things to do than there used to be but you really need to be self motivated. I see people getting worn down by rural living- not just in the Scottish highlands.

If you put the time and energy in then you can have a social life. As you get older, it’s not so easy and wouldn’t recommend without a very good support network.

It depends entirely if you are on the mainland or one of the islands. And there are many islands to choose from.
I holiday on the northern isles- there’s no traffic lights, population 600 or thereabouts- no trees as it’s so windy etc I couldn’t live there as winter is very bleak with hardly any sunlight but it’s beautiful for a week or two x

I sometimes think how isolating living in London might be. Especially if you've reached an age where it's harder to make friends through university or work nights out. Being alone surrounded by people seems worse to me than being in a more remote location.

Thankyou. This is all making me want to visit, even if the weather is hit and miss. DH wants to walk across the Outer Hebrides!

Waiting lists for vital services can be looong and you end up going private; physio for example but think that’s a UK wide issue also!

Dentist… nearest one is 1.5h away. I’ve kept my private central belt one. I travel enough to cope with it and appreciate the consistency.

I’m a highlands native 🙋🏻‍♀️ I have lived all over the UK but made it back home.

It’s not THAT cold, but summers in the south of England are definitely much nicer. I started wearing my big winter coat at the start of October and haven’t taken it off yet 🤣 It’s the wind here that makes it biting!

The west coast of Scotland generally is very wet, the highlands as a whole isn’t too bad.

Not many people speak Gaelic any more, mostly Skye/Hebrides and more so the older generation. My granny was a native speaker and would speak Gaelic to my mum sometimes. I’m going to start lessons soon ☺️

I just go to Asda or Tesco in Inverness. Asda/Tesco do deliveries all over the Highlands though. There are lots of small Co Op shops in most villages I would say.

Royal Mail is fine - provided the post plane can land at the airport and the roads are clear. Online shopping isn’t great because we don’t get next day delivery at all. Some shops won’t even offer delivery to the Highlands which is really annoying.

I bought a 3 bedroom house in Inverness for £15k more than a 2 bedroom flat in Edinburgh. I don’t think Inverness is very cheap anymore but there are cheaper places in the highlands for sure.

The community is so important in the Highlands and Islands so I don’t think there is much isolation. Sure if you were an incomer and didn’t try to make friends then yes you would become isolated.

There’s only one main hospital in Inverness and even that doesn’t offer everything so you might end up going to Aberdeen. People with cancer have to come to Inverness from all over the highlands for chemo.

I've lived in the Highland Region all my 67 years. I've only heard Gaelic spoken in the Outer Hebrides or by people from there.

Northern Scotland is vast.

The highlands are comparable in size to Belgium. Nearly 300 miles from Helensburgh to Wick. With villages, towns and cities as well as remote and rural.

Add on Aberdeenshire and it gets even larger.

The Western isles, Orkney and Shetland Isles are different again and hundreds of miles apart.

The answers to your questions will vary enormously depending on where in northern Scotland.

130 miles?!

Not living there but know bits of the highlands ( it's large )

• depending where on the highlands you may be many hours from a hospital and a midwife -

I have heard of people staying in a b&b in the weeks before birth

And many hours from a decent sized reasonably priced supermarket

The islands are different to the mainland - transport is more of a problem if the ferries can't run

The idea of busy and crowds is quite different - if you are used to say London then you'll be thinking how little traffic there is and the locals will be stressed by the amount of traffic

There are some small towns which would be quite different to living 5 miles from the next house

It's stunning , I've always found everyone friendly