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!

When you say Northern Scotland where do you mean as Scotland is quite large.
I would class Northern Scotland as north of Inverness but I've seen north of Perth been classed as northern Scotland.
I'm from close to Inverness and although lovely the weather is brutal, the darkness and the wind/rain can be soul destroying and I'm used to it, lived in Scotland all my 51 years but the older I've got the weather is really affecting my mood

@ThisHonestQuail you won’t regret the Gaelic lessons, it’s a great thing to do a beautiful language and has a really supportive community.

There is a Gaelic saying “is fheàrr Gàidhlig bhriste na Gàidhlig sa chiste” it is better to have broken Gaelic, than no Gaelic (dead Gaelic).

The ties into the landscape are really interesting to as you start to notice and understand place names. If it is something you want to do I’d really recommend it.

Hi OP!

I grew up in the very north east of Scotland and it was fucking brilliant! No one speaks/spoke Gaelic but they did speak Doric, which mum and I still speak - it’s not exactly a different language but if you’re not from the north east you’d struggle understanding it. However I think it’s dying out now (happy to be corrected by anyone living there now).

Visitors to Scotland rave about the West Coast but the North and North East are utterly stunning. The Cairngorms are my family haunts and we get up there once a year to get back to our roots and just breathe in the air.

Zero issues with the mail and Amazon deliveries and yes, housing can be cheaper compared to a lot of the UK. Fair bit of rain, and it’s usually cooler temperature wise than other parts of the country but to pinch a line associated with Yorkshire, it really is God’s own country.

@ThisHonestQuail deagh luck dhut! Used to teach it so give me a shout if you need anything

@Herdinggoats cò às a tha u?!

@Herdinggoats and @BrambleJamandCustard thanks both - yes can’t wait to start! My granny only spoke Gaelic until she started school age 5! And my mum and her cousins will speak it sometimes, mostly when we are in Uist. It’s such a lovely community and if I ever have kids I’d love for them to go to the Gaelic medium primary, in which case it’s really important to speak it at home ☺️

If it's Caithness you're moving to, people here appear to think Gaelic is a load of shit.

I've never lived anywhere else apart from North Highland. I love it. It doesn't rain most days. My eldest speaks some gaelic as that's the language she took in school. I don't consider myself isolated. We still get next day amazon (sometimes). Houses and land are creeping up in price. People from England (London I guess) are slowly buying up all the land and houses to work remotely or retire. It is absolute madness from tourists in summer driving campervans.

We lived in the outer Hebrides for 10 years and still own a house there, we spend several weeks a year up there and plan to retire there too.

The weather is interesting, can be sunny in one part of the island and raining 20 miles away. Midgies are more of an issue than the weather. We just bundle up in good rain gear and go out anyway. Where we lived there were 5 buses a day to Stornoway (I don't drive for medical reasons) but it's only half an hour by car, and there's a Tesco there that delivers.

We moved to the big city 18 years ago now, but still consider Harris to be "home", as do our children. We found getting things delivered quite difficult, and the best way was to get things delivered to the haulier in Inverness who would then bring it over. Royal Mail you need to add an extra day on to the posting time. Health care was good, including flying me to Inverness with pregnancy complications, and schools also good. Little to do for teenagers unless very outdoorsy or interested in sheep!

Gaelic spoken widely, even by some of the younger generation, and a thriving traditional music scene. Great festival in the summer. Our dc regard themselves as native speakers and were educated in Gaelic at the Gaelic school in Glasgow. Very big on ceilidh dancing and musical performance.

There's trouble in getting housing now, as a pp said there's a lot of holiday lets and it's a struggle to get on the housing ladder, partly because of rising costs but often there just aren't enough houses. Jobs are mainly in the council and the health board.

We're going up next week. I can't wait!!

One side of my family from Caithness and insist nobody in the family ever spoke Gaelic, even though some of them attended Gaelic church every Sunday (presumably just to enjoy the atmosphere lol). Don’t know if the discourse around English/Gaelic street signs has moved past “and where are the Norn signs????” yet but that used to be a constant feature!

Gaelic street sign arguments seem to be a staple of most Caithness fb groups!

Very few people speak Gaelic. Only about 60,000 and mostly in the west/Isles. I've only ever head it once or twice.

Scots on the other hand is much more common.

It wet and the midges are a nightmare in the west, the east not so much.

I

The north west highlands is one of my most favourite spots I've ever been to. Dramatic beautiful scenery everywhere you look, fresh air and what feels like good quality living.

Gaelic street sign arguments seem to be a staple of most Caithness fb groups!

I haven't seen street name signs in Gaelic, but the road direction and tourist trap signs are bilingual, which has only nuisance (and political bullshit) value.

Oops meant road signs, seen a couple of street signs with both when I’ve been travelling down to Inverness, but back I nto Sutherland not Caithness, around Brora area

Yes, definitely invest in getting to grips with the language before you have to deal withGaelic homework for the kids- makes life TONS easier!

I disagree - on average weather even in the north of England is considerably better. Even after 10 years in England I can't get over the warm summers and nunber of sunny days, even in years English people complain about a poor summer. It is also much lighter in winter (and obviously less so in the summer). I would love to move back to Scotland, where I lived for 30 years, for many reasons but I really don't think I could manage the weather.

The weather is fine 🙄

We had the same incredible summer as the rest of the country last year. I was regularly sitting out until late evening it was so warm. It might not be quite as hot as down south but it's far from as miserable as people seem to think

There's no Waitrose.

lived Hebridean Island , Highlands and now East . West Coast wetter and more midges ( can be impossible to sit out some summer evenings ) but not massively different. Gaelic West , Doric East 😊

Im in the north east of Scotland. West part of Aberdeenshire so where we are is relatively dry. Similar to rainfall I experienced living in midlands of England.
Very high up and rural so get more snow than the villages just a few miles away.

We are just more set up for it here, middle of nowhere but I still get Amazon, Tesco or Asda or Morrisons deliveries. Things can take a little longer to be delivered and some companies want extra fees to delivery. We can’t get next day delivery from next or m and s for example.

The local dialect is Doric which is part of the scots language. I love it.

And it's not leafy, although it is very rural.

It’s cold. Orkney, Shetland & the Ourter Hebrides don’t have summers in the sense that people who live south of the Peak District would understand the word.

It’s wet. The North & West of Scotland has many times the rainfall of the south & East of England.

It’s dark. Still dark at 9am in December.

It’s light. Still daylight at 11pm in June.

👋🏻@Chipsahoy fellow west Aberdeenshire Quine here!

Aberdeenshire is pretty dry Op, compared to much of the west, and we have fewer midges. Some of the west part is with8n the Cairngorms National Park, but most is more gentle, green , rolling countryside. We tend to consider it North East. North to me is Inverness and beyond.
It is pretty well serviced as long as you don’t expect Ocado , and would feel sparsely populated to anyone from the South East.

It's beautiful, but you are at the mercy of the weather and nature. It can be brutal even in summer with gusting 50mph winds and 13 C in August.
A lot of people move north but can't hack the winter and weather in general.

I'm from Inverness so I feel like I have easy access to all the beautiful parts of the Highlands but can enjoy a wide variety of shops and restaurants etc and I never feel isolated.

The weather is colder than further south but doesn't bother me as there's still plenty nice days. Also the Highlands are absolutely glorious on a sunny day.

Deliveries are generally fine, there's some companies who won't deliver to the Highlands or charge extra but its not that common.

Gaelic is mainly spoken on the western Isles.

I would say houses probably are cheaper compared with the rest of the UK but in some areas they are mainly being bought up for holiday lets making houses unaffordable for local people.

I absolutely love the Highlands, its definitely the most beautiful part of the UK and there are so many amazing places. People are friendly, life is slower paced and everywhere feels very safe. Tourism in the area has exploded since covid so it does get busy with tourists in the summer. Driving can be a bit of a nightmare because of this as in some areas roads are mainly single track with passing places.