What’s it like to LIVE on Skye?

So, you’ve been here on holiday. It was summer, when the evenings are long and the grasses are high and full of wild flowers. The sun shone and the sea was breathtakingly blue. The scenery was magnificent, and you saw eagles and seals and deer, maybe even an otter. Skye is magical. It draws you in. So you glanced in the estate agents windows and saw that prices of pretty little cottages are not as high as you expected. But then you wonder - what is it actually like to LIVE here…?

This is a topic I wrote about a while ago in this blog (24 November 2009...) (click on this link, opens in new tab/window...) http://skyecalling.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/do-you-fancy-living-on-skye.html

Now that Sue and I have lived on Skye several more years, my advice is still very much the same – think long and hard before selling up and relocating to here in the far north. Here’s some further information you might like to dwell on (all personal views of course).

Good things about Skye:

1. It is beautiful. Even having lived here for several years, we still sometimes stand and gaze in awe at the light, colour and dramatic majesty of this wonderful place.
2. It is quiet. Even in the peak tourist season of July/August, there is never a traffic jam on Skye… apart perhaps from when the Council have their road repair gangs operating a convoy system past their road works…or maybe when you are stuck behind a line of three or four Italian-registered camper vans, swaying along the middle of the main road at 35mph…. In winter, it is very quiet. VERY quiet.
3. It is healthy. There's no pollution here. The air is so fresh and clean that long-haired lichens grow thickly on every available tree, and the hill and coastal scenery is so good that every time you go for a walk, you have to go on that extra mile or two to see a bit more of it.
4. It is safe. We don’t have gangs of rowdy youths wandering the streets. Theft and burglary is very rare, physical violence even rarer. There may be an occasional drunken local lurching his way home after a few too many drams in the bar, but that’s about as bad as it gets.
5. It is friendly. Skye is fundamentally a very big village. Live a few years here, and you will get to know a lot of people – at least well enough to wave to when you pass them on the road. (And if you don’t know them, you wave anyway – in case they know you). People look out for each other, and have time to stop for a chat. Basically, they want to know all about you and will tap you for all the latest gossip that you picked up from the last half-dozen people you spoke to. They will then pass-on everything they have heard (with embellishments) to the next person they meet. What they can’t remember, they will make up. When it all gets published in the West Highland Free Press (local paper, and 75p – not free) it then becomes completely true. Skye myths and legends are a legend in themselves.
6. Summer. In mid-June Skye never really gets dark. The moorland is green with waving grasses, and unimaginable numbers of wild flowers are in bloom everywhere. Occasionally, the sun shines all day and the moorland is dry enough to walk on without sinking up to your knees in the bog.

Less good things about Skye:

1. Shops – there aren’t many (which some may consider to be a 'Good Thing'). Forget about trying to buy much in the way of clothes or furniture or white goods here. It’s the long trek to Inverness to buy a new pair of shoes or a few rolls of wallpaper. (Inverness is three hours drive - each way - from our part of Skye)
2. Prices. Everything you buy in the shops has to get here from a long way away, so everything costs more than in more urban parts of the UK. The Co-op is our only supermarket, and there are only a few petrol stations, so competition to keep down food/fuel prices is very limited.
3. Age. The resident population of Skye is too old for lasting sustainability. The relative lack of younger adults means that there are not many children here. (Some may also consider this to be a 'Good Thing')! The island’s primary schools have very low (and falling) rolls, while the sole Skye secondary school currently has just 530 pupils on roll – so that will be pretty much the total number of 11 - 16 year olds on the whole of Skye. 

Bad things about Skye:

1. Weather – It is cold, wet and windy in winter, and (usually) cold, wet and windy in summer too. Yes, there are occasional days when the sun shines and puffy white clouds dot the blue heavens, but all year round, any day can bring leaden grey rain soaked skies and the wind will be chasing its tail round the house.
2. Winter. Winter lasts from September to April. From August, the hours of daylight get noticeably shorter and shorter until at times on dreary driecht days in mid-December it never really gets properly light at all. In winter, the moorland goes a bleak shade of brown and the hills are often swathed in mist, which can be quite atmospheric - especially if you like brown, and mist.
3. Housing/Heating. The cost to buy a house here is probably around the national average - £200,000 will just about buy you a 3-bed house, but at that price - don’t expect a sea view. In Skye weather – a high level of maintenance is crucial. Walls, render, paintwork, gutters, roofs – they will all need constant attention, and can cost ££££s. Once you have bought your house, you then have to heat it, and because it is mostly pretty cold here, plan to have your heating at least ‘ticking over’ throughout the summer and at full blast in winter. Here, it is very popular to run a wood-burning stove in the living room, and then just wear lots of extra clothing everywhere else in the house. There’s no piped gas on Skye, so the choices for total home heating are, in order of cost: solid fuel/wood: ££££; oil. ££££; calor gas: £££££; electricity: ££££££.
4. Distances. Everywhere is a long way. From our home to our nearest supermarket is about 21 miles (and 21 miles back again). There are plenty of places more remote than us. To live on Skye, budget for driving at least 10,000 miles per year just to do the shopping, visit the dentist and doctor, and for the occasional visit to a film show or live act at the Portree Arts Centre. That’s a lot of wear-and-tear for your car, plus the cost of the fuel (at inflated Skye prices). The nearest proper shopping is in Inverness – a 160 miles round-trip from the Skye Bridge, plus however far you live from the bridge. It is more than a four-hour drive from the bridge to Glasgow, and five and a half hours from the bridge to the Scotland/England border at Gretna.
5. Friends and family left behind. If by moving here, you are leaving behind close friends or family, then you must accept that you won’t be seeing them again as often as you used to – it is expensive for you to travel south to visit them, and they won't be enthusiastic about traveling such a long way to see you, in what they will perceive as that dreadful dark, cold, wet, brown place that you have moved to.
6. New Builds. Almost everyone who owns a few acres of land (and here, that is a lot of people) is now offering a chunk of it for sale, usually with planning permission for the erection of a dwelling house. I suppose this is just a move towards getting Skye to be as fully populated as it was in the mid 1800s, but I personally hate seeing new-builds under construction, especially in the more remote locations. But - if you are thinking of a new-build, do not forget to factor in the cost of connecting power and water, or the potentially huge cost of transporting building materials all the way to NW Scotland. Have you thought about renovating and maybe extending an existing derelict house? Definitely a better way forward!

So - my best wishes to you all. Please do come and visit! Marvel at the lifestyle, landscape and wildlife, but please think long and hard before uprooting your present lives and making a move to live here. I look forward to receiving your questions and comments!