I know it looked rather as though we were leaping from one everything our heart desired idea to the next for a while back there and in some ways we were. We started this year not really sure where we’d end up but hopeful that the answer to that would somehow come to us as we went along. We assumed we’d end up in Wales, probably buying land, most likely woodland and try and get something land based off the ground, potentially doing some sort of self grid, likely without planning and certainly off grid. We stayed in three projects along those lines and got our heads around the pros and cons. The only real benefit to that lifestyle was cost really – we could afford a fair few acres of land, with water supply, hidden from prying eyes to put a dwelling up of our own design. The downsides were legion – not least the living in fear of being discovered, the lack of home comforts from lack of a home and so on.
When we arrived in Scotland, Wales was quickly forgotten. If we thought Wales had gorgeous rugged coastlines, stunning skies and lovely landscapes it has nothing on Scotland. We began our year with a list of things we thought we wanted. As the year went on we kept adding new things to the bottom of the list and scribbling out some of the earlier things which we decided along the way were not important after all.
I began with radical ideas about water and energy – here on the south coast where there are annual hose pipe bans water is a precious, limited resource. I have come to realise during our travels that it is not actually water which is in short supply – it is treated, drinking quality water. So why on earth are we still flushing our toilets with it? Running our washing machines with it? Using it to bath and shower with? We’ve lived in places where water is brought in daily for drinking and rainwater is harvested for all other purposes and in other places where it is so abundant all the energy needs are met by harnessing water power and flooding is an issue. We have lived ‘off grid’ for over half this year, relying on solar, wind, water and battery power for light, heat, appliance use and charging and while I am now utterly convinced that there are so many better ways of using power than being plugged into expensive power companies I have made my peace with the fact we will want to use a washing machine, charge up our phones and laptops and DSs. We know we can use less, certainly but we also know we want to use some.
So we’re left with a short list of wants:
A view – and I know you’re laughing at me for this but it means a huge amount to us. We have seen such beautiful places this year and stayed with people who live in gorgeous places. I don’t want to look out of my windows and see traffic, other people’s houses. We want to be somewhere that is lovely.
Water we want to be near a river, a lake, a loch or the sea. Near as in can see it from our land and walk to it quickly.
Land we want land. Land to be as self sufficient as possible in fruit, veg and livestock. To have space for camping, for the kids to explore, to have woodland, to have space.
Community we want to be somewhere there is a true sense of community. Having stayed in several different examples of types of community this year our most favoured is our own property / front door with autonomy on our choices and finances and family but close links with others. We have seen some amazing examples of community spirit and co operation this year and would love our home to be somewhere we feel part of a wider group.
Green Stuff – All the eco type stuff we have learnt and seen this year strengthens our committment to live as low impact a lifestyle as possible. We want to be able to use alternative energies, sustainable building materials, efficient methods of growing and rearing livestock. We want to adopt permaculture principles, live close to organic guidelines and tread as lightly as we can.
Our searching led us to conclude in order to afford any land at all we’d need to restore something derelict or self build. In order to live somewhere beautiful the highlands were top choice. Our time on the islands showed us community was within our reach in the more remote areas where everyone shares common aims and life is simpler, with an emphasis on pulling together and creating something good for everyone. On Skye we found properties within our budget but with limited land which had us re-evaluating our wishlist and deciding we could compromise on that and go for smaller scale self sufficiency and part time work in order to have the beautiful location and views and the belonging to a community.
Then we went to Eigg. From the outset we were all really taken with the feeling of belonging, of being an extended family (albeit one with naughty little sisters, annoying big brothers and drunken uncles at times!), the scenery was gorgeous and suddenly with learning about crofting a decent sized chunk of land all became without our reach again.
We left this year hoping that if we kept our eyes open opportunities would show themselves to us. We had a policy of saying yes to anything and everything and seeing where that took us. Our plans were fluid and the only conditions were that all four of us had to be happy with the direction we were heading in, even if that deviated wildly from where we had planned to be. That attitude has taken us off course several times and yet it is those last minute ‘what the heck’ decisions we made that have given us our most memorable times this year. A chance meeting with Jill in Glastonbury, a fluke encounter with a folk singer who also happened to be one of my favourite authors leading to a tour of his home, an email to our hosts on Eigg who happened to be on a contacts list about some crofts in Rum leading to an early departure to go and see the place.
This opportunity on Rum ticks all of our boxes. We get land – cheap, cheap land at just £100 rent a year, secure land that is ours for as long as we work it and can be passed down to our children with the right to buy in 20 years time (for just 15 x the annual rent), plenty enough land for all our plans. We get a living off it too – subsidy cheques and grants and funding for ‘improvements’ meaning help with access roads and fencing, assistance with building a home, regular money paid for keeping livestock, grazing the land, pay outs for areas left as homes for wildlife and protected species habitat meaning we don’t have to make every inch of land pay for itself. If the bottom corner of the croft is a bog then it can be left a bog and we’ll get money each year for leaving it as a bog. There are grants for planting woodland, for providing education and much more.
We get to build our own home. We get to design a house, perfectly created to our specific needs and wants, to include all the green eco features we want. The island is already powered by renewable hydro power and is totally self sufficient from the mainland in energy. Water will be sourced from the river so we won’t be flushing our toilet with drinking water. We won’t have inefficient corners of a house we don’t use or space that is dead and wasted, we won’t be heating or lighting or paying for things we don’t need.
We get to live somewhere beautiful. Not just beautiful, amazingly beautiful. Somewhere you can see the northern lights, the place that sea eagles were reintroduced to the UK, somewhere that whales and dolphins and sharks are regularly spotted bobbing about off shore, where otters play on the beach, where there are no foxes to eat our chickens. We get to live on a nature reserve where Autumnwatch and Countryfile come and film deer. And there is pretty much nowhere on the island you can’t see the sea!
We’ll be part of a community. And not just having to slot into a ready made community where we’ll be the Newbies, the incommers. This is a community in it’s infancy, crying out for people to come and join them. We’ll be pioneers, adventurers, in at the beginning helping to shape the future for generations to come.
And the downsides? First of all I remind you of what we have already done this year. We’ve lived in a very old, very small campervan, staying with people, some of whom were nutters, eating food we didn’t always like or enjoy, doing jobs that were often tedious, boring, hard, sometimes dangerous and regularly pointless. We have spent loads of time without washing machines, showers, toilets, running water, meat, alcohol. We were stranded on a Welsh mountainside with a broken van and a load of feral scary kids, we had a mouse in the van with us, we spend weeks surviving on packet mash potatoes and cheap tinned tuna and through it all we found the joy, we saw the bright side, we laughed and enjoyed the ride. I think when downsides come along we are pretty darn good at scaring them off again anyway.
But I don’t want to lead us into this blindly. And I am aware it is me doing the leading. Realistically whatever direction our lives take it is generally me pushing us there. I like to think I steer us in the direction that favours us all and that it is in making my family happy that I am happy but I have to concede there is a healthy dose of my own hopes and dreams pushing us forward toward some of these adventures. So we need to explore the potential pitfalls, the bits that could go wrong, the things we might find hard or ultimately regret.
It’s remote. Clearly, it’s an island in the Inner Hebrides. In the winter the ferry only comes four times a week and that gets called off when the weather is bad. Getting supplies of food, drink and other essentials will sometimes be a challenge. We will need to be organised, to forward plan and to store and stash and stockpile.
Lack of people. While the long term plan for the island is to repopulate it quite widely this may take time or not even happen at all. We are sociable people who will need the company of others outside the four of us. We will want friends, people to hang out with and get to know, to socialise with. I think that the fact we have coordinated our social life from the south coast up for the last 5 or so years means we are capable of reaching out when necessary and putting in extra effort required to find the friends we need. I hope our wide circle of family and friends will all be regular visitors to us and continue to extend their hospitality to us too. We will aim to be WWOOF hosts long term so we have a regular stream of new and interesting people coming to spend time with us and we would be active in the community to make things happen like social gatherings, reading groups, film clubs, heck, we might even take up playing board games and invite other islanders over to participate! 😉
Limited Opportunities for Davies and Scarlett. This is the biggest one really. Everything else I think is ‘suck it and see’ really but there is no question that the island is not currently set up for kids. There is a primary school but it currently has just 2 pupils, any older kids go to the mainland for schooling and board there two weeks at a time. This means there are very limited social opportunities, activities for children and chances to meet friends. I have spent a lot of time agonising over this, talking it over with Davies and Scarlett and Ady and thinking it through. I have concluded for now that this is not a terribly different situation from the one they have always been in. Whilst we do have local friends in Sussex we have never had other children over unaccompanied by parents really, equally the kids have never really been anywhere without me. They have never had mates they just hang out with at the park or at their house or that come to call for them. Despite years at Rainbows, Badgers, Beavers and the like neither of the kids have ever made a friend they have seen outside of the weekly meetings, we’ve never had friends close enough to walk to. If I’m honest neither did I as a kid really. My brother did but my friendships were all exclusive to school hours really. I guess where I’m going with this is that up to this point the kids have not had what they can’t have on Rum. And this is only if the population remains static there which the long term aim for the trust is that it won’t anyway. They are looking to attract families so it may change. If it doesn’t then the kids will remain with primarily each other for company, which to this point has been their first choice anyway and seems to have served them well so far. Their best friends now are all people who I would happily have to stay for a week or so and happily send them off to stay with the families of in return so as they get older and crave more social time with people this could be arranged. It will mean we have to put more effort in and work harder to ensure it happens but as Home Educators that has always been a characteristic of our lifestyle to date anyway.
Education Up to now I have always been content with our approach of benign educational neglect on the basis that the kids live in a rich environment with plenty of external stimulus, opportunities and different places to visit and experience things. We’ve chucked in the odd visit to the theatre or cinema, to museums or lectures, to educational events and workshops, to courses or sessions as and when the mood has taken us. If we live on a mostly uninhabited island with limited people and no musuems or art galleries or theatres this becomes more challenging. However the mainland is just a boat trip away and there is an active Home Ed circle in the highlands which we could travel to monthly or every two months, participating in events and arranging visits to places of interest. We’ll do more travelling but once again, as HEors we always have anyway, this will just be a bit more travelling than before. As they get older I anticipate their learning becoming ever more self directed so access to internet, TV, books and a community, no matter how small should suffice, with top ups from external sources when necessary. At the moment their interests remain things very much catered for on the island anyway and the lifestyle will be pretty close to what they tell us is their perfect dream existance.
In many ways I view this potential move as very similar to Home Ed. When we first made the choice it was against what pretty much everyone advised. We were met with horror, raised eyebrows, gentle concern and all out hostility from some quarters. People asked how they would learn anything, would socialise, would be normal. It was a leap of faith, a buck of the trend and a break from the norm. It challenged people and made them fear for our sanity. It turned out to be totally the right decision – for us. Not for everyone granted, but right for us. It’s always up for debate, for re-evaluating and for tweaking when it doesn’t quite fit right anymore. This would be the same I think, not necessarily a forever decision, something we could amend if needed, take a break from or reverse if it stops working.
So, we’re working on the business plan. We’ll submit that and keep fingers crossed for an interview. If that goes well we get offered a croft. Then we need to sell our house and work out where to live while we build a new one. At best we probably still wouldn’t be on our croft by this time next year. Then it needs turning from a bare piece of land to an actual croft. So many variables and things that could prevent it from happening anyway. If we’ve learnt anything this year it is that if it’s all meant to be it will fall in to place, if it is not then it won’t. So I’ll trust the process, keep talking to the others and keep our fingers crossed that what we think is the right path is infact the one we’ll be heading down next.
So… questions?
only when can we come and visit, please? 😉 I think it’s an amazing plan and have only respect, admiration and awe for you all.
I need to stop reading your blog or you’ll have a new neighbour on Rum! All sounds idyllic, just too much hard work for me – maybe if I could hire people to do all the hard stuff while I sit with a cuppa and gaze at the gorgeous views.
When you get your croft will you live on Rum while you do what needs to be done to make it habitable? Or do some more travelling/wwoofing untill then? Will you live in Willow while you build your house? Will you be contributing to the populating of the island? Do you think the kids will eventually go to school on the mainland?
Crossing my fingers and toes for you!
Davies and Scarlett haven’t done those things up till now because they’ve been quite young. At some point they are likely to start looking outside the family for social opportunities. How old are the other two younger kids? The decision about the possibility of school becomes even more fraught if school = 12 days a fortnight away from home.
How would you get to these Highland HE meet ups? Can you take a vehicle across on the ferry?
Will you actually have time/be able to leave a croft to go off visiting round the country?
Also think it is an amazing plan 🙂 My main concern would be about the kids. Smallholdings of any sort are tricky to leave for any time at all, making sure there is someone else to do the animals, and whilst I’m sure all of us would love to visit lots, it is a very long way from most of us, so the frequency of visits may not be *that* great. Whilst wanting to put all faith in the decision once it is made, I’d also have an eye on how easy/tricky you thinking selling and moving on will be should you need to.
Hard not to sound pessimistic, but I think it is a fantastic opportunity, and all things I’m sure are workable.
I think you will make it happen and the downsides will be outweighed by the good things. I know we couldn’t do it, not least because of the physical work I know we wouldn’t be able to do (lack of knowledge can be acquired, physical strength and get on with it attitude can’t), but C would miss elements of her life here, her friends, not just HE life but schooled friends too, she now meets A from school and they walk back to A’s house but obv d&s do have each other and as you say, haven’t established friends in that way (most of C’s schooled friends were friends before we HE’d, think only one has been acquired since age 5).
I would fret about medical access, not so much for M’s diabetes but I have been taken by ambulance to A&E three times, C once and I do find it quite comforting having the A&E not too far away and easy to get to in good weather or scary winter storm. Our general experience with the Scottish health system in the highlands has been excellent, no queues, friendly receptionists and people wanting to help (conjunctivitis and I think M needed more insulin as his had stopped working, we think b/c it had got too hot (no fridge when camping)), but hospitals less accessible. I would be terrified of M or C needing help and weather such that an air ambulance wouldn’t be able to land.
I don’t really have questions, I know you guys would make it work and have an awesome life we’d be incredibly envious of. HE easier perhaps on an island, fewer distractions in winter would mean greater focus on projects or other interests they want to look into more fully. Also if D&s want more structure (seems unlikely) or contact with other kids there are online schools, but costs associated with that. I don’t like the idea of sending them off to a school you can’t choose. On Shetland they did the same system for children living more remotely but the school in Lerwick isn’t very good (high drink and drug culture) so the families we met tended to board their children termtime for secondary education on the Scottish mainland at private schools.
I think it reminds me of what I know of Katy’s childhood in Africa. You had to plan ahead more, do more to make yourself robust to cope with problems rather than rely on just immediately buying a solution, but there were huge benefits too.
Also it reminds me of the Katie Morag books!
There is the worry that it could all go sour if there’s a big falling out with another family on the island. As there would be few people, and you’re all bound together on an island, and strength of character is probably what everyone there needs to be there in the first place, it could get unpleasant. But bad things could happen anywhere and I don’t think it’s worth not doing it because this _might_ happen – if you adopted that approach then you wouldn’t do anything.
Oh, and you could probably do this http://melissawiley.com/blog/2008/08/09/the-100-species-challenge/ with no problem – maybe if you extend it to animals too.
Good luck with it!
Remoteness is a concern off course but other people have much more to say about that than me.
My chief concern : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_midge
If ever I had a reason not to visit Scotland they are it. If they were bearable between September and December, then you should see how they are in April to July….
Please correct my typo!!!! “OFF” course ARRGGGHH
Sarah – whenever you like! We’ll have at least one spare room in the house when built and planning other accommodation for friends too. I reckon we’ll probably average one set of guests per month judging by family and friends and ex work colleagues. Certainly in the early days if the community doesn’t grow or is slow to do so then I think we will have sufficient visitors to keep us going.
Liza – if we get the croft then we’ll need to decide if we can live there from the beginning or need to find somewhere else to stay while house is built. Hopefully we can either rent somewhere on the island or possibly bring across a mobile home (something bigger than Willow!) to live in while we build and get set up on the croft. It would then be visitor or WWOOFers accommodation once we move into the house. No, other than trying to lure people we think would also like it there to live maybe we certainly won’t be creating any baby inhabitants (did you mean that?). I suspect the kids *won’t* go to school on the mainland, although I’d never say never. But it is there as an option if they ever decide the island doesn’t provide enough socially or educationally as they hit their teens.
Alison – I know and I am totally aware their needs will change but at the same time I know of children (like myself as a kid! Other kids when I was a kid and indeed some kids now) who never strike out in a big social way regardless of whether they have the people around to do so with. Not sure of the ages of other kids but think they are similar-ish top of primary to my two. Realistically tho’ by the time we are properly installed they will be heading towards the mainland for school anyway. The 12 days in school is what is free – somewhere to stay on the mainland (a dorm) and ferry back and force every fortnight. If you are happy to pay then of course your kids can come home every weekend if they like which would be one option. Every bit of me shudders at the very thought of that but at least it exists should D&S decide they want it in the future, maybe at 14 or something.
I spent a lot of time talking to Sue, our host on Eigg as obviously she has the same concerns with her 11yo son (who is also an only child so possibly enhanced concerns) on Eigg as I potentially do for D&S. He is *probably* going to school on the mainland at 13 – she kept him back a year starting school so he’ll be older when he has to go. It’s her intention to have him come home most weekends and also to spend some of her time on the mainland initially to settle him in too. She has looked at GLOW http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/usingglowandict//glow/whatis/index.asp and thinks if he were really miserable she would maybe HE. Her attitude is that while her son lives on a remote island he has the whole world coming to him by visitors, WWOOFers (they have had over 300 WWOOFers in the last 8 years including many, many families with children) and of course regular visits to the mainland. They don’t struggle at all with leaving their croft – a mixture of neighbours all helping each other out and a regular supply of people WWOOFing or wanting a working holiday croft sitting mean they are able to come across 3 or 4 times a year all of them, the rest of the time one or other of them comes across while the other stays home. I don;t think we’d have considered this move unless we’d had all those questions answered for us by those hosts really.
Vehicle – on the island you probably don;t even really need one, not everyone has one. We would, but it would be a 4wd pick up type thing, MOT failure picked up cheap. No need for tax, insurance etc on the islands and they all run cars on red diesel. Choices for transport on the mainland include keeping a car at Mallaig to use, you can get a parking space for £50 a year which is safe and secure. There is pretty good public transport links – Mallaig train station is a minutes walk from the ferry port and the line to Glasgow. Otherwise there is a car club which several islanders belong to, minimal cost per year for a timeshare in one of about four vehicles you book to use as and when. Would have to decide on most cost effective choice once we knew what type of usage we’d have I guess.
Em – think I already answered most of that other than selling / moving on. Lots of crofts have the property decrofted (we’d own our house, rent the land) and we’d have in the back of our minds holiday home rental potential when designing and building so that we could give up the croft tenancy and then either sell the house or rent it out long or short term. If we decided to leave and could not sell we would be mortgage free and bill free if the house stood empty so able to just rent somewhere on the mainland and find work to pay bills – actually more secure a situation than we’re in now when we really need tenants paying rent to cover our mortgage.
Michelle – there is a doctor with her own boat who lives on Eigg and spends time travelling between the islands once a week. For more urgent stuff there is the coastguards by boat or air ambulance by ‘copter. On a day to day basis none of us ever really have medical needs, on an emergency basis I wouldn’t worry until it happened!
Bob – yes, people have been living this way for a lot longer than most people live now. One of the previous hosts we stayed with spent some time living on Coll mostly insired by Katie Morag stories! 😆
Si – yes, midges! We have experienced them and they are bastards! We talked to the islanders and various other west coast dwellers over the course of our time in Scotland and the main feeling is that you alter your day to ensure if you have to be outside it is not during peak midge times. You can get repellent and midge hoods which are very effective if you do have to be outside but the people who do live with them (and there are thousands who do) seem to find ways to coexist alongside them somehow.
I can’t really second guess or anticipate what the kids will want or need but I am confident we’ll find the ways to provide whatever that might end up being as and when it arises. If I’ve learnt anything since having kids it’s that they are always chucking you curve balls and you can never really expect them to want what you or anyone else thinks they might! The fact is by virtue of their upbringing and life experiences so far they are different to most kids anyway as indeed are Ady and I. Their role models are not people who grow up, get a mortgage, work a 9-5 job in a suit and moan about the traffic, the weather and how to pay the bills. I think the trade off for not having a ready supply of other kids available will be more than compensated for with the other riches we provide :).
“You can get repellent and midge hoods which are very effective if you do have to be outside but the people who do live with them (and there are thousands who do) seem to find ways to coexist alongside them somehow.”
Get stinking drunk. Sorted. That could cover remoteness too!
I think this last little while has been good research. You aren’t going into it with your eyes closed. I think you might possibly still have an edge of rose tint too it- but frankly, who hasn’t when they decide to change something big?
I think my children would struggle – but yours are different, have lived the same year as you and would presumably be telling you if they didn’t like the sound of it.
I think I’d want to do a winter working for someone first – and probably a summer too – to really live it longer than I could possibly feel romantic about. I’d have lots of reservation, my idea of remote is Dartmoor, but I’m not you.
Frankly, you can always give up and start fresh somewhere.
Our Dartmoor farm family find the lack of going away the hardest and they have 4 kids capable of coming down and taking over for a week if needed. I think the chances of you being able to take a break are remote, the chances of family and friends coming often (midges!) remote too. I imagine that it is a lifestyle with a lot of monotony and a lot of hard grind – but again, you know that already. And it wouldn’t stop me from doing something similar in Devon if I could afford to.
Yes I did mean you and Ady contributing to the repopulation in that way 😉
Came back to ask about access to doctors/hospitals but it’s been answered.
Other than the ferry are there any other boats? What if you needed to get to the mainland when the ferry wasn’t available? Would having your own boat be an option?
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In the past you’ve said D needs more boys to spend time with. From my reading of your links there seems to be a family of 4 girls and another 22month girl moved there this spring. No boys! The family of 4 girls do seem S’s age and younger so what happens if S happily with friends and D has no one? I think D is main concern. Families have lived there but all moved back to mainland once children of secondary age move. Need a big push to welcome families with boys of D’s age(ish). You could do that though!
Si – yep, always a nice reliable plan B that 😉
Merry – I’m all about the rose tint but I think this is as well researched as it’s possible to be really. We could look at living it for longer but frankly we’re ready to start living our own life again rather than sampling other people’s. If it’s the wrong decision then it is not irreversible and we’re all desperate for our own home, our own land and to get started on the next chapter of our lives. Several of you have mentioned the difficulty in taking time off of smallholdings which was certainly a potential issue in our minds at the beginning of this year as we do like to be away with friends / camping etc. but we will probably be happy to not roam at all for the first year having spent all of this year on the move. After that I am utterly confident that taking time off will be possible. It;s one of the issues we have spoken to countless hosts about and the reason a lot of them use WWOOFers as you find decent housesitters with an interest in that lifestyle who you can work with in advance to show the ropes and know you can trust. We would definitely be WWOOF hosts and that would be our primary source of housesitters when needed. WRT to friends coming to stay if just the 50 odd sets of friends that came along to our leaving party visited once that would still give us visitors every month for 4 years! (Maths!)
Liza – in the winter months there is the main ferry 4 times a week, in the summer the ferry is daily and comes twice most days. There is also a ferry from Skye pretty much daily and the smaller whalewatching boats do circuits that the islanders use for cheaper rates. The doctor has a boat which you can get lifts on between islands when she is travelling and yes, long term if we lived there we would probably look at a small boat.
Michelle – ooh, hadn’t look at the actual other kids on the island. You are right, D is definitely my main concern and he does have reservations but is very keen to try it and seen what happens. One of the things he has said is that he has realised this year that he doesn;t always have that much in common with boys the same age as him but he has made friends with other people (including adults) and that it is finding someone he has something in common with and gets on with that is more important. He and Ady are closer than they’ve ever been and as he gets older that relationship becomes ever more important. And yes, the island is after attracting more families generally so hopefully that will happen. Also on Eigg there are four boys aged between 8 and 12 all of whom Davies really clicked with so there are potential friends just on the next island with a ferry between them (just not day trippable) twice a week even in winter which Davies could do on his own even now.
It is all very exciting – amazing opportunity in many ways. Hard to weigh up worries against sea eagles.
I think one thing I would say is that I had no idea three years ago how different it would be having an 11 year old and a 14 year old. It’s true that she hasn’t changed personality but her day to day requirements are very different now. The main thing is a real need for autonomy in her travel and social life – being able to ring up a friend and meet up for a few hours, or popping in to town for yarn, or seeing an interesting talk on a poster and heading off to see what it’s about. But, or course, all that is what she chooses in this environment and there’s no way of knowing how she’d be if we’d spent those three years crofting.
The other thing I have wondered is if you might find yourselves getting quite a lot of annoyance from the LA up there. Given the history of children in rural environments being used for agricultural work, I can imagine them being anxious if you couldn’t provide evidence of lots of learning opportunities away from the croft. And I bet they’d bring up the social side of things… Of course, that’s not a reason not to do what you want but are there other home edders on the isles you can check this stuff out with?
BTW, does Lancing look like something from The Prisoner now? 😉
I reckon that’s the most reliable coping strategy. You have to pace yourself so you are in that permanent numbed face floaty state. The disadvantage being the loss of inhibition and danger when operating heady machinery, going near the sea (on an island!) but you’d adapt I’m sure!
and that’s plan bloody A in my book!!