Becoming Flottish

The population of Flotta is just less than 80 people so our move there, when it happens, will increase the population by almost 10%! The question of when we move there has a big shadow hanging over it at the moment though. With a long list of essential work that needs to be completed before we can even live in it, limited finances and the cost and difficulty of getting labour and materials onto the island it may be some time before we can begin to live our dream.

How it all began...

Hello and bear with me, I'm new to this...

It all started a quite a few years ago when my husband decided he was bored of living in Cumbria and wanted a change of scenery. Although I too dreamt of a different lifestyle in the wilds of Scotland I wasn't sure the timing was right and was sceptical at the time about uprooting the entire family on a whim. As time passed, however, I started to warm to the idea of having more space both indoors and out for our family to continue to grow. So in the summer of 2021, mid Covid-19, we decided to put our 3 bedroomed semi-detached house near Maryport in Cumbria up for sale. It sold pretty quickly and having been looking at properties in the North of Scotland we were quite happy with what we could potentially get for the little capital we knew we'd have left from the sale of the house after repaying the mortgage. Like true love, the path of moving North didn't run smoothly though as soon after accepting the offer on our house I discovered my dad had cancer. His prognosis at this time was not great so we decided for family reasons to redraw from the sale of the house. Unfortunately, due partially to Covid related delays, the cancer was not detected nor treated promptly enough to save my dad who sadly passed away in November of 2021, way before his time.

As time passed, and with interest rates on the rise, we decided to try again to fulfil our dream of owning a mortgage free property to call home along with some land to keep a few animals on. To that end, we put our house back on the market in the summer of 2022 and secured a new buyer before Christmas of that year. Although we sold the house the second time for slightly more than we had achieved the year before, the price rises across the North of Scotland during that time had shot through the roof and most of the properties of interest were being snapped before we'd even completed (in March 2023) leaving behind only the obscure or the down-right ridiculous. It seemed we could no longer afford our dream of living in the north of Scotland, a dream we had had for some time. Feeling quite deflated and having left our old home behind to move in with my mother, we were desperately in search of something affordable within our price range (which wasn't very big) in the far north of Scotland.

Only one condition...

James was left to do most of the searching on the internet property sites as I continued on with the running of everyday family and business life. He found us many 'projects' during these searches which he duly told me about and occasionally I would look at them in more detail. As his searches became more disparate and urgent I made just one stipulation- I didn't want to move to an island. I don't like flying, I'm not keen on long boat journeys and I like my feet to be firmly on the ground. 'No' I insisted 'Mainland Scotland is fine, but the islands are out of bounds'.

We spent the spring and summer of 2023 searching for a property that we could afford, not just in northern Scotland but in other parts of the mainland too, and finally found one that we were both happy to put an offer on in the August. Located between Thurso and Wick it was well within our comfort zone for location and price but unfortunately when the closing date came round we were unsuccessful with our bid. Not having been through the Scottish system before I must say I found it a very disheartening experience, but we drew a line under it and moved on with our search.

It was mid August when James again mention a property that had been on his radar for several months. It had potential, it had a bit of land and most importantly it was within our limited budget.

Fantastic!

The only problem was, it was on Orkney. Not only was it Orkney, it wasn't even Mainland Orkney. It was Flotta. The aforementioned small island only accessible by ferry, or more accurately two.

To be continued...

Could this be our dream house...?