Moving to Orkney

That’s what we did just over four years ago. For us it was the best decision we ever made.

We love it here; although even in the short time that we have been here we have seen people come and then go again. We have lots of family and friends that come to stay and they all love it, but after a couple of weeks quite a few of them say they “love it here, but wouldn’t want to live here”. I can hear you ask why? Strangely it is the very thing that people often come here looking for that they’re surprised to find overwhelming, it’s the peace and quiet. Because it really is quiet, so often in the city you don’t even notice the individual background noises, they’re just there all the time. Here (certainly where we live) there are none, no traffic noise, no people shouting, no sirens, just the birds and sound of the sea as we are right on the coastline.

Last summer I spent a week at my daughters in Birmingham and one afternoon as I sat in the back garden I observed that the noise never stops, it’s not bad, it’s just always there. Our daughter prefers it, she says it makes here feel alive part of something bigger, she finds the quiet of Westray (especially when she’s on her own) very lonely. We’re all, different, and want different things.

We chose to live on Westray one of the northern isles. One of the things we like about Westray is that it is big enough to have resident doctors; some of the smaller islands don’t have resident doctors with surgeries being held perhaps once a week. This can be an important factor if you have small children, older family members or any other regular need for access to a doctor.

If you’re thinking of moving to Orkney we would suggest that you try to come for a long holiday, or better still rent a property and try living here for maybe six months or so before burning any bridges.

Thinking you would like to live here and actually living here are totally different.

The things people don’t think about are the very long nights and very short days in the winter months. Having said that we get “big skies” at night. The absence of light pollution means that there are “millions” of stars. In the summer it never really gets dark so the days can seem to be endless.

The wind is another big factor to take into account; we get lots of wind in Orkney! Even in the summer, we have lovely long summer days but the breeze is always there.

The winds in winter can be quite violent and a little scary. But the stormy sea makes a spectacular sight.

People seem to think that the weather in Orkney is extremely cold and harsh, but this is not so. Being surrounded by the sea keeps the temperature quite stable. In fact it very rarely gets below freezing. In the three and a half years that we have been here we have only had snow that has settled in one year. Our family in Birmingham have often been much colder and had a lot more snow that us.

We have often smiled at the questions that we have been asked by various friends and family. “Do you have electric?” “Do you have tarmac roads?” And “Where do you get your water from?” are just some of the more amusing examples. Yes we do have mains electricity and the roads are tarmaced! The roads are very good actually as they are not being constantly dug up! and we get water by turning on the taps!

Here on Westray we have three excellent shops that sell a huge variety of goods, from hardware and clothes to fresh and frozen groceries.

On Mainland Orkney there arethree big name supermarkets, the Co-op,Tesco and Lidl. There is also a large Boots store, a Woolworth’s store, and a good selection of local stores such as bakeries, butchers, gift shops and delicatessens etc.

We also buy things via the Internet as we have a very good postal service and a very good haulier transport infrastructure that handle delivery of larger items.

We hope that this web site will answer some or most of the questions that you have.

I originally set up a forum for this web site aimed at any discussion about Orkney as well as discussion on moving here. Since then I've discovered an excellent forum at Orkney's Premier Forum. This forum has topics and discussions on all things Orkney, and I am sure anyone considering a move to Orkney would be more than welcome there.