All things are possible.

Even though we live in a fairly remote area we can still get a Tesco delivery which is amazing! 

If you book well in advance, 3 weeks ahead, and don't mind it coming at the end of the day, you can get it for as cheap as £2.00. This is less than the cost of the fuel for the drive into Stornoway.

It also means that I don't have to go into Stornoway each week if I don't want to....although I generally do end up going in for one thing or another and the strange thing is that even though Stornoway is 25 miles away, doesn't feel that far. I think its because there is a lot less traffic on the roads compared to driving on the mainland.

When I was telling friends before I moved, that the nearest local shop was 6.8 miles away, their comment was "Its a bit of a way to go if you run out of milk!"

The difference in distances to get things doesn't seem to matter as the bonus of living here far outweighs any inconvenience. You just have to be organised and plan your trips well.

We live in a society where we expect to have everything yesterday! On the mainland, the shops were open 24/7 and I could walk or drive 1.5 miles into the city of Bath and get all that I needed. Here, the shops are shut on Sundays - even fuel stations. 

With the arrival of Amazon Prime you can get items delivered that evening or the next day, depending. On the Island, you accept that this all takes a bit longer and this aspect of the service is not available, but its ok. Its part of Island life and its actually one of the things I love about it...the more laid back pace and less stress and demands. Wonderful.

There is also a good service in place with one of the local delivery companies if you need to get larger items like furniture for example, delivered from the mainland. "Woodys Express" in Inverness will deliver the item, via their depot in Stornoway, to your home on the Island. There are also other courier services that go to the mainland regularly and if you need something from IKEA or other places, then they will collect for you. It is not as cut off here as many people think.

When I drive from Uig towards Stornoway I can still see parts of the single track road that was the old road.. The majority of it now is 2 lane and this makes a big difference for those that travel back and forth daily for work.

Some of the old houses that are around don’t have any road access to them and it make you wonder how they managed to build them. I guess people used to just walk over the croft land (which isn’t that easy sometimes as there are rocks, gullies and grassy hummocks to negotiate) and carry the materials with them or dig them from the ground. I think it would have been a hard life for the crofters, even 30 years ago and it makes me realise how far we have come and how high our expectations are.

Sometimes when I was travelling back and forth to Bath, I could leave Stornoway airport and be in Glasgow 55 minutes later and then be in Bristol after a 75 minute flight…476 miles as the crow flies yet it takes 12 hours to drive 675 miles depending which way you go. Accessibility has come a long way in 2018!