Living in Caithness

[_Ju_]

I am at home..... having arrived home at 18:00 after having carried out a significant shop (weekly almost) and a full day of work. Most of the evening has been mine. Heading toward winter on a beautiful autumn day. Even if the calendar says it's still summer. It is quiet and there has been time for a wonderful meal and a glass of wine. The wee mannie is having a bath and soon it will be bed time. I am so privileged to live in a place and here I can make time for so much and in so much natural beauty. How lucky are we all?
Rhetorical question....... only the positive need reply!

[Kodiak]

We moved to Caithness back in 1983 as I was moved here to work at Stroma Lighthouse and my family lived at Holburn Head Lighthouse. Then in 1991 due to the automation of Lighthouses I was made redundant. We had to move out of Holburn Head Lighthouse and the NLB would have moved us anywhere in Scotland that we wished to live.

As a family we all decided that the only place we wanted to live was Caithness and it was here we decided to stay. As far as we are concerned it was one of the best decisions we could have made. Caithness has a lot going for a great place to live and personally there is no where else I want to spend the rest of my life.

[macadamia]

I very much regret moving to Caithness three years ago. We should have moved here ten years earlier! I have never felt so close to the things that are really important - with Mother Nature being somewhere at the top of the agenda. And it is So good not to have to suffer cities, heat waves, crowds, and anonymity. Caithness is beautiful, green, and welcoming. Also we have field, strath, sea and rolling hills. What's not to love? Thanks for letting us share!

[joxville]

I lived in Thurso from '91 to '02 and can honestly say it's the best place I've ever lived, so much so that I consider it 'home', and not my hometown of Barrhead. I had a weeks holiday in Thurso at Easter, having not visited since 2008, and it made me realise how much I miss the place. Not just the wonderful skies or being surrounded by so much beauty of nature, but the people too. I miss walking along the street and seeing people I know, down here I'm just another face in the crowd. Or going into a shop and chatting to the staff for ages even though I'd no intention of buying anything, it got me out of the rain for a little while. Even chatting to strangers, they may not have known me, but they knew who my then wife was and her family, the people are so welcoming. It may not have the shops or businesses of a city, or the employment that goes with it, but as far as I'm concerned it more than makes up for it in the quality of its environment and its people.

[ducati]

Every time I meet someone new for whatever reason, it always turns into a 1/2 hour blether. Where else do people have the time for each other? We've lived all over Scotland but this is the place to stay. We love Cairngorm and the rest of the highlands but now I get neck ache from looking for the sky.

[squidge]

I lived in Caithness for too short a time. It was the best place to bring my children up and I cried when I left. I miss the 180 degree skies; i miss watching the weather march across the county; I miss my friends and walking on the beach every morning to paddle in the sea before work( although im sure that various office cleaners dont miss the pile of sand I would leave under meeting room tables). I miss the easy chat with friends and strangers and the way people used to say " saw your boys yesterday, they were....." It felt like the kids were looked after by everyone. I miss the way people ask questions about who you are, why you are here, who your man is, what he does, where you stay, what school your children go to, and on and on until they place you.

Here in Inverness i have a fab life with many friends and much fun but whenever I get the chance to head north it puts a smile on my face and in my heart.

[poppett]

from the words of a song called "O`er e Ord"...................there is no finer County than Caithness.

[secrets in symmetry]

Interestingly, most (perhaps all) of those who eulogise our County in this thread are non-natives. Is there any significance to this?

[ducati]

Interestingly, most (perhaps all) of those who eulogise our County in this thread are non-natives. Is there any significance to this?

I suppose if you are lucky enough to choose where you live, you may have compared it to other places and decided it is for you?

[Phill]

Interestingly, most (perhaps all) of those who eulogise our County in this thread are non-natives. Is there any significance to this?

Bliddy incomers!!

[secrets in symmetry]

Lol!

I carefully avoided the "i" word!

[secrets in symmetry]

I suppose if you are lucky enough to choose where you live, you may have compared it to other places and decided it is for you?

Perhaps.

Similarly, one could note that those that haven't lived anywhere else don't have the experience to compare it with anywhere else....

[Kevin Milkins]

I came to Wick 7 years ago March just gone and I don't think it stopped raining till about July.

My first impressions where, what a bliddy wretched place, the wind and the rain seemed relentless and my interest in gardening diminished by the day as it just seemed impossible to keep plants alive.

I'm not sure if the weather has improved or I have got better at dealing with it, but I do enjoy living here now. I don't think I have been much further South than Thrumpster for the last couple of years and I have no hankering to do so.

[Kenn]

Moved here by choice a few years back, no regrets it's a grand place to live, well away from the rat race and the locals are great folk.

[Big Gaz]

Interestingly, most (perhaps all) of those who eulogise our County in this thread are non-natives. Is there any significance to this?

Us "incomers" have to show you miserable bunch how to live life to the full and stop you all rushing off to Biron's for a self-euthanasia kit!

[gaza]

well, well, .. .. My folks took me up here from Yorkshire for dounreay when i was 4 weeks old in 59, since leaving school i've always worked out doors and around the blue and white flag, but caithness is the the place to be, (no matter the weather--- and yes over the years it has improved) my two boys have grown up here served their time in the trades they wanted (very lucky boys i know) so although i'm English born THIS is the place i will defend to the end, its the people that make it. just a shame that the county council was dissolved, and that our purse strings are dictated 120 miles away buy the bureaucrats in Inverness.

[focusRS]

Caithness is a topper of a place. Nowhere else I'd rather be.
Interesting that the "I" word has been mentioned again.
Was down in the local yesterday having a few drams and I was called an incomer (Castletown to Dunbeath).
No offence was ment and none was taken.

[Phill]

Dunbeath! Well there you go. (too close to Portgower for my liking)

[focusRS]

What's more alarming is it's proximity to Lybster.

[Southern-Gal]

Interestingly, most (perhaps all) of those who eulogise our County in this thread are non-natives. Is there any significance to this?

Yes I think there definitely is some significance to it!
Some of the people who are born and bred here have not really got much idea of just how lucky they are. Like a lot of things in life, you need to experience the bad to appreciate the good