We’ve just got back from an important trip. Twelve days on the west coast of Scotland deciding where we will move to next year. I had already made my mind up (Largs) but wanted to take a deeper look at an alternative (Troon) just in case. Hubby was undecided and still anxious about leaving a big city for small town life so we planed on visiting different towns and having a trip into Glasgow.

Que lots of driving up and down residential streets, lots of coffee and cake and beer and food as we sampled what different towns had to offer and lots of promenade and beach walking in the mornings (for me, hubby rarely does mornings). We started by visiting ‘book town’ Wigtown in Dumfries and Galloway as a treat for hubby although I bought more books than he did and a rather splendid jigsaw. Not a house move target, more a carrot to dangle in front of hubby as we ‘enjoy’ the high and lows of the move.

We then drove to Stranraer and up along the Ayrshire coast to Troon. A beautiful drive. Troon was our base for a week whilst we visited other towns nearby. We both decided that Troon was a good option albeit that there are a couple of areas where the seaside / harbour smell was a bit too strong so we’d need to deploy our noses when house hunting! We discounted most of the other places we looked at (won’t name them!) either because the town centers were depressing or there was no suitable housing that was both close to the sea and to the shops. Prestwick which has lots of independent shops and a lovely sandy beach could be a back up but doesn’t have many properties of the right size in the right place.

We then moved further up the coast to Largs via a trip to Glasgow where we visited The Burrell Collection (my favourite museum ever). The road from Glasgow to Largs is a bit wiggly but it was a proper road with white lines down the middle … I turn into a nervous wreck when driving on narrow, narrow roads!

We spent five days in a flat close to the town center with views across the water to the island of Cumbrae. Heaven. Wonderful walks along the coast with stunning views, small town center but with everything we would need, good transport links, bungalows of the right size within spitting distance of the sea and the shops, a decent collection of restaurants and pubs, a second hand book shop (top of hubby’s list) and Nardinis (ice cream heaven and they serve a damn fine cup of coffee!). SOLD.

Now the reality is that we will be renting before we buy and there aren’t many rental properties in Largs so we may end up in Troon or Prestwick or even Ayr at a push while we buy a place in Largs. And that process might take a while as we want to find the right place. I’m anxious about being without a studio but we are both agreed that it will be worth the wait!