20. Uncomfortable Change

                Change in life is inevitable. Sometimes changes are planned, sometimes they are predictable and sometimes they take you by surprise. Many of you will have shared similar milestones to us through life, leaving home, finding a partner and becoming a parent. These are the changes that change you, the sea-changes. Nothing in life stands still for long, however much we fight it children grow, relationships develop and circumstances evolve. Since moving to Harris and starting the brewery so much in our life has changed. Like the Hebridean weather and the ebb and flow of the sea, change is the one constant. 

                  The trajectory of our life before moving to Harris was somewhat inevitable. We had a huge mortgage and our business was growing. We were on a treadmill; working harder and harder to earn more money and more money to pay larger and larger debts. In July 2014 we made the exciting and yet uncomfortable decision to leave behind family and friends, a supportive community and comfortable work and school lives to follow a dream. The changes we faced were on a grand scale. The children had to settle into a new school and we needed to find a new house, new jobs and make new friends. This was a scary but wonderful time, we knew the changes we were making would mean we would have less money but more financial freedom, most importantly we would have more time together and a better quality of family life. To change “everything” took courage but had a hugely positive effect on all of our lives.

      Growing Pains

     In the last couple of months our family has been through another major change. Our son Charlie has left home and moved away from the island to go to University. One of the reasons we moved to Harris was to give our kids a better childhood and stronger roots but we also knew that one day our kids would want to, or need to, move away. Despite knowing this change was coming we were in no way prepared when our first flew the nest and it has been a huge adjustment for us all. We had heard of “Empty Nest Syndrome” but we had definitely underestimated how hard it would be, even poor Spud was traumatised! Charlie is an amazingly kind, thoughtful and self assured young man and we are enormously proud of him. We recently went to visit him in the big Windy City and it was really reassuring to see that he is loving his course, making good friends (and eating properly and looking after himself!) It’s ironic that as a parent your job is to raise your kids to be strong and independent and the hardest part of the job is accepting when you succeed and letting go of the reigns.

            A winding single track road

      At the Brewery change has been a constant theme. When we started brewing in April 2020 we had a clear idea of the direction we wanted to travel. Our abbreviated plan for the business could be summed up in our three key goals; To work for ourselves at home, to brew beers we are proud of, and to earn enough to support our family. We naively thought our unconventional “anti-growth” business model would mean that we would be immune to change but in the two and a half years since our first brew day we have made lots of small incremental adjustments in response to feedback from our customers. The level of demand for our beer was an unexpected surprise and we have had to adapt to allow us to make more beer and make our beer accessible to more people. We have upgraded our brewing equipment to increase production and we now supply beer to our favourite local shops and restaurants to extend our reach. Each of these small adjustments have been steps along our original course towards a much bigger change. Next season we hope to open a tiny shop here in our crofthouse in Borrisdale. This means leaving my job and regular wage to work full time at the Brewery. Leaving this safety net will definitely be hard, but will take us a huge step closer to achieving our goals.