Scottish island has put a cap on amount of electricity locals can use

Share Share How much of our lives do we spend waiting? Waiting on a bus, a phone call, our turn at the front of the coffee queue. Counting down hours, minutes, seconds, until something happens And I'm writing this while I'm waiting for my kettle to boil. Out here on Rum, we run on hydroelectricity, the supply tumbling down the hills that I can see from my living room window. But as with anything, there's a limit, and for us, that comes in the form of a 5kW cap on our household electricals, else we risk tripping the island's power supply. And it means no electric kettles. My own kettle is a scuffed stainless steel, slightly spattered with tomato sauce from this evening's bolognese. It sits permanently upon our gas hob, and is in constant use; on tonight's menu, it's a cup of tea for me (milk and one sugar, please), and a bedtime bottle for my now ten-month-old son. I remember when I first moved to the Isle of Rum, the kettle was one of my first lessons in remote living. Boiled water had never taken longer than a few minutes to come by before, whether it be from my own kettle or from the bakery below my flat - now, I'll be lucky if my brew is ready in 15. At first, I was impatient - my toast was always cold by the time I heard the signature whistle, and my travel mug was often abandoned when I didn't leave enough time before work. It was an inconvenience I wasn't used to. Read more Elle But I soon started realising that those minutes were useful. I gave the counters a wipe down, I put away dishes from the drying rack. I no longer felt like I was waiting on the kettle - instead, I suddenly had a deadline to get as many little kitchen tasks complete before the final whistle. We're into September now, and August has slipped quietly away. The end of summer brings with it the promise of cooler days, beautifully warm colours, and perhaps the chance to pop the fire on. Rum shines in the autumn, as if the island was made for cosier evenings. It always feels vaguely nostalgic - watching the same comfort shows when the rain sets in, and the smell of a warming cinnamon loaf in the oven. But looking back on the last two Augusts, I've realised that I was always waiting on something. In 2024, I was waiting for an interview. It was odd, applying for a job that would quite literally change everything about my life and feeling no sense of trepidation. I came across messages between myself and my husband from that time recently, and it's easy to see that we would have been devastated if we weren't successful. It felt as though the rest of my life was sitting somewhere just beyond the next email, the next conversation - the next decision that wasn't mine to make. We'd built an entire life in our heads based on an outcome that really we couldn't be certain of. Thank goodness they liked us. And then came 2025. By the end of that August, I was waiting for a baby. Two months to go until I was due to give birth to my first child, and time had taken on a completely different quality. Suddenly, I could measure my future in weeks rather than years. Two months. Eight weeks. A handful of appointments. A few more kicks beneath my ribs. One final summer before everything changed. 'I'm happy, content with where I am, and not in any hurry to make any dramatic life changes any time soon' (Image: Elle Duffy) And now it's 2026. August has ended again. But this time, I don't feel like I'm waiting for anything. There's still plenty I want, don't get me wrong. There are places I'd like to go, things I'd like to achieve. There are parcels I'm waiting for and letters due. And there are evenings like tonight when I'm sitting writing, still waiting for my kettle to boil. But it's different. I no longer feel as though my life is on the other side of something. I'm happy, content with where I am, and not in any hurry to make any dramatic life changes any time soon. Maybe that is what has changed most between those three Augusts. In 2024, I was waiting for my life to change. In 2025, I was waiting for my life to begin again. In 2026, I think I've finally realised that it's already happening. The kettle is whistling now - my tea is ready. And for once, I'm not counting down to what comes next. Elle Duffy lives and works on Rum and writes a weekly diary in The HeraldShare Get involved with the news