The waiting room I’m in has three leather sofas, a kettle, and the faintest smell of diesel.

I’m in Fort William, and the sun has begun to set, and I hear the ‘honk’ of my car from the garage next door. At least I know it’s passed that part of its MOT.

When you live on an island like Rum, a simple annual car appointment becomes a four-day ordeal. When you live on an island like Rum with a four-month-old who has just realised he doesn’t have to sleep if he doesn’t want to, it feels like an eternity.

The journey began months before we booked our tickets or hit the road. I asked anyone with a car - just how do I do this MOT malarky? The last time I put my car in a garage, it was a wonderful women-owned plot in Glasgow. I dropped it off before my shift started, and picked it up on my way home, marvelling at the crisp paper mats left behind as I left with one advisory. I picked that specific garage out of dozens within an arms reach. I was lost in a sea of reviews and prices and eventually settled on one that was close to a bus stop, because that mattered.

Now, however, my options spanned ferry routes and single carriageways, and buses weren’t in ample supply.

A few people here take their cars to........

© Herald Scotland