Using Top Band for a local natter

Last night I had a chat with Jim, G3ZPD, on Top Band. Nothing remarkable about that, you might think, except that Jim only lives three or four miles down the road from me and I was chatting to him using the FT-817ND running 5W to the Wonder Wand L-Whip. Who needs two metres? As there is a hill between us, I'm not certain that signals would have been as solid if we had tried to use VHF anyway.