Lodberrie

After a wet start in Edinburgh yesterday, we arrived in Shetland this morning in warm balmy sunshine.
It all looked so different to when I came the first time, half a century ago. Then it was a misty grey morning when the boat came in to dock and the grey stone buildings seem to rise majestically out of the sea making an awe inspiring impression on me. This morning however everything was bathed in sunlight and there was lots of colour in the new buildings that had sprung up.
The ferry crossing was smooth, and the travel sickness pills I had taken as a precaution only served to give me an excellent night's sleep and some vivid dreams.

Whoever tells you that Shetland is flat has not been here. The town is built up on a hill from the harbour with many very steep, narrow lanes running upwards.
Our first challenge was finding the B&B which happened to be at the top of a road whose incline was beyond the capabilities of yours truly with a laden bike and rucksack. I have to admit I got off two thirds of the way up and pushed. So much for fitness.

Later I took my unfinished disgrace of a fairisle jersey to the shop I had found thanks to BB and handed it over in the hope that someone will complete it and save it for future generations to admire.

Since his Lordship had indulged too heavily in a rather oily fish supper on board the ferry last night, he was what some might generously say was a wee bit under the weather. His stomach had let him down again and he was uncommunicative as only a man can be when he is suffering. Suffering in silence takes on a whole lot of meaning in cases like this.

Thus to accommodate the poorly, it was a day of meandering about town and harbour with a walk round the Knab, a headland at the edge of Lerwick, where the wild flowers made a riot of colour, yellow vetch, mauve clover, red campion, yellow buttercups and white daisies.
The seabirds were hunkered down on nests in the cliffs and all was peaceful and warm with just the sound of seabirds and the puttering of a white motor boatmaking its way up the channel between the mainland and the Isle of Bressay.

And so back up the hill again to unload my photos, but this time, unladen, I managed it.

A lodberrie is as I understand, a house where there is direct access to the water.