All photos for this trip can be found in our
2022 England/Scotland Photo Album
Look for the "Week 6" tag for photos added this week.
2022 England/Scotland Photo Album
Look for the "Week 6" tag for photos added this week.
Although we still had the local rental car in Lerwick for our last couple of days there, travel this week consisted primarily of planes and trains as we began to make our way home.
Friday was one of those rainy blustery Shetland days with high winds gusting throughout the day. For coffee this morning we drove downtown, parked on the pier, just about got blown into the water, ran across the street to Coffee Culture for a couple of lattes, ran back across the street to the car, drove the wrong way out of the parking lot, drove home and enjoyed the lattes :-) It was very blustery!
Kris had a class all afternoon at the Islesburgh Community Centre so we decided to go a bit early and have lunch in the cafe there. A bowl of Cullen Skink soup and a Coronation Chicken salad shared between the two of us did the trick. After lunch, Kris headed upstairs to her class, "An Introduction to Fair Isle Yokes" with Hazel Tindall. Meanwhile Brian decided to go for a drive on a loop through the high hills north of the city just to see how blustery it was up there. It was blustery! That done it was back to the apartment until it was time to pick Kris up later in the aftetnoon. One of the women in Kris' class asked if we coupld possibly give her a lift home. No problem, however she did almost get blown over in the parking lot. It would have been very difficult for her to have walked even though it was only a few blocks to her apartment. She was quite grateful :-) It was still very blustery out so we decided to stay in for the evening. For dinner we had a nice home cooked Tesco cottage pie and peas.
Saturday marked the end of Wool Week. We tried to start the day with a stop at Coffee Culture but turns out they don't open until late morning on Saturday so we headed off to Fjara for a latte each, cheese scone with clotted cream and jam for Brian and an egg and sausage meat breakfast roll for Kris. After breakfast we headed over to the Wool Week "Makker's Market" craft show and sale at the local high school. We really picked a good year to come to wool week as the number of people that came to Shetland this year is relatively small but the sale hall was just packed. Next year it is likely going to be a real zoo! Kris picked up a few balls of lace wool from a booth specializing in wool from Foula. We chatted with Mike Finnie (our silver button instructor from Red Houss) and his wife Jill for a bit before leaving the hall. Since we had had a late breakfast at Fjara we passed on finding a place for lunch and instead went over to the Shetland Textile Museum as today is their last open day before they for the season. Escellent displays featuring the entries for the "ColourBox Challenge" where contestants were given 8 colours to choose from and had to use at least 5 of them in whatever project they chose. It was difficult to take photos inside the small museum rooms, however, outside the building someone had knit a fine section of a fence.
For dinner Saturday we walked the 4 blocks or so, to the Gurkha Kitchen, a Nepalise and Indian restaurant. They were very busy with lots of take away orders so even though we had a reservation which got us seated right away, it took about an hour for our food to arrive. However, it was well worth the wait. We had a lamb dish, chicken dish, veggie dish and rice dish and could barely finish it all. Excellent!
Sunday started with a nice breakfast of lattes and eggs benedict at a very busy Fjara. After going into Tesco for a few groceries we walked up the road to the Broch of Clickimin, an historic settlement site that has revealed use as far back as 1000 BC.
Monday started with lattes and croissants at Coffee Culture then we spent some time wandering along Commercial Street doing last minute Shetland shopping and walked along past the Queen's hotel to the Lodberries for one last look at Jimmy Perez' green door.
We got to the airport a couple of hours early, got checked in and through security. All set for the 6:15PM flight. NOT QUITE!!! The plane for our flight was coming from Edinburgh and was scheduled to land about 5:30. Around 5:00 we got an announcement that our flight would be delayed. Apparently the plane from Edinburgh suffered a faulty engine and had to be taken out of service. A replacement plane was called in. By the time it arrived in Shetland it was going on 10:00PM. They also announced that they had combined two flights so our flight to Edinburgh would be diverted to Kirkwall (in Orkney) then on to Edinburgh. By the time it was all said and done we arrived in Edinburgh close to midnight. Meanwhile, when they announced the delay back in Shetland, Brian had phoned our Edinburgh hotel to let them know we would be checking in late. Reception closes at 10:00PM. They sent us instructions on how to access a lock box to get our keys. Ok so far. Due to the late hour we elected to take a taxi from the airport. Got to the hotel well after midnight, found the lock box but the code given us didn't work. WTF... Brian called the hotel's "emergency number" only to be told we had found the "wrong lock box" as there were two boxes with the number "one" on them. DUH! OK, so we got in. Time to sit and relax a bit before hitting the sack. Use the remote to turn on the tv. Nothing. Previous guest had taken the batteries. Found a switch on the tv so got it going but couldn't find a way to change the channel. Previous guest had left it on "The Shopping Channel". Thank you very much. Time to sleep. End of day. End of week!
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