Sunday, July 12, 2015

Shetland


There's an absolutely beautiful public garden in Lerwick which we visited several times. Despite the chilly wind, there were the most beautiful herbaceous flowers, such as these lupins - which, unlike mine, seemed to be immune to the depredations of slugs and snails - delphiniums (ditto) and every imaginable colour of columbines with nary a greenfly (unlike mine). I imagine the greenfly are blown off. Or perhaps they can't fly this far in the first place.



There were also lots archaeological sites, such as the Clickimin Broch, dating from about 100 BC, with an impressive indoor stair.



The Shetland wildflowers included these red campions, which were everywhere and absolutely lovely. Orkney had the usual pink ones but these were much brighter, with stems really thickly covered with blossoms.


Commenters have asked if I visited knitting shops. To my shame - no - though I did look in some windows. I'm not really a knitter. However, at the Bon Hoga Gallery there was a great café with this basket of knitting - a long scarf. I knitted one row, thinking of Thimbleanna and Daughter 1, both industrious knitters.


These notices were beside litter bins in various places. "Bruck" means "mess" - so "Don't drop litter".

 And
 everywhere
 we
 went
 there
 was
 something
 lovely to look at.


And more Viking and older remains. This is Jarlshof, which was occupied over many centuries.

Fortunately it hardly rained. Lerwick has a wonderful museum and there are a few other minor museums and some shops, but there's not a lot for tourists to do in either Orkney or Shetland in bad weather unless they just do it in the rain. Should you decide to go - which I would recommend - take warm, rainproof clothes, hats (yes, Mr L wore his fleecy hat on occasions), gloves (we didn't have any but often had to retract our hands inside our jackets to keep them warm) and a lot of books.


I got quite a bit of evening quilting done.

 
And yes, there were many Shetland ponies. Very cute!

9 comments:

  1. These lovely photos remind me that the Earth is such a beautiful place...so many places to see....pity we muck it up sometimes though...and I'm glad you knitted a row!

    ReplyDelete
  2. those ponies are just gorgeous, they look like they are hunkering down for the weather (like the houses)...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the tour! Gorgeous pictures but, for some reason, Shetland ponies always make me cry.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you for the pony pictures, they're so cute.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You're so lucky you had good weather -- your photos are beautiful and remind me a lot of Iceland -- therefore, I MUST go! Yay for the quilting! And I'm thinking DD1 and I will have to get to work on you to revive your knitting -- I thought the IG photo meant that you were knitting again!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Looks gorgeous and well worth the chilliness!! Lxx

    ReplyDelete
  7. So long as it wasn't chucking down rain, I could sit and look out at that gorgeous scenery for hours and hours.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous12:11 am

    I am making plans, thanks to you ...

    ReplyDelete
  9. We use the word "pruck" here to mean all your bits and pieces of mess. Must be the same thing.

    ReplyDelete