Shetland things

I just spent a wonderful week in Shetland. It's been on my 'To Go' list for years - maybe ever since Mum told me she found out she was pregnant with me while she and Dad were there touring around on his old motorbike - when apparently it cost just £1.50 a night to rent a cottage for two. I stayed with a friend with her friends on Bressay, a 10 minute ferry commute from Lerwick harbour, where no one locks their houses, strangers pull over to offer you lifts, I spotted a porpoise from the living room window, and got to bolster the numbers of the Bressay community choir - five women (including me...) with an old piano.

So many things about Shetland to like. Knockout archaeology - Jarlshof and Mousa and Scatness and countless other sites. Brochs and Norse longhouses all over the place. World beating wildlife - bonxies swooping overhead, thousands of gannets diving and calling, busy bobbing puffins, watching a nesting guillemot colony get decimated by a rabbit, seeing otters feeding metres away. Mind-bending geology, sheer cliffs, soft turf, broad green straths, beautiful beaches, white sands, turquoise bays, freezing waters, ponies, crazy bus shelters, cold winds, and warm cafes. Sheep and wool and spinning and knitting inspiration everywhere! Ferries and islands and friendly people and music and late nights and whisky. Going back one day, I hope.

 

Dedication....that's what you need

I can still hear Roy Castle's trumpet. If I'd only believed him at the time. Still, better late than never - because, not to get too over-dramatic about this, for about the first time in my life I decided I wanted something and actually went out and worked to get it. I didn't just get too lazy, or too laid back, or too scared of failure, and give up early. Because then you've always got the excuse that you didn't really try, right?

But this was different. I decided back in March that I wanted to beat my previous best time for running 10km - seven years ago! - of 54 minutes and 26 seconds. So I signed up for the Glasgow Women's 10K, printed off an 8 week training schedule, and started following it. And kept following it. Even when I was tired. Even when my knees hurt. Even in Iceland when it meant getting up at 5.30am and running for 80 minutes in the snow or the wind before a day's fieldwork carrying heavy kit up onto a glacier. And it worked. Yesterday, I didn't just beat my best time. My secret wish was a sub-50 minute 10K - which until a few weeks ago I never even considered I could do. 

I am my own personal record breaker :-D

Full on spring at last

The weather's been warmer for a few weeks and things are finally starting to grow at the allotment. The perennial French sorrel and chives are always the first spring crop - the last week they've gone into salads as well as a sauce for cod, and an omelette with English asparagus. And then the rhubarb of course - I've already made rhubarb, rose and cardamom jam, and this weekend I'm trying out rhubarb vodka for the first time :-) Of this year's sowings and plantings, the shallots and broad beans started to push through the soil surface first, and this week the potatoes (Charlotte, again). The comfrey was tall enough to take a first cutting today, for a mulch on the potatoes, the fruit bushes are in full leaf, and the damson tree is blossoming. Hoping we don't have a late frost like last year, which meant no damsons at all (and no sloes... and more to the point, no sloe gin!). And oh yes, all the weeds are getting into their stride too...

 

Lopi

I couldn't resist it. I brought back a basketful of wool from Iceland. Lopi is Icelandic wool, & I'm a bit in love with it. So now I have enough in my stash for a Lettlopi cardigan, some Alafosslopi socks, a hat, a pair of mittens.... oh, and the lace-weight Einband I got in September which is still to be knitted up into a shawl. These fingers are itching to be knitting!