Father Christmas arrives

Hope you are all having a great Christmas, its been still and mild in Shetland which is a change.

Father Christmas gives us a pre Christmas visit just to see how many houses survived the Hurricane which struck the other week

What looks like the Christmas star over St Ninian's tombolo, in fact its the moon

A season of good will to all and i took this photo of a cheque being presented to Walter & Joan care home in Scalloway from the Shetland Women's Guild. More good will from all those who made a contribution towards fire damage to a Lerwick house which caught fire, no one injured but house a mess. Donations reached almost $12000 on Christmas eve, Shetland people never cease to amaze me.

Will be back in the New year so in the meantime have a good new year. In the meantime check out Shetland Aurora Hunter on facebook

Storm Caroline hits

Finally managed to get my canvas and mounted prints on sale at Hoswick Visitor centre after about a years wait. The centre is open in winter Wednesday - Saturday 11.00 - 15.00pm. Do pop down for a look, the canvas prints are displayed up stairs and the mounted prints downstairs. For a bigger choice see www.amazingshetland.co.uk

At this time of year the skies can be very dramatic and the one below was taken the other afternoon in Lerwick

The first snow fell a few days ago and created quiet a nice scene in Scalloway. Lucky the roads stayed cleared, more or less.

Below the sun going down at Scatness, also a good walk and no one else around.

I have just bought a Lens sphere from America, it really does pick up the landscape very well and i hope to use this to capture more scene very shortly

The winter light may only last a few hours but the low light is excellent for photography. On a cold wet day it was only just light from 10.00- 1.30

Shetland is one of the best places for seeing rainbows, they are so vivid and often a double rainbow

Storm Caroline hit Shetland on Thursday7 December bringing winds of up to 106mph but the snow didn't arrive as expected. We did however have a power cut that lasted over 6 hours. The Hydro lads were out and solved the problems as soon as it was safe

The next day we found slates all over the place, one had hit our car and chipped the paintwork in several places. Next door had a large hole in the roof and they only found it when they returned from work in the morning. Several other houses nearby also had damaged roofs and one found their hen house upside down and no hens about.

Further away in the north of Shetland a road was blocked near Hillswick when a building collapsed. Ferries had been cancelled Thursday and Friday which means no food will be transported up until Monday- anyone moving up will have to take all this into account

After the storm came the snow and ice, not too much snow but plenty of black ice. Black Gaet is always a bad place for ice and the police closed the road after 8 vehicles had difficulties. 

Although ferry fares are to reduce next year freight fares will increase by 2.9% which will affect everything being transported to Shetland so get ready for a price rise on fuel and food