It seems to have been a long winter in some respects, Shetland has been hit repeatedly with gales or severe gales over the past two months and only in the last couple of days have we had sunny clear but cold weather.
Not good when you want to get out photographing.
Its always good to start planning for later, we hope to be back in Sheffield for a couple of weeks mid year and we have my sister in law visiting Shetland for the first time in six year. Covid is still high in Shetland and is restricting where we go and who we meet.
A lot of the music nights are only just starting up but only a few people are going, think we will leave it for a while.
We are not looking forward to April with the big 56% increase in electricity prices. Our costs are far higher than down in England, we pay more than double for our power for some reason. Some folk are expecting to pay around £4500 per year but will go up again in autumn then again next year.
How are folk going to pay for this, its gaoling as Shetland will soon be the biggest windfarm in the UK. We get absolutely no benefit from this as it exported south and it will ruin our countryside.
Fuel prices are at an all time high with petrol at £1.50 a litre, everyone said when it went up to a £1 a gallon people would be out protesting and now its around £7 per gallon . This is affecting food prices as well, Tesco are pushing 5-25p on products and the average bill has gone up by £30 per week.
I know its a world wide thing but look at France they are only putting Gas/Electric up by a small amount unlike our government. How many people will die before help is given and i am not talking £200 loan.
It was good to see the Ben Fogel programme on Yell last week, it seems that's the destination for a lot of folk moving up here with house prices a lot lower than the Shetland mainland. Work needs to be done on a lot of properties. It can be soul destroying for local folk trying to buy houses, one friend has been out bid several time by £1000s . I do suspect however, that some folk will leave Shetland due to the high cost of living, Shetland will have around 50% of the population in fuel poverty.
I am looking forward to spring, daffodils are coming up early, normally these flower in mid April but these may be up and flowering well before, Daises have been in flower for a couple of months which seem odd. A lot of birds will be looking to pair up and breed, Ravens have been displaying for several weeks (see shetlandsfp.blogspot.co.uk)
The Aurora and seeing the milky way has always been a driving force to keep us going throughout the long dark winter months and we had a superb display the other week ,
Shetland does have a lot of benefits and we are hoping we can survive until things get back to normal (prices)
