Is it me ?

I was lost but now I have been found, or that's how I feel . Since my passport expired last July I haven't had any photo ID, so rather than waste money on a new passport I went for  photo ID driving licence and it came on Friday. So as I didn't know who I was until it came and other people refused to believe who i claimed to be, all is well as the photo looks like me. But is the mirror telling me the truth ?

This will now satisfy the solicitors and all we need to do is take our proof down, however we are still waiting for a letter from our builders to verify / guarantee some work we previously had done. So the wait continues.

The snowy weather does not help, or encourage people to come a view houses. Other than a viewing last weekend from a very rude family who couldn't be bothered to answer any of our questions and continually spoke in their own language despite all speaking English when we first met them, we have decided to wait until after Easter before we place our last paid advert in the Sheffield Telegraph.

                                                                                                  Sheffield snow bound

Despite the lack of movement on our house I did see another house close by had just sold subject to contract after 18 months. Hope we don't have to wait that long. To keep us going we have just booked a trip to Shetland  in a few months, ferry and cottage all confirmed. It will be good to see our good friends, Beryl and Maurice who have been very good at keeping us supplied with information

                                                                             
                                                                                              Maurice and my wife Diane

BBC drama on Shetland

Well last weekend saw the above programme drama on Shetland, and while I thought the plot was slow and showed many inaccuracies i hope at least some of the points came over. It was a shame that more Shetland ascents were not used, but Shetland does have a large number of people speaking in other Scottish dialects. Also I was disappointed that as it was set in January, that the weather was not more stormy. As the main detective went back and forth over to Bressay, stood out on the back of the ferry, would he have done this on a true January day?

The filming possibly took place in July when filming could be done for 11 hours not the 3-4 hours actually present on a January day, and when generally the weather is drier.

For anyone knowing Shetland some of the locations used were not accurate, but never the less it did show off some of the spectacular scenery found in the isles.

Also it did highlight the 'Shetland Bus' story, which I am sure would not really be known outside Shetland. The brave Norwegian fishermen going back and forth bringing people from occupied Norway to Shetland and taking supplies etc back over during the winter months.

                                                                                                          Lunna House

                                                                                                     Flemington House (Kergord)

The original location for the Shetland bus headquarters was up at Lunna House, later moving to Flemington
( Kergord) and finally ending up on the east coast at Dinapore house in Scalloway.

                                                                                                    Dinapore House , Scalloway

 Many local people still have strong memories of the conflict and a few years ago a memorial was erected in Scalloway for the 44 crew members who died. The new museum in Scalloway is the best place to find out about the Shetland Bus and of course you can read Peter Howarth's book on the story, he was part of the Royal Navy who organised the 198 trips to Norway bringing back 373 refugees and sending out 193 Agents the other way.

Don't think they will have used this Shetland bus stop in Baltasound, Unst

As regards our move, not much happened recently, had another two couples viewing the house, but still no offers. It's a waiting game.

I see that the BBC drama on Shetland has been programmed for the 10 & 11 March at 9 pm, so please keep an eye out for this.

Shetland like so many places is undergoing massive cuts, with the library just announcing cuts to hours and purchases of books. I have used this facility many times when we have visited on holiday, as they have an excellent collection of Shetland books and a superb computer suite which I use to keep up to-date with things in Sheffield.  In Sheffield  up to 14 out of 27 libraries are set to close, and 1/2 the mobile libraries will go.

                                                                                              Sheffield central library

When we move up to Shetland this will be very important to us as I cannot see a rented accommodation having internet access. So is it a good time for us to move to Shetland? the answer is still a definite YES.

Massive cuts are happening everywhere, prices are going up, but what Shetland has far outweighs the negatives. The wildlife, land & seascapes, the sky and the numerous photo opportunities are all FREE so bring them on.

                                                                                                         Sumburgh Head

This all depends on our house selling  and so far , although a month on the market , we have had no bids. We didn't think it would sell quickly, with most taking around  year to sell, we just need that one person to say yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When this happens we will get the fireworks out to celebrate

Ann Cleaves

We are looking forward to seeing the new BBC drama 'Shetland' sometime next month. This has been adapted from the novel ' Red Bones' by the award winning crime writer Ann Cleaves, staring Douglas Henshall. Its not often that Shetland features on National TV, the last time was a three part programme by Simon King on the 'Shetland Diaries' which covered his wildlife encounters during the course of a year. The only other one was many years ago featuring Billy Oddie and his birding exploits,
unless you know otherwise !

                                                                                      Looking north to Fitfull Head

This new drama should highlight not just the life in Shetland but also the fantastic scenery. When we have talked about our move to these northern isles, people have often commented that they imagine a bleak, windswept island, devoid of people and facilities. In fact 22,000 people live in Shetland on 15 islands, over 100 islands in total. Yes there is a Tesco and a Co-op and a hospital along with other shops. There are miles of deserted roads, in superb condition, lots of sports centres and best of all fantastic people, music and superb wildlife. Shetland is a 12 hours ferry journey from Aberdeen, nearer to Norway than Aberdeen, 300 miles north of mainland Scotland, so to some it may seem like we are going to the edge of the world.

We have had some more people to view our house in Sheffield but so far no offers, we knew it would be a lengthy job with some houses in our area taking over a year to sell, not helped by the recession and the high deposits needed by first time buyers. Last week we decided to use one of our two newspaper adverts and got a couple of people interested, but this is only the start of our 4th week on the market.

I have now sent for my driving licence ID and are still waiting for our builders to send a written guarantee for a number of items they have done for us in the past. Both of these are needed by the solicitor at some time in the future.

We continue to de-clutter as some people call it, this started over 6  months ago and is nearly completed. Anyhow what we have will be packed away in storage when the time comes.

                                                                             Shops like this one on Unst have already disappeared!

Not many houses up for sale in Shetland at present, but this is expected at this time of year. With over 300 council workers due to be made redundant and several schools to be closed it could create more buying opportunities in the areas we would like to live. I suspect this may encourage more people to think of leaving Shetland especially the young ones which could spell more bad news for some island communities such as Papa Stour , Out Skerries, Fetlar and Foula.

Well we finally had our for sale sign erected after reminding the estate agents twice.Also had two viewings but its seems the first couple were just out for a day, viewing many properties. They were never very serious about things and we could tell as soon as they walked through the door. When we sold our last house several people told us that they just go out seeing other people's houses as a hobby. What time wasters !!!

                                                                                   Do you want to buy this house ?
We also visited the solicitors, they now hold the deeds to our current house. Before hand we completed several very details forms but despite this we still came away with a list of other things they require. In addition to this we have now both got new mobile phones with Vodafone  Apparently this is the best service in Shetland, however its not so good down in Sheffield as we could even phone each other in our house, things are better outside.

I am still undecided on which internet provider to go for once we have bought a house in Shetland. Shetlink forum gives many cases where the internet is a major problem no matter which provider you have as everything is channeled through BT. Many have very slow connections or none at all. Our friends in Shetland Beryl and Maurice have the Post office phone and broadband and they say they have had no problems, so perhaps we will try that

As for houses in Shetland. We hope to get one in the Southern Mainland, but perhaps need to be as flexible as possible as there are not many houses to choose from. We do have one advantage in that we will not require a mortgage to buy. It also seems that many more people, perhaps locals,  are now buying a plot of land and then building a home. This seems to be happening alot in the Sandwick area, however this leaves other houses for us to look at. I have no concerns in buying a wooden house, they are far better insulated than stone and have been built for along time across Northern Scotland, especially Shetland and Scandinavia.

Old croft -southern mainland

                                                                                  A White house, much better to be in Shetland

Like in times passed, old crofts are dismantlement and the stone used for new buildings, this has been taking place for many centuries. This is where you can find many settlements built on top of each other, a great example is in the southern mainland at Jalshof. Shetland is a superb place if you like archaeology , it is one of the richest areas in Europe. Many superb sites can be visited easily and without the pressures of being built on, unlike York.

                                                                         Mousa Broch, just one of the great archaeology sites
                                                                                     to be found in Shetland

Europe's largest Fire Festival in Shetland

On Tuesday night we watched the live web link for Up Helly Aa, this is the second year we have seen the event. Hopefully we will see it live next year. It starts about 6.30 am and goes onto 9am the next day so no surprise that the Wednesday is a public holiday. The weather was not good, with driving rain and up to 80 mph winds but this did not deter the 1000's who watched around 900 or so torch bearers process to the Viking Ship, where they set fire to it by throwing their torches onto the wooden Galley.

This is not the only fire festival in Shetland, they start in mid January with the Scalloway fire festival and continuing up to late march at Delting. Several thousand people set about preparing the event and building the Galley for the next year.

Well our house is now on the Market, we approved the brochure on Wednesday and had a phone call the same day from the Estate agent wanting to book a couple in for a viewing. The sale board is still not up despite telling the Estate agents twice, we will follow this up tomorrow. The couple turned up today for a look round, its always difficult to tell whether they will be interested. They followed this off by telling us that they were just off to arrange their mortgage, I thought they had to be checked out first by the Estate agents!!! We will see how we go on, we had over 50 viewing before our last house sold.

We also confirmed with our removal company, Specialised movers in Sheffield that we now had our house on the market and have got a meeting with our solicitors on Tuesday

Its official, Shetland is the best place to live according to the Royal Bank of Scotland area quality of life survey. It scored very high when it came to health, life expectancy, unemployment and one of the lowest crime rates in the UK.

In addition to this the National Geographic Travel magazine placed Shetland joint third along side Lofoten Islands in Norway and Chiloi archipelago in Chile.

Obviously crime is a big concern for everyone and to move to a low crime area is going to be a big benefit especially when getting older. At present in Sheffield, the 3rd largest city in England certain areas are no go especially at night. So far in 2013, one murder has been committed, 3 other shootings and several stabbings have taken place. Gang crime is always a problem and towards the end of last year 25 incidents of gang related crime (in 2 months) occurred in just one area of Sheffield. Rival gangs opened fired on each other and on houses in the Parson Cross area. Last year in South Yorkshire  the police tackled 11,000 incidents of public disorder, 95362 offences in total, that's nearly 5 times the whole Shetland population. In the run up to christmas 99 crimes occurred at Meadowhall, 5 mobile phone are stolen in Sheffield every day and there has been a 10% increase in burglaries last year.

In contrast Shetland has a 70% detection rate, the highest in the UK, and 100% detection rate for drugs possession and supply (Shetland times). Its one of the few places where you can leave your house unlocked and keys in your car either day or night and not have a problem (outside Lerwick). We remember speaking to a police officer in the early 1990's, who was on the ferry heading south. He told us that he had only made one arrest in 15 years while on Unst, where crime is very very rare, but had now just been transferred to Liverpool !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Normally I would be very concerned if I saw kids with these weapons in Sheffield, but not in Shetland

Ok so most of us don't get affected by this level of crime but it's there and you have to be aware. On a few occasions while photographing in Sheffield city centre I have just avoided possible incidents where i could have been mugged. Its not safe to carry an expensive DSLR camera, especially at night and you are always looking out for possible encounters, even when you are with someone else. This doesn't help when I am running night photography training courses. Also when I am out with a large telephoto lens it always draws unwanted attention and it restricts where you can go. So i am looking towards the freedom Shetland offers where photography is concerned.

                                                             Sheffield City Centre