Notable events

While we are waiting to move to Shetland we have had some notable events recently. In June we joined our friends, Christine & Keith for their 25th wedding anniversary.  In July, we celebrated our 30th Wedding anniversary.

Earlier this month we managed to get down to Shrewsbury to visit family, which we only see occasionally, family that was originally living in and around Sheffield. Then on Monday we had the pleasure in joining in the celebrations on the 50th wedding anniversary of our good friends Wendy and John Linton Smith at the Fulwood Inn. I have alot to thank John for, having be inspired by his wildlife photography and both of us joined his wildlife adult education class back in the early 1980's. Since then we have shared alot of other interests and I know for one that they don't want us to move to Shetland.

Another thing is that Diane sings in the Church choir with Wendy and they cannot afford to loose anyone else.

We all set targets to achieve certain things, our was to move to Shetland by autumn, that doesn't seem to be on the cards, but we will just have to be content with what we have for now, hoping the the move comes off soon.

Around us another house has come on the market but is £25,000 dearer than ours, while none of the others have sold. Its generally a quite time until the kids go back to school in early September. Diane is keen to break away from our current doctors as they always seem to be sending her for tests of some sort and never giving the results. We are sure that when we move that this wont happen, we have had some good reports of the doctor at Levenswick, one we hope to register with.

                                                                     Levenswick beach

As for the dentist it appears that it is a 5 year waiting list to join the NHS practice in Lerwick. Emergency treatment is available if you go and wait. With our current Dentist insisting that you visit every six months it will be interesting to see how long it is till we have to go for treatment. Its no wonder that our current dentist can afford a villa in the Bahamas, runs a vintage car along with a Range Rover and a Jaguar with the amount of money he receives. If you work it out , his earnings amount to over £1000 per day even if he did just check ups. Now that's the career you would want to get into, with a never ending supply of guinea pigs, sorry i mean people.

We are missing some good things in Shetland , especially the music. Our friend Maurice, pictured here with Diane is keen to get the Ness accordion and fiddle group started for the coming year. Maurice is a very talented musician. Shetland has many very young talented musicians, wish I could play an instrument !

New hope

It has been 14 days since we gave notice to our previous Estate agents, so the new ones can officially take over now. The brochure is in place and they have done more photos and have better wording than the last one.

We are keeping our removal firm and solicitors up to-date with proceedings, no doubt the removal costs will increase if we don't get to move this year, but with the cost of the estate agents coming down we have a little extra to play with. Our first viewer with the new estate agent has come and gone today and we are no further on,. The viewing was done by the estate agent so we had to disappear for a while, even taking our cat for  a trip, much to his annoyance. How on earth will he survive the 7+ hour trip to Aberdeen and then on the ferry ???

Another property in Shetland has come and gone in the area we are looking for , but that's life, its all about the waiting game. I am sure others will come up once we have moved into rented accommodation in Shetland. We will be better placed to look at properties as they come up, although looking at last winter very few came onto the market.

Its interesting that a few people are now going over to air heating, a cheaper option and one we intend to look at closely. With the price of fuel again set to rise by around 20% other alternatives are looking good. Another one is solar panels, but you have to be facing south.

The football season has started, but our team Sheffield Wednesday has yet to win, with defeats in the first three games, but a draw against Leeds Utd which is encouraging.. It will seem strange not going to the matches, having had a season ticket since 1967 , Diane has had one since 1987, we have only missed a few home matches over the years.

I have a passion for photography, especially  for wildlife and landscape and cannot wait to take up the many photo opportunities Shetland has to offer. For now, we are reliving the past visits in the illustrated talks I am giving to the RSPB, wildlife groups, Probus and women institutes.

We have joined a number of  Shetland groups on face-book, to keep in touch and see photographs taken by others. Its not hard to tell that everyone has fallen in love with the place, such is the passion and enthusiasm shown in the wording.

Very sad to hear about the people who have died in the helicopter crash of Sumburgh yesterday, our thoughts and prayers are with the families

New agents

Well this week has been dominated by our new paintwork job, which was completed in one day and has certainly brightened the hall and landing. Need sunglasses to cope with it. Also we have had Hunters estate agents to give us a valuation, a new description, and how they will sell the house, and also what there costs are.It will also be interesting to see what interest they can generate.

Moving to Shetland may end up being in the middle of winter, not what we expected. The journey up from Aberdeen would be interesting, thinking back to last year when the ferry didn't run for several days and Tesco even had to arrange for a Hercules transporter to bring the Christmas food to Shetland. The housing market is virtually non existent at this time so it would mean a longer stay in rented accommodation , which is dearer. Another option would be to rent down in Sheffield and move up say in Spring, but for me this is less likely as we want to start our Shetland experience asap.

                                                                                             Lerwick town centre

People say the winters are long, constant dark days with only a few hours daylight. It can be similar here in Sheffield although with the light pollution it is never very dark . The bright lights of Meadowhall we can do without but the night skies of Shetland we look forward to seeing, as there is always a chance of an aurora, and the stars are alot more evident.

Add to this the superb sunsets and you can see the attraction

                                                                               

We are starting to dream again, but something has to happen down here, we must have someone to buy or house. Two houses that were taken off the market, close by, are now back on with different estate agents, they are playing our game !

Rip Off !

Just plodding on with no one coming to see our house this week. Looking round the area,  one has been taken off the market just up the road, while one down the road has just gone back on the market after 6 weeks off. Don't know whether its because they have had some work done on the property.

On Wednesday we are due to have our hall way and landing painted, just to freshen things up , this should be completed in one day. As it stands its a good time to do things as most people with children have gone away, being the beginning of the school holidays.

I was photographing a wedding yesterday and got talking about houses. The groom had just sold his house, which had been up for sale for two years, He accepted a bid that was £30,000 less than the asking price and the buyer demanded that he left all the furniture and TV's etc in the house otherwise he would back out. Blackmail I think !!!

He had moved into his wives house and didn't need the furniture really , but that's not the point. Its not the first house we have heard that has had to take such a drop. We are still considering moving to another estate agents and will give our current one a few more weeks.

Looks like Shetland has finally come out of the fog to produce some great sunsets.Here is one I took a few years ago at the Wind House on Yell. Now that's got me thinking, that has been empty for some years - is it because of the ghosts ?

Well the last person didn't turn up as arranged. Its so annoying when this happens and the least they could have done was it inform the estate agents.

One of the houses round the corner which was sold subject to contract, is back on the market. It seems one of the people who came to our house put a bid in for theirs and was accepted. It sounds like the person who had sold her house recently but was some £50,000 short and failed to get a mortgage being over 65 it would have been difficult. Its not worth getting stressed out over this, I believe it will happen eventually

                                                                                                              Keep calm
Our friends who are selling their apartment are having worse problems than us, as they live three flights up the stairs are putting people off, and several viewings have been cancelled , presumably by people coming to look earlier to get a feel of the place. They have just reduced the price a second time to try and move it.

                                                                                         Sheffield - we want the piece and quiet

We have decided to freshen up our landing and hallway with a new paint job. Unfortunately all the painters who we have contacted are booked up for at least the next two months, so we will have to continue our search and hope a painter can come i the next week or so , one has said that if he had any cancelled work we would come first. Had a bit of luck yesterday with a painter who only lives 20 houses away, he came to give us an estimate and said he could start the job within the next 10 days, thanks Kevin Bradshaw.

Its been a bit too hot for our liking, being over 30 degrees on several days, although these last few days we have had some spectacular storms. Last week while coming back up the A1 from an airshow at Duxford we ran into a storm which forced us to lower our speed to 20 mph as we couldn't see much due to the heavy rain and also we aquaplaned a few times, lucky nothing else near us.

One thing this weather has done is to make the flowers come up in abundance, although late they do look superb at the moment. Lots of wild orchids in the Peak District.

                                                                           Early Purple orchid

                                                                              Bee Orchid

Just read that Sheffield, Doncaster and Barnsley have been included in the worst 100 places to live by the produces of the book Crap Town.


Just started another blog on the Skies in Shetland, please take a look at

shetlandsky.blogspot.co.uk  see right hand side for direct link

We are now onto our 13th couple who are due to look round our house tomorrow evening.We never expect very much from the younger couples as they always want larger gardens. I may have said before we have a very tiny garden which would possibly suit someone older or who has a very busy life.

Its hard to think about our move to Shetland sometimes especially when you cannot pin a date down. As time goes on it moves our move further down into the winter months as you can nearly always expect around a 3 month gap from agreeing to sell to actually moving. You have to get on with life and plan ahead, I have even got talks booked by the RSPB into next year so i cannot afford to turn down any work. If the moves comes sooner, then things will have to change quickly. We  have even stopped looking at houses for sale in Shetland as we may fall in love with one that we have no hope of getting.

                                                                               Otters - Fetlar is a great place to see them
You have to be realistic, we cannot afford to rent our house as some people have suggested as we will have to use some money from the house sale to move and store our belongings, we estimate over £10,000 in total to actually cover the move.  Not cheap but we are fully committed to going to Shetland.

In the meantime I can live the dream through the illustrated talks I will be giving on Shetland, I have several booked for the rest of the year and people are always interested in hearing about the history and natural history of the islands.

On Sunday night  BBC Countryfile covered the life on Fetlar, coverage from the TV has been very good over these past few years. Fetlar is always a place we love to visit, its not always clear and sunny but the wildlife never fails to impress with the Red necked Phalaropes and red throated Divers on the Lock of Funzie and the numerous waders.

For us, talking to Bobby Tullock and Bill Oddie a number of years ago down at the hide at the Mires of Funzie, just highlight again how much people enjoy the natural world and all that goes into it. Shetland is blessed with an abundance of wildlife, superb countryside, a closeness to the sea we are looking forward to and a people with an interest in what happens to the wildlife

We got talking to a couple of people who had moved to Fetlar, they said it was the best thing they had done. They too had to move into rented accommodation for a year and had just bought a house in the middle of the island, where most of the 80 + people live. Living in a small community you have to get involved and that's our plan too

A dream so far away

No matter what your dream you always seem to be reliant on other people, in our case a buyer for our house. Just the other day someone e-mailed the estate agent wanting to come and view our house. I said straight away that this was a time waster and it proved so, with the estate agent trying to make contact several times without success.

With several houses now having been sold in our area it just leaves three up for sale including ours, which is the cheapest. Our main problem is the very small garden which seems to be putting people off, but they all liked the large conservatory which is more use in our climate. Nothing we can do about the garden, but I believe that ever house has its price.

Two we have seen recently in other parts of Sheffield, have been on a main road which is busy all the time and very difficult to get in and out of the parking area. The other, lots of steps from the front door, straight onto the pavement, with very small garden- both have just sold. We need to be patient and it will come.

I always love the fish and chips in Shetland with the Happy Haddock winning our vote in Lerwick. The chips are very tasty and with a whole fish and a half it make it a great meal, combine this with eating them in the car down at the harbour and you cannot beat the combination.

No such luck in Sheffield, there seems to be no taste to either the fish or chips.

We didn't have chance to have Fish and chips at Frankie's, but everyone recommends them, look forward to the next time we are in Shetland, or better still when we have moved up there.

We will have tears of joy when this happens, much like this ship that called into Lerwick harbour