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

Driving in Shetland is far more of a pleasure than driving in Sheffield, that's apart from the cost of fuel which is generally 20p per litre dearer. We came back from Diane's sisters the other night in the rush hour, it took 1 1/4 hours to travel 8 miles. When you also consider that the return journey (16 miles) had passed through 106 sets of traffic lights you can imagine the pleasure of driving along the quiet Shetland roads where you see little traffic and would only encounter a couple of lights within the whole island.

                                                       Sheffield rush hour

In addition the road surface in Shetland is vastly superior to that of Sheffield where you might encounter a  couple of hundred potholes on a short road, so we are looking forward to that side of things as well.

                                               The main road in Shetland near airport

Having settled on a solicitor we have just received the paperwork only to find we have to provide photo ID. Now that wouldn't have been a problem normally as we have a passport, but they ran out just before Christmas and not been able to apply for photo ID driving licence without a passport it looks as though we will have to apply for another passport. Typical as we have also found out the Northlink don't require any photo ID to board their ferries.

We have just finished painting various bits around the house and was hoping for a new kitchen floor to be fitted today, but we have just found out that the fitters have cancelled due to crashing in the snowy conditions. We will have to cancel the property photographer who was due Monday morning until this has been done.

We have many reasons for wanting to move to Shetland, some of these include having wide open spaces, being near the sea and far less people. During christmas over 150,000 people visited Meadowhall in Sheffield in one day, that's about 7 x more than the whole of the Shetland population.

Meadowhall is not one of our favourite places, if we have to go we aim for the shop and are straight in and out, unlike alot of people who go for the day. In Shetland the Toll clock shopping centre is a mini version which is more manageable and still has free parking.

While Shetland hasn't got a wide variety of shops it becomes more pleasurable walking around Lerwick the capital, as you can see above on a busy Saturday. Alot of the shops in Lerwick have Shetland made products which reinforces the local identity and are very popular with locals and tourists alike.

We have just had quotes back from solicitors who will deal with our house sale in Sheffield, with three hundred pound differences between the three. With Scottish law being different in that once a bid is accepted it is binding, we will have to go into rented accommodation and hope to buy a house in Shetland as soon as possible after our sale. Rather than putting a bid in for another house which is tied up with the sale of ours in England, we could be left with buying a house in Shetland before we have sold our current house.

Our estate agents, Blundels have been too quick off the mark. We had said that we wanted to do a few minor things to the house before having the photographer and the sale board go up. However the photographer contacted us in December wanting to come round and today we has to stop someone putting the for sale board up. Its never that straight forward and wires always get crossed.

Shetland Dream

Our dream of moving to Shetland started well over two years ago after planning yet another trip to the far north. Diane and I had already been visiting Shetland on a regular basis since 1987, so we know some of the benefits and disadvantages of moving to this northerly location in the UK.

I dreamed of visiting Shetland back in 1979 when I was with a group of friends touring the west coast of Scotland. We all talked about were we wanted to visit and having just read Bobby Tullock's books I was keen to explore these remote islands. They were the last wilderness of the British isles and having been interested in wildlife and photography since an early age they seemed the best place to visit to see and photograph a vast array of birds and sea mammals.

Then having met Diane we got married and money was short so we could only visited Scotland, although always keeping an eye on Shetland before taking the leap to make our first visit in May 1987. Then the St Clair only traveled up twice a week, it was a great experience and we were hooked. Now of course Shetland has a daily ferry and air service

                                                                        St Clair

So back to 2013, a new year and a new start.We had already contacted the estate agents and they had been and conducted the energy survey and completed the floor plan in late December. We had decided to go with Blundels, having previously used them twice before. With some houses in our areas remaining unsold for over a year Blundels had the best record for selling, although very expensive. As we need to complete some work on our house we have arranged for the photographer to come mid January, the sale board will be up soon after.