Almost gone

I finished a first version of the taboo-language piece today and put it in an envelope for April together with the write-up from the Shetland conference. Gives her something to do while I’m away. That’s all I did in the office. My lovely Japanese office-mate claims this is “mild weather” and, although now at setting 4 rather than 8, still has the heating on.

The mystery of the droning noise is still unsolved. It can’t be my computer, as I can’t even hear it in the bathroom... Another mystery is now added to this block of flat: a missing package of XXL clothing for the lady in flat 1, which someone has signed for but which she’s never seen. Oddness.

Long walk

Today I went for a Long Walk. I went to Holyrood Park, then started following the signs to Craigmillar Castle. It looked like that would be a boring walk along a main road, so I deviated and took the «Innocent Cycle Path» which, as I learned at the end, used to be a railroad. That was nice. It spat me out onto a main road nonetheless, and I started following signs to Craigmillar Castle again. This is very well hidden behind a new development with, in good Edinburgh fashion, streetnames like «Craigmillar Castle Road North Lane West Crescent Circle Square». I had one pound, so didn’t go into the castle, but continued on the walking path, which ended at the Royal Infirmary. Yay?

Then I had to walk along a main road for forever, and ended up at Cameron Toll. Where I’d never been before so I tried that and almost got lost in Sainsbury’s where I bought malted milk biscuits and chocolate chip biscuits. They have too much choice. Then I walked up to Newington, through Grange, bought new cycling shorts at the Bicycle Coop and sat in the Meadows for an hour.

My sunscreen has glittery stuff in it which is really cool (and glittery) but now I have lots of other things with glittery stuff on it as well.

What I did

On Thursday I had my first year review meeting. It was positive, they had some concerns about the amount of historical research I had to do with very patchy secondary sources (which I share – I might decide to dump some case studies), and there was a comment that in the final dissertation it’s probably more relevant to the research questions to present the case studies thematically rather than geographically. This is probably also true.

I also made an apple pie for Heather, who is leaving to get paid more for less work at the Dick Vet. This went down well. The pie, that is. No one’s too happy about her leaving.

In the evening we had a dem/cèilidh for Davide’s language school kids. Italian teenagers: what the boys have too much in attitude, the girls lack in clothes. They were a bit apprehensive at first, but in the end we did get them up to dance. Got home late.

On Friday I finally managed to book a hall for trip practice on the 30th. I had earlier had an «Allo Allo» experience with the people from the German-speaking church (this also implies they don't speak English very fluently...), and a wild goose chase with Drumbrae Leisure Centre. But finally on Friday I got hold of a school that is available. The woman was obviously Dutch, judging from her accent, but I kept speaking English with her which was awkward.

Then we had a picknick lunch with the English Language and Linguistics postgrads in the Meadows in honour of Heather leaving. I had made date and nut pie which went down even better than the apple one.

The evening was not a quiet evening in as intended, but a late evening out because we were celebrating the fact that ylla got a new job as secretary at the Physics department. (As I write this she has yet to mention this on her own blog.)

Today (Saturday) I sat in the Meadows and got slightly sunburnt. Then I decided it was getting too hot and I went for a walk through Grange and Holyrood Park. Had tea, then read something in the grass outside our flat (for some reason I don’t refer to it as «our garden» even though I guess it is) and then went for another walk approaching Blackford Hill but not climbing it because it was already getting later.

Homophony

Someone on the radio was talking about this street with all sorts of nice ‘eetstandjes’. I wondered what was so nice about ‘aidstentjes’ before she went on about food.

More loop

I am home alone, as MG has had to go back to the US. It’s quiet.

The stuff I had to write for the first year review meeting is now finished, although I have of course spotted some errors already. I am now in the process of putting the entire thing in LaTeX, as Word threatened to die on me on Friday, which is typically one of those things that would happen minutes before the due date. (And this was before putting the pictures in...) The whole coding thing is done now (I managed to automate much of it, at least all the accented characters) and I’m just having to put the references in and cure some BibTeX bugs. Having authors with nice exotic names in your reference list is cool, but a problem for automation... Will ask Cassie or Peter for help.

I am still not going on the trip. I have maintained this position since February, and I do not think I can be held responsible in any way, shape or form for some important event in the realm of marketing classical music taking place at the same time as the Ludwigstein trip.

Message for tigger_boing: Tesco has mugs with Tigger on for £3.97. If you go to the Tesco’s on Nicolson Street (this message goes for everyone) and it seems like you’re getting the slightly large, smiling Indian woman, pretend that you’ve forgotten something and leave the queue. Her “speed” makes a heavily sedated turtle look like an Olympic sprint champion, and she has a habit of putting about two items in a bag before deciding it’s full.

I brought the cheque for Lutton Place to the Docwras on Friday. It wasn’t a very long walk and as I had been wide awake since 6am anyway, it was a nice thing to do before going to the office. They live at number 10b of their street. As I was approaching, I could see number 8 – a massive posh house. Number 10 – a massive posh house. Number 12 – a massive posh house. But where was number 10b? Upon closer inspection there turned out to be a tiny cute little archway next to number 10, with 10b on it. Now I’m curious as to the Docwras’ house...

I also received the cheque for Nic’s costume proposal. It was addressed to me, ‘Esq.’! I looked it up but Esq. really doesn’t mean anything. But it looks cool.

Unfair

It is unfair that the England and the Netherlands are having gorgeous weather with sunshine and real summer and all, while we're stuck with [looks out window] oh look, it seems to be temporarily dry at the moment. Can't complain then.

It is also unfair that loads of people are running experiments at the moment for which they need participants. They dish out money for this, if you participate you often get £5 or £10, or at least chocolate. All the experiments require native speakers of English. Grunt. The one or two experiments that require L2-speakers of English want people whose first language is Chinese or Japanese.

It's unfair!

Loop

The past two weeks have seen...

• two apple pies, one for SB’s party (see below) and one to see if HO would eat fruit. He took his piece home with him so we still don’t know. The other people in the office were well impressed though.
  
• moving KH into her new flat at Polwarth. Nice flat!
  
• a party at SB’s where we watched The Full Monty which CB was afraid to watch so she left (probably for the best), talked and at surprisingly little chocolate
• a trip practice that is coming along quite nicely, and will look very performable as soon as people learn to listen to the music and phrase the figures accordingly.
  
• CB’s farewell party with lots of chocolate cake and a surprisingly fun game which was a mixture between Articulate and charades.
• a new ringtone for my phone.
  
• the Japanese kiddies’ dem where YS talked too much and the kids took about half an hour to learn the Circassian circle.
• attempts to do the swords mirror image, as SB and I decided at CB’s leaving party that it would probably make a nice dem. Later LG and RW agreed and suggested doing it on either side of the Broad Swords for a really impressive dem. Strathspey bit is okay to do mirrored, I’m having a bit more problems with the fast bit.
• finding out why Laurits Rendboe was wrong with his assumption about George Low’s word list and the taboo language of the Shetland fishermen.
  
• bulk veggie curry making.
• trying to learn LaTeX with varying results.
• watching the football World Cup with varying results and varying but crucially dire refereeing capabilities.
  
• finding out train ticket details so that AL can get to Ludwigstein (still to be organised).
• no progress meeting for the Ph.D.
• not enough blog updates.
  

Distraction

It's quite hard to concentrate when there's a full pipe marching band, with pipes, drums, and a whole collection of people with swords and a guy shouting at them, practicing off the bowling green downstairs from the office. They were playing one of the Highland tunes that I can never tell apart. It wasn't the silly sailor dance tune.

Evil magpie

I just saw a big evil magpie kill a cute tiny little cuddly fluffy bird. It was fluttering and trying to get away but the evil magpie held it tightly in its horrid beak. There were two or three other tiny little cuddly fluffy birds attacking the magpie to make it release their friend, but due to their tininess and cuddliness it made little impact. The monstrous magpie flew off with its victim, and followed by the little birds who were still trying to save their friend, it flew around the corner and out of sight.

I hope the magpie gets indigestion.

Books

Read this year:

Alexander McCall Smith, De filosofieclub van Isabel Dalhousie [The Sunday Philosophy Club]. A bit of a flimsy story about Isabel Dalhousie, a philosopher, who sees someone fall down from the balcony in a theatre and then starts being way too nosy for her own good. This is why we have police. The nice thing about the book was that it was set in Edinburgh, mainly in Bruntsfield and Morningside, so it was easier to bring the story to life.

Marten Toonder, De toornviolen. A Bommel classic. Bommel wants to enter a flower contest, but his violets are nothing compared to the botanical masterpieces of his neighbour marquis de Cantecler. Until he finds an invention that Kwetal had left lying around. Bommel should know better than to use Kwetal’s inventions...

Marten Toonder, De kwade inblazingen. More Bommel adventures, this time with a garden shed that becomes a portal to another dimension (again because Kwetal can’t keep an eye on his things). It’s a nice dimension, until Super and Hieper manage to piss off the little creatures that live there and they decide to enter our dimension. Oops.

Marten Toonder, De loodhervormer. Not Kwetal this time, but a mysterious traveller that has a method of turning lead into gold. Not only does this mess up your plumbing, it also wreaks havoc for your economy once Bommel and everyone else start transforming lead.

Mark Abley, Spoken here: travels among threatened languages. A very good popular science book about endangered languages. At times it is a freak show of languages, with the all-incorporating verbs in Inuit, or the verbs in Boro with highly specific meanings (‘to fall into a well unknowingly’, ‘to love for the last time’), but it also paints a decent picture of all that threatens the world’s linguistic diversity. Too bad he’s not quite exact on his Faroese stuff.

Hans Schoots, Van Amerongen, letterknecht. A biography of Martin van Amerongen, a leading Dutch journalist and former editor of such magazines as Vrij Nederland and De Groene Amsterdammer. Nice and short, and with plenty of room for Van Amerongen’s cynicism.

Now reading:

Sybe Izaak Rispens, Einstein in Nederland: een intellectuele biografie. Well, not quite reading yet but it’s the next one on the list. A biography of Albert Einstein with special reference to his link to the Netherlands. Apparently his links to the Dutch scientific world were crucial in bringing the ideas of this German scientist to the English-speaking world during World War I.

On the still to read pile:

Armand Leroi, Mutanten. A very thick book about the human body and everything that can go wrong with it. Includes pictures of innocent things like Siamese twins and more obscure mutations of the human body. Rather off-putting.

Arthur Japin, De grote wereld. This year’s Book Week gift. I have no idea what this is about, although it seems to be a story written from a kid’s perspective. The kids on the cover are dressed a lot older than they are and have ugly teeth.

Angst overwint alles: de beste verhalen uit het nieuwe Europa. A selection of short stories and novellas from Eastern Europe. I started the first story at some point, by Marek Hłasko, but it couldn’t really catch me so I put the book aside again. Arnon Grunberg (whose own books are actually very good) should have picked another story to start this with.

Cooperative weather

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday saw the weather gods having gotten their act together, so this allowed for a couple of very relaxing but still fairly productive days. Reading the restricted-access inter-library loan in the mornings, then doing some work in the office, and then spending the last two working hours of every day in the Meadows. You do actually get quite a bit read and I only got hit by a frisbee once.

Went Dunedining on Wednesday which was nice, although my ankle seems to become less happy now. I think I’m going to have to disappoint JF and not sign up for the Japanese dem. I might be able to assist YK in calling... ヒルトヒルト１２３クル。　ヒルトヒルト１２３４。　キクキク　クル。　クルクル。At least that’s what it sounded like last year, when JM and me had her sussed.

Thursday we were at the W’s to watch old videos from Ludwigstein. BW hasn’t changed one bit in the past twelve years, but JB with short hair was quite an experience. It also looks like New Scotland has been doing the same dances on trips since forever, and everyone keeps moaning about. Stop moaning and change the dances to something you do like! What’s stopping you? (Ah, BW...)

Friday was a day of haar. I could hardly make out LG’s flat from my office window, and it was also fairly cold. So that was a day of office work. I started work on writing up the paper for the proceedings of the Shetland conference, and that seems to be going quite nicely.

We were a bit afraid that the haar would last until Saturday, ’cause LG had a picnic planned in the Meadows. But the weather on Saturday was fab. We spent the entire afternoon in the Meadows, I got a bit of a tan and improved my hand-eye coordination throwing a tennis ball back and forth with TB.

The weather today should be good enough to go out again, perhaps sit on the grass outside our flat so I can still listen to internet radio. The Netherlands vs. Serbia-Montenegro today. Serbia and Montenegro are officially two countries. I think this is incredibly unfair, two against one.

Uncooperative weather

Of course the minute I go out to sit in the Meadows, it gets cloudy and windy and cold an unpleasant. On a more positive note: one of my Inter-Library Loans has arrived. Just a pity I can’t go and read it in the Meadows...

Productivity

A good 2300 words today. At this rate I'll have my Ph.D. written by the end of August. (As if.) But I think this does allow me to knock off early today and read another chapter from the French book out in the Meadows.

The week

And again, another week has passed. Blogging is like doing the dishes: it doesn’t take that long, but if you don’t do it, the things stack up and by the time you have time to do it, the pile of things you need to write is so big that you nearly have to give up before even starting.

Sunday: I made lunch for AL and JB. Home-baked bread. It was very nice. Then JB went to get her mother from the train station, I hung out with AL for a bit, then went home with her to get her white dress that she had to bring to JF. Walked home with a bit of a detour and had an early night.

Monday: Dancing in the Gardens. I was stewarding together with AL. We managed to do one dance, and for the rest talked to some tourists although we were unsuccessful in convincing them to come in and dance. There were Australians, and a German/Spanish couple. The Australians took lots of pictures of us with our oversized steward badges and red flag and whistles and stuff. A bit over-organised, those Gardens people. Afterwards to the pub.

Tuesday: Trip practice. I danced as a lady all the time. It’s quite difficult to polka as a lady, especially if JB doesn’t quite lead. GH is better at leading. Some drama afterwards, and I’m glad AL was still in Edinburgh.

Wednesday: AL was packing, or at least trying to. I went to get her frozen vegetables, ended up chatting for an hour or so before we went out to bring her viola to NW for storage, and then I went home. A quick bite and then Dunedin. Which was nice. Walked home with SM and had a nice talk about medieval nationalism and suchlike.

Thursday: This involved a book and a bath. The book was in French and it takes ages to read a chapter, so MG was slightly worried when I only got out of the bath after a good hour and a half.

Friday: Another chapter in the book.

Saturday: Got a (drastic) haircut in the morning, then went to the Meadows to have a picknick lunch with AF and KH. We were later also joined by LG (with SB and his mother passing along as well), and also RW joined us for a bit. Then joined LG and KH again at 6 to walk to the Dunedin Dance, which was very enjoyable although a bit warm. The party at NW & RW was quiet and I was too tired to really participate.

Disappointments of the week: MR moving away and RW not being very keen to teach again next year.

Wedding

Yesterday evening I went to the wedding cèilidh for MS and EM. I went to high school with MS (she was one year below me) and ended up in Edinburgh five years ago. And now she’s married a true Scot and are they moving to Loch Tay once they finally finish building their house.

I really don’t see MS enough. I’m also friends with her sister and I think I’ve seen AS more than MS in the past year – and AS lives back in the Netherlands!

Anyway, the cèilidh of course was nowhere near the one at RW and NW’s wedding, although it was in the same venue. They had Jimmy Shandrix, and the band had the biggest trouble getting people up on the dance floor. So yes, one part of the guests was Dutch so don’t know how to cèilidh, and the others were mostly folk musicians, and they do music rather than cèilidhing. I think at one point we had three sets up but that was really exceptional. (There were 160-ish people there.)

So I managed to limit myself to two dance partners: AS and MS’s ex-flatmate F. We landed ourselves some compliments on our enthusiasm and our dancing technique. (AS is a fitness and dance instructor so has a vague idea what she’s doing; F had never done anything like this before!) The band had some weird ideas about what dances go together. After Hooligan’s Reel, which I didn’t know but turned out to be a dumbed-down version of the reel bit from the Strathspey and Highland Reel we did at SA’s highland classes, they decided to go straight onto the Highland Scottische. Ouch. I opted out of doing the Eightsome Reel with non-dancers, and was slightly worried when they ended the evening with the Gay Gordons!

All in all a nice evening, and I don’t have to feel too bad for missing the beer and skittles. Tonight a dem and then TT’s 30th birthday party.

I am also doing quite well on the eating less chocolate and stopping biting my nails fronts. The chocolate thing is only a slim succes (no pun intended) but that may have had to do with ER, BB and WB’s birthdays in the office last week. The nail thing is better. MG seems to have been in awe. Now I just need to (a) stop plucking at them so that they become a bit stronger also at the ends, and (b) figure out how people actually do things with long nails. They get in the way. How does JB work his claw...

Inter-Library Loan Moan

So GT finally managed to dig up the Inter-Library Loan vouchers from his desk of horrors, and armed with five vouchers and five Inter-Library Loan forms I went on my way to the library. But unfortunately, I had the wrong vouchers! These were £3 vouchers, and they had been replaced last December by £4 vouchers. When I wasn’t entirely jumping at the chance of paying £5 extra – if the department pays for Inter-Library Loans, then wrong vouchers are the department’s problem and not mine – I got told by the library woman that I was unreasonable because the Inter-Library Loans were heavily subsidized anyway as they cost £20 to process.

If they cost £20 to process, they might as well buy the book!

In the end, it got sorted because I just went and collected more vouchers from GT. Now all I can do is wait. In my imagination, how an Inter-Library Loan is processed is as follows. Library bod in Edinburgh reads form, sees that I have already written down which libraries possess this book, sends e-mail to other library. Library bod in Oxford (which is the other library) sees e-mail, prints out e-mail, looks up shelfmarks, walks to shelves, picks up two books, picks up two journals, walks to photocopier, photocopies three articles, puts journals back on the reshelving shelf, walks back to desk, shoves books and photocopies in envelope, puts envelope in outgoing mail. There maybe some filling in forms involved but library bods are allegedly literate so that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Envelope gets sent to Edinburgh. Library bod in Edinburgh opens envelope, sends me e-mail, I come pick up the books straightaway. Really this should be possible in two, maybe three days.

I’ve never had an Inter-Library Loan within four weeks.

Rant over.

Yindyssagh

...which apparently means 'wonderful' in Manx.

I went to a talk on Manx in the language politics and language planning series yesterday, and this morning they had a Manx lesson that I went to. I felt a bit lost between all the people who obviously spoke Gaelic to some extent (although I guess I speak Gaelic to a certain extent as well: I know agus means 'and'), but it was quite enjoyable and you pick up quite a bit. Although I wouldn't know anymore what 'sit down', 'stand up', and 'I dislike Douglas' are.

Have also been speeding through my new book, Peter Burke's Languages and communities in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2004). Relevant to what I'm doing, but not so relevant that it renders my own Ph.D. unnecessary. I bought it at lunchtime yesterday and am over halfway.

Last night we had a committee meeting which was good. We decided that we do not think NW is planning to be injured, that asses, donkeys and mules are different animals, and llamas are just another story entirely, and we discussed the most space-economical way to bury people on beaches or in graveyards. SP's Greek candy thing tasted like carrots.

Muddy Bay Diaries (7)

Two more photos from Shetland...

Earl Patrick Stewart’s little pied-à-terre in Scalloway.
(By the way, not this one.)


The new inhabitants of St Ninian’s Isle.

Logging back

So it took me a week to write everything about Shetland. And now I’m once again a week behind. It’s probably a good idea not to go to trip practice tonight – I’m not going on the trip and I need to get away from the image of «perpetual volunteer» – and continue writing blog entries.

I got extremely frustrated at work last week, because I was writing the same stuff about Norn for about the fifth time. I had a little way out by working a bit on Sorbian, but until I get new articles and books in through Inter-Library Loans (which involves getting Inter-Library Loan vouchers from GT, who has to dig them up from his «desk of horrors») there is little more I can do with the limited information that I have. I did go into AM and ask what I had to do, and she suggested to work on Breton. Yeah, as if there’s any information on Breton... My postgrad conference article is apparently publishable if I add more than one case study – so that has to wait until I have enough data on Breton and/or Sorbian.

I also talked to CH who suggested I take some days off, but that would only make me feel more guilty about not doing anything. I also had lunch with VP which killed a couple of hours and was quite nice.

Then of course the big event of the weekend was the Summer Dance, for which I’d written the programme. I knew it’d be alright, but it seemed like many people were sceptical because they didn’t know half the dances. (I say – blame LG, AG and random Dunedin people for making me do them in dem class, inters or on Wednesdays; I honestly picked them up from somewhere!) But by the end they were all very positive and NW passed on loads of compliments on the programme, with exactly that type of reaction: didn’t know anything but it was great! The one chance find (Cousin Jim) turned out to be quite nice, and once RW and NW had figured out how the bizarre Three-Cornered Hat worked, it was actually quite nice. Still needs a better strathspey bit though.

After party was at ours, and lasted till 3.30. I had danced every dance except for the first one, so my feet were completely knackered and I couldn’t stand anymore. Quite literally. So I sank first onto, and then into my bed. That may not have been very sociable but I really couldn’t stand anymore. And AL, CI and SÖ joined me on my bed so I wasn’t completely alone. (How many English speakers would understand the expression «Remi» for being alone, I wonder?)

Okay, now I’m going to say something that really shouldn’t be said in New Scotland circles. The barbecue on Portobello Beach is a bad idea. It might have been fine when the term finished in June and the weather would actually cooperate, but if the temperature is 9 degrees, the wind is howling over the beach, the barbecues provide a sole, tiny source of warmth and we might just be able to eat all the food before the rain starts pouring down (the scenario of 2005 and 2006), maybe it’s time to revise the tradition.

Oh, we also watched Eurovision. («We» being myself, AF, JW and HP.) Finland, Russia and Bosnia rightfully ended up in the Top 3, I have no idea what possessed Ireland to give 12 points to Lithuania, and why did Armenia not get more points than they did. Eyebrow guy from Malta got one lone point from Albania, that was kind of pathetic.

Now I am completely lacking sleep. I’ve also not been drinking as much tea in the office (I was totalling about three litres a day which seems a bit excessive, so I need to slow down on that). I should also eat less chocolate and sweets, but that’s proving difficult with ER, BB and WB having birthdays on three consecutive days this week, so there’s birthday cake in the office. Maybe I should go to trip practice and dance off the extra calories. I will also burn calories being frustrated about trip people (and myself, but I have an excuse) not knowing the trip dances. Although with JW teaching rather than BW it should be less annoying. Still, I think I’d better stay home.

Muddy Bay Diaries (6)

Saturday evening
After we returned to the hotel, the Faroese quickly went to the bar before it closed. It was quite an interesting conversation, and although I’m not entirely sure how drunk Hjalmar was, it did make for some good comments. He wanted the Corpus Carminum Faroense to be parsed entirely because it would make a good corpus for historical linguistic research into Faroese. But he also thought it would be a good idea to tag everything for literary topic and function. Eyðun didn’t think that was quite necessary. This conversation alternated randomly with Hjalmar’s career plans about selling fish to Germans. All he needed was a fax, an internet connection and a mobile phone, apparently. Another one of the Faroese tried talking to me but I didn’t understand a word of his drunken babble.

Sunday
Sunday was a sightseeing tour of the South Mainland of Shetland. First stop was the Crofters Museum, which is a little crofters cottage that they’ve done up. It’s supposed to give you an idea of how the crofters lived. Except this cottage was about twice the size of all the other cottages of which the ruins are still scattered across the fields. It was quite nice though, but that may have been a result of the extremely good weather. Imagine living there with the usual Shetland weather of rain coming horizontally at you with the speed of an intercity train... They also had a little water mill a bit further down the hill. Quite idyllic.

Next stop: Old Scatness, which they claim is an iron age village. Or a Pictish settlement. They were still busy reconstructing it, so a large part of the terrain was heaps of stones held together by plastic and sand bags. The one building that was finished had a peat fire in it that was particularly smoky that day, so perhaps not advisable to go inside. When the guide at Scatness started telling about their little vegetable garden, I kind of lost interest. Apparently, the Picts had little gardens where they cultivated nettles, dandelions and other things that we call weeds because they grow everywhere. The woman was saying that they do indeed grow everywhere, and they take root wherever you just chuck the weeds, but if you try planting them they die. Maybe that’s a sign that these people didn’t actually have dandelion gardens but if they needed dandelions for anything, they’d just go into the fields and pluck a few kilos?

The airport which was right beside Old Scatness was a much nicer view. They’d just extended the East-West runway at the cost of half a million pounds per metre or something ridiculous. This also means the runway now crosses the road. There are no beams or anything, just a traffic sign saying ‘Positively no stopping on or deviating from this road, by order. Sumburgh Airport Authority.’ There didn’t seem to be an airplane coming so I stood on the runway. It’s impressively short, and you really hope they’d brake more than they did... otherwise it’s right back into the sea.

There was a quick stop at the hotel next to Jarlshof, where they have excavated an old Viking settlement, and then it was on to Sumburgh Head, the southernmost point of Shetland, to eat the lunch we had collected at the hotel. Great views, lots of birds (seagulls are scarily big!) and almost no wind, which was scary.

The tour was concluded at St Ninian’s Isle. The island is connected to the mainland through a narrow strip of sand. In the 1870s they decided that it was much more profitable to have sheep on St Ninian’s Isle than people, so they cleared the island and filled it back up again with sheep. That’s still the situation today. The strip of sand overflows regularly but not at every high tide, or the tide had been low for unnaturally long, because the seaweed on the beach was totally dried out. We had a look at the ruins of the church of St Ninian’s Isle, and I decided to head to the top of the hill so I could have a clear view of Foula. (That’s the peat bog on a rock, and apparently the most outlying island of Britain, although JW and I had decided that it wasn’t. Not the most outlying. They’re probably right about the peat.) But the hill kept on going and going and going and I never seemed to get to the top so I stood on a little wall, saw Foula and left it at that.

That evening was the conference dinner. Not a cold buffet but a proper dinner! I had spinach and potato soup first, then Shetland lamb, and finished with strawberry cheese cake. About time for some decent food too!

Monday
The return flight was a lot less eventful than the trip to Shetland. The airplane was now green and had the Loganair logo on it, so Klaske and I decided that the other one must have given up completely and they’d just used another one. (They do use the same airplane all the time, apparently.) They put me at the emergency exit which I’m never too happy about but (a) I fly too little to remember to request a window seat not at the emergency exit, and (b) there wasn’t any other place left so I got stuck there. Fortunately everything went well, we managed to land and lift off again in Wick, and we were in Edinburgh before I knew it. Might have slept for a bit actually...

All in all a nice trip, a good conference and a good experience. I’ve already been invited back to Shetland and back to the Faroes. I just might.