Coming back home

The beach - just a short walk from our new house.

It is just over a month since we left Ireland and what a busy crazy month it has been. We spent our last night in Ireland staying with friends in Wexford. Friends that I hadn’t seen in over 13 years, so it was great to catch up and meet new children, and be amazed at how unchanged everyone is.

Then we caught the ferry over to Pembroke and had a quick explore around Tenby. We will be returning there in September when Kevin does his Ironman triathlon. Tenby has an amazing beach and it was a lovely sunny day, so we were able to walk along the shoreline and paddle in the freezing water. Hope it warms up a bit by September!

Then we visited my sister and her family in Newport. It was great to chill out for a couple of days and see Cardiff Bay for the first time since it was redeveloped. I lived in Newport many years ago and it has changed so much since then. It brought back quite a few memories – all good!

Then it was up to Peterborough to see my son’s Grandma which was lovely. Then up to Yorkshire to stay with my mother in law and then finally the long drive to Aberdeen to catch the boat to Shetland. By which time we were, quite frankly, exhausted. Not least because we were driving all the way accompanied by Tiger who complained bitterly in his own unique Siamese way all the way. You did not need a translator to know it was the cat equivalent of “are we there yet?”

We drove off the boat into a rather grey Shetland day and for a moment I felt a sense of anti-climax. But this did not last long. We drove straight to our new house where my first task was to get ready for a job interview at a bookshop.

Much to my amazement I got the job. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been too amazed given my qualifications, but after a year of getting nowhere with my job search in Ireland, my confidence was lower than usual. Much lower! And then an hour or so later I was offered another job. And a few days later I got invited to more job interviews. All of which I have turned down in favour of the bookshop.

Now as most people will realise, retail does not pay well. In fact I nearly fell off my chair in the interview when I was told how much (or rather how little) I would get paid. But working in a bookshop is one of those aspirations I have harboured for many years so I decided to give it a try.

And I am glad I did. It is rather fabulous to be surrounded by books all day. And because it was a bookshop that I have spent a lot of time in as a customer I didn’t exactly need much in the way of induction into where everything was.

The best thing about it is that it is only part-time, three days a week, so plenty of time to get on with my writing and my dissertation.

Reader – it is good to be back home. I can't tell you how fantastic it is to be surrounded by so many good friends. I realise now that I missed it all more than I ever thought possible.

My Irish Sabbatical

Time Out in Ireland - Just the book you need for a sabbatical in Ireland

I wish that everyone could get the opportunity to take some serious time out from work. And by this I don’t mean a few months off to have a baby, or time off because of an involuntary redundancy. But real time off that was planned for – a sabbatical in other words.

I didn’t quite plan to have so much time off work myself. It has been the accidental by-product of relocating to Ireland at precisely the worst moment in history to do so. However, my unemployed status has not been without its benefits. I have had time to really think about what I want to achieve in life, and what is important to me.

I always knew that I wanted to be a writer, and this little journey started long before I moved to Ireland. But it is here that my quiet ambition has been allowed to mature into something more tangible. I have now published a novel, albeit just on Kindle at this moment in time. However, this small act is enough to make me feel like a published writer. I even have an email from Amazon congratulating me on this achievement. The novel is selling, and I have even had my first review – five stars no less. However, what gave me the most satisfaction were the emails and text messages from people who have read my novel and loved it. Now that feels like an achievement!

This year of unemployment has been tough for me. I have spent over 30 years in paid employment and I love working. I have made some of my best friends (and worst husbands at work) and it feels good to be busy and an active member of society. The constant rejection, or even blank silences, in response to the hundreds of job applications I have made since I moved to Ireland has threatened to drain all my reserves of confidence. So my little Kindle experiment has at least helped to balance this out.

But this past year has been good for something else. I want to be a writer; but since that won’t pay all the bills I have decided that I would like to do something a little more meaningful than work in an office for the rest of my life. I need to have more balance in my life. I don’t want to spend all day at a computer and then spend all my spare time on my laptop, writing. I want to do something that makes a difference to people’s lives. I also know that as much as I love Ireland, my heart really belongs in Shetland and therefore, we are probably going to move back there before too long.

So I had better finish my “Irish” novel pretty quick while I still have time to do so.

Launching my novel on St Patrick's Day

I have finally plucked up the courage to launch my first novel onto the unsuspecting public. Dancing with the Ferryman was dreamt up one sunny afternoon when I looked out of my kitchen window and saw an ordinary man. At the risk of people identifying him I don’t wish to go into too much detail, but suffice it to say he was a typical Shetland man. That is to say, he was family oriented, hardworking in his three different jobs, not to mention maintaining a croft, and living in the house he built himself.

I thought of all the handsome heroes I had read about in the numerous chick-lit books and realised that there was an untapped source of romantic heroes right here on my island. Now all the women in Shetland reading this would probably think this was hilarious, as Shetland men are not renowned for their romantic notions. But it occurred to me that with a little bit of poetic license I could create the first proto-type. His name is Magnus – a typical Shetland name. He does not have a glamorous career in the city, he does not wear designer suits, drive a flash sports car and he is not tall dark and handsome with a chiselled jaw and a six pack. He is quietly spoken, maybe even a little shy and just a tad old fashioned. Not quite the standard issue 21st century hero.

Turning to my heroine I decided to see how far away I could get from the norm here as well. Jo is a rather ordinary woman. A civil servant, not stunningly gorgeous, maybe even a little frumpy, and she is pregnant as well.

With the two characters fairly well formed in my head all I had to do was find a way to get Jo to Shetland. The resulting novel is a love story, but not just between the characters. It is in effect a love story about Shetland.

The story is entirely fictional, but it was inspired by my love of Shetland. I first visited Shetland on the 8th February 2003 for a weekend. It was grey and miserable when I landed but it was still love at first sight. I went back to work on Monday and resigned. I put my house on the market and moved up on 2nd June 2003; and never regretted it. Although I am now living in Ireland I do not think it will be too long before we move back home.

Dancing with the Ferryman can be downloaded from the Amazon website from 17 March 2010. It costs $2.99 or the sterling equivalent (about £2.15). If you do not own a Kindle you can download the Kindle software from Amazon onto you PC, Mac or as an Android application onto your smart phone.

A holiday to lift the spirits

Not your normal holiday snap!

Most people I know would prefer to spend their holiday in a hot sunny place, lazing around on the beach or exploring some historic or exotic city. And whilst I would agree that some element of sunshine is usually desirable I am not excessively fond of the normal sun and sea package holiday; which is why I chose to go to Shetland for my half-term holiday this year.

However, it didn’t seem quite so much of a holiday rather than a trip back home. Walking off the Northlink ferry early on Saturday morning into the bright but chilly sunshine I felt as if I had just returned from a long holiday. A holiday that I must have consumed far too much alcohol on as my memory seemed rather hazy. It was hard to shake off this feeling all week as I caught up with around 30 of my dearest friends and neighbours. It was great to be in Shetland again and I particularly loved the opportunity to gaze out to sea at the view I used to call my own.

Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, I feel as if I hadn’t missed out on too much of the gossip, but it was so much better to hear it all again at first hand. And Facebook might be good for seeing photographs, but it doesn’t take the place of getting to cuddle lovely new babies.

I have missed Shetland so much during the last eight months in Ireland. There is something really quite extraordinary about the community where I lived. So friendly, so welcoming, so funny. I have missed my book club and the SWRI (Scottish Women’s Rural Institute) and my friends and neighbours. I missed hearing the unique language and dialect, and it was hilarious to hear my son speaking the dialect again, as if he had never been away.

At the end of my short holiday I felt revived and refreshed and all the more determined to get on with my writing. I have people waiting for a sequel to my first Shetland novel, so I had better get back to work. And as much as I like living in Ireland, it made me realise that my first love is Shetland. I shall be back there next summer for another holiday and hope to see all the people that I didn’t manage to fit in this time. Can’t wait!



An exhilarating walk to Eshaness to explore an old broch site

Going home to Shetland

The view from my house looking West to the mainland

I have just booked a holiday to Shetland and I am now feeling like a child in the run up to Christmas. The October holiday cannot come soon enough. It will be no surprise to anybody who knows me that I miss Shetland terribly, for many reasons, and my friends are top of that list. However, there are some things that I miss, that might be unexpected. My daily commute to Lerwick from Whalsay was something that not many people envied. I was always surprised at how many Shetlanders hated travelling on the inter isle ferry. For the residents of Whalsay (a small island with a population of just over 1000) life was rather dominated by the ferries; their capacity; constrictions of the timetable; the cost, and of course, the vagaries of the weather.

I soon memorised the timetable; got to grips with the need to book ferries at peak times; timed the drive to the ferry terminal so that I wouldn’t miss the boat; and learned to accept that I couldn’t stay out late without booking the last ferry. Not that the last ferry ran very late, unless it was a very special occasion such as a wedding. Cinderella got a better deal in fact. However, despite the restrictions, I loved catching the ferry. It was the highlight of my day, and was undoubtedly better than travelling by train, underground or any other commute I have experienced before.

Even after nearly seven years I would still get the same buzz as if I was a tourist experiencing the journey for the first time. It was thirty minutes of heaven, twice a day, whatever the weather. Luckily I am a good sailor and never experienced seasickness, despite the Force 8 gales that would often strike terror into the hearts of some of my fellow travellers. Anything stronger than Force 8 and we would be temporarily marooned, with a day or so off work for the duration. One particularly bad spell of weather meant I had a week off work, but luckily the freezer was always well-stocked, and so were my bookshelves.

But on the bonny days, of which there were countless, I would go outside to the tiny deck and sit on the steps that led up to the wheelhouse and admire the view. I never tired of the scenery, which changed daily depending on the weather. There are not enough superlatives to describe the beauty of the Shetland Islands as viewed from either land or sea. You have to see it for yourself. Even photographs are a flattened, duller version of the real thing, whatever the skill of the photographer.

During one of my creative writing classes I was asked to produce some poetry, which is not something I have any natural talent for. But I thought I would be able to find inspiration in the view, and planned to use my time on the ferry for this purpose. I would stare out to sea, taking in the wondrous scenery, waiting for the creative juices to flow. Only they didn’t. It seemed that the more I admired the vivid textures of the landscape, the peat and heather covered hills, and the glittering sea, the more I felt that I could not capture it properly. It was too immense. Everything I started seemed immature, contrived, clichéd or worse and I became more and more miserable at my failure to compose something adequate.

But then one day, during a storm, when the ferry was diverted to the safer haven of the alternative ferry terminal at Vidlin, I sat and looked back at Whalsay and saw my house in the distance, a view I didn’t often see from this perspective. My house was situated on top of a hill, close to a small settlement of other houses, all belonging to people that I had come to know and love. I had a moment of revelation. I had come so far in life and I was finally home, safe and well. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t write a poem about the beauty of Shetland. I had other stories to tell. Over the next twenty minutes of the journey I jotted down the notes of the first poem I had written in over 30 years. The next day I wrote another; the day after that another. I cannot say with any conviction that they were any good, but I had got over that initial stumbling block. Poetry will never be my forte, but my daily journey on the sea inspired my first novel, Dancing with the Ferryman. (More about that another time).

In the meantime, if you are interested, the poems I wrote on the ferry are published on my website.



The view looking North West towards Fetlar, Yell and Unst

Talk about the weather

(Lerwick Harbour - Summer 2009)

The weather forecast is on in the background, promising another hot and sunny day for the UK. Here in Ireland it is disappointingly dull by comparison. The weather is such a key factor in our daily lives. For me it is the first thing I notice when I look out of the window in the morning. I pay attention to the BBC weather forecast and look at weather online, and the only reason I had originally signed up for Twitter was to follow Dawadderman (Dave Wheeler, the Fair Isle Weather Guru).

I wonder whether my obsession with the weather is unusual, but I don’t think it is. We love to talk about the weather. It is the best conversational opening gambit or greeting, and an even better source of observational humour, to be shared with anyone from family to complete strangers. The weather, strangely enough, is one of the things I miss most about Shetland. The expression “four seasons in one day” was particularly apt for the Northern Isles. The weather was a constant source of amusement, exasperation, horror and, more often than some would expect, pleasure.

There was nothing more pleasurable than waking up in Shetland and hearing silence outside. Silence, with the exception of the noise produced by the large bird population, meant that there was no wind, and no wind meant it was a fine day. When I first moved to Shetland I used to be surprised when my new friends and neighbours would talk about what a fine day it was, when it was often rather dull. I soon learned to appreciate those fine days though. The alternative was often a wild gale and horizontal rain. But even on those foul days, we would laugh and joke about the “course weather” and there was a whole new vocabulary to learn about how to describe the day. I remember being both delighted and horrified in equal measure when I heard one very respectable elderly lady describe a storm as a “day of shite” and a “Godless whore of a day”. As a budding writer, I stored away those wonderful descriptions for future use, along with all the elements of potential drama and romance that the storms or the Northern Lights could create for me.


(Oscar Charlie on a training exercise in bad weather)

But don’t take away the impression from reading this that the weather in Shetland was often “shite.” There were so many days of glittering sunshine throughout the year, through all of the seasons, “all two of them”. Those days would make your heart sing and force you out of the house to take advantage of the fabulous day, never knowing how long it would last. An hour, a morning, a whole day, or just occasionally it would last a few weeks. I will never forget the summer of 2003 and 2009 for the seemingly endless days of sunshine that reminded me of my childhood, when I am sure it never rained then either. On a beautiful day you were inspired to go walking along the beach or around the loch at the back of the house, take the ferry across to the mainland and sit out on deck and feel as if you were on a mini-cruise. A sunny day put a smile on everyone’s face and brought out even more of the humour and joie de vivre that Shetlanders have in abundance.


(Sun and snow - the perfect combination)

People still talk about the weather here in Ireland, but with less passion and less humour. There are less extreme weather days and therefore the subject is a little more mundane. The disappointingly dull day that is happening outside my window would be considered a great day in Shetland. The temperature is 19 degrees, the windy is blowing sufficiently well to make it a “fine drying day” and there is no rain on the horizon. I am so glad I had my time in Shetland to make me appreciate a fine day for what it is, and for the colourful increase in my vocabulary.