Missed by that much!!!! We saw the ferry depart moments after we arrived. Seriously it could have waited. We were there. There were no other vehicles. There were lines indicating where vehicles should park. Lanes one to six. Initially we didn’t see the board which explained the process. I parked in lane 1. Up front. There were no vehicles. Sue approached a fellow who seemed to know about the process. He was disconcerted. No no you cannot park there. You have not ‘book..ed’. You must park in that lane for the not ‘book..ed’. So, we did. It was the size of a football field and we were alone in the ’not book..ed’ space. Another car arrived. He was also not ‘booke..ed’. We joined in convivial conversation. He was a Scott who had immigrated to the US and was now a proud American- horrified with Trump and Murdoch but still proud and pleased with his decision. I would have loved to have talked to him further but ‘book..ed’ man interfered.
We were bound for Yell and Sue had an appointment with a genealogist who had done some serious work on the family trees of residents of the Shetlands. Tony and his wife Liz had moved from the city to the wilderness of Yell thirty-one years previously. They had bought a two-hundred-year-old cottage and discovered they were neighbours to a two-thousand-year Iron Age dwelling and then a Bronze Age dwelling of 3500 years. (I know this is not what should be, but they are the facts discovered by the team of archaeologists that were ensconced on the property for some time.)
While Sue was engaged in the intricacies of complex and convoluted controversies of family history, I explored the outbuildings and stumbled upon an ancient loom that Liz had acquired as a ‘flat-pack’ and had painstakingly put together. She was a fascinating character. A teacher. An inquisitor. An historian. An inventor. She was all these things and more.
They had purchased a home in the wilderness of time and space and were making a life for themselves. There was a bubble in the garden which I realised was their conservatory. Liz explained that they received funds from the government to maintain the integrity of the two-hundred-year-old house with the three-foot-thick walls that were never going to be insulated from the cold and that the small house they had built to the side would have been so much more comfortable than the house that was their home. It was a confronting story.
She showed me the amount of peat they would use in the summer! I was curious about the closeness to the water this ancient house was. She showed me a picture they had taken of the waves crashing over their little house on the bay. I felt quite sad.
We headed to Brae- Frankies. Both Sue and I had the mussels – she had the white wine and I had the chili and Shetland honey (not the best choice- mussels are too delicate for chili- lesson learned.) We returned to our abode and got organised for our departure the following day. I was off to London and Sue to the Orkneys. Our journey together was to come to an end. I felt very privileged to have shared this time with Sue. It had been a grand adventure.