Visitors in the Voe

Today was a bit of an exciting day in school… we had special visitors putting on a show… luckily they were far enough away to not show us everything they were up to!

This was taken by my admin.

If you look closely at the following image towards the left hand house you may notice a swirl of white water. That was due to a seal trying to out turn an orca. Sadly there was a whole pod. We didn’t see it taken, but it’s chances of escape weren’t high.

After about twenty minutes they all headed back out again. This was 27s pod. In case you are interested, this is the designated number for the Pod’s matriarch.

A Visit to Jarlshof

Jarlshof is a multi-period settlement in the south end of Shetland. Its meaning is home of the Jarl and was invented by Sir Walter Scott in his book ´The Pirate’. He had visited Here in 1814 from what I remember

So here I talk about 2000 years of habitation I was working on memory and it goes way back to the Neolithic. In fact habitation for 4000 years. I don’t actually mention the medieval farm from the 1400’s.

So I basically started in the Pictish part, or at least the bit obviously Pictish in the wheelhouse.

So after mooching about in one of the open-top wheelhouses, I found one that was more enclosed:

leaving the Picts I headed off into the Viking/Norse part of the site… sorry for the wind… it’s normally a constant up here! I mention in this video the house is from the 1600’s I meant the 1700s. I also said John Bruce did the excavation…it wasn’t all of it, a lot of this was done by modern archaeologists… he basically started with the wheelhouse and broch.

This hopefully gives you an indication of how close some of this stuff actually is… Oh yeah, I was in full wind here (this was the second attempt) I seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There is a high likelihood that a lot of the stone in the 16th-century house came from various buildings that are only a meter high now. At about the 59-second mark, I point out the Pictish area of the site. The ruined broch is up against the manor house. The enclosed wheelhouse is the stone wall in the mid-ground.

This final video is a sweeping view of the site from the Pictish to the left, the Viking/Norse in the centre, and round to the manor house to the right. There is a path with a visible panel towards the fence. Just below that, towards the camera is the Neolithic house.

You can see a pile of gravestones in the video above, there are a coupke of theories as to why these are here, one involves shipwrecked sailors and the other is a church graveyard was falling into the sea..choose your theory :).

Another Beach

As we live on an island then you can imagine we do have the odd beach or two. This one is an easy one to get to, some take a bit more of a hike, or in some cases climb and scramble to.

Here is the live barnacle we found. I put him in a rock pool to give him a bit of a fighting chance of survival..

We went late in the day to eat our evening meal as a bit of a picnic. So the sun was getting low in the sky..

A crowded beach

Here is the fulmar, I don’t know if it is still sitting, it does seem a bit late in the year though.

Visiting a Parliament

I had to nip along to Scalloway today and came back up the Tingwall loch and thought I would show you the Thing site. The name Tingwall comes from the old Norse –Þingvöllr: This basically means field of the parliament.

The painting below shows an artistic representation of the Ting still with its causeway. Now interestingly due to the artistic style, it seems to show the building in the foreground is on a large hill. It is on a slope, but not like this.

My horse is actually in the green fields beyond the farm where the smoke can be seen 🙂

You can see the sea in the distance, this is where Scalloway is.

Taken from: https://www.thingsites.com/thing-site-profiles/tingwall-shetland

Now interestingly enough Tingwall isn’t the only place with the ‘ting’ in its name. we have Aithsting, Delting. Lunnasting to name a few.

The loch level has changed since the 1600’s so things would have looked a lot different back then, The painting above shows it as it would have looked.

From the Atlantic to the North Sea

Yes today I came through Mavis Grind, the narrowest part of Shetland with the Atlantic on one side and the North Sea on the other. In fact these days the distance between the two is a bit further as the road was widened.

In the past boats would be unloaded on one side and dragged across to the other. The cargo would be reloaded and they would set off again. It is believed that people have been doing this since the times of the Vikings.

Taken from the Shetland Archives

So here we have the Atlantic Ocean…

And here we have the North Sea…

I was in a bit of a rush as I was needing to get to the petrol station. Hence the long distance shot of the Atlantic 🙂

One of the weirdest things about here is that the tides can seem different. There is about an hour’s difference from what I remember.

Tall Ships

Well the Tall Ships Race is back on it’s way.

Various vessels of all shapes and sizes have been in Lerwick since Wednesday. They are starting to head off on the next leg. The pilot boat is going to be a bit busy for the next few hours.

Paddle Boarding

After a week of absolutely rubbish weather we actually had an amazing day so the kids and I headed down to the loch for a play about. Now this place is about a mile from my house so is really easy to get to. The loch is tidal and the water is brackish.

As you can see, it isn’t too murky, but where the various streams run into it off the peat then it can be.

Apologies for the flapping strap in the above clip.

Somehow I stayed dry, even filming myself…

As I say, this really isn’t a bad place to live!

We have another nice day tomorrow before the rain and crap comes back… funnily enough it is Tall Ships week … the last time they came in 2011 the weather was pretty much as cold and yuk as the last week.

In the Deep South

Well for me I couldn’t travel much further South without getting my feet wet.

Well there were a couple of puffins hanging about, they are so used to people now that they come really close…

These are the reason that most people come to Sumburgh. They are a bit too cute for me. Personally I prefer the Great Skua, but because they eat cute puffins they are a bit persona non gratis to most people.