A very delayed blog post!

This journey started four years ago but I had to become ill 10 days before departure.  Fast forward, Denise and I started planning this trip, in earnest, April.  Many e-mails and discussions with travel agents and places to put our heads at night we were finally organized or should I say relatively organized.

Thus the journey began on June 11, 2014.  We were to take off at 9:15 PM and finally departed Toronto at 9:30 PM only to return to Pearson Airport within 1 hour as one of the landing gear would not retract.  While they tried to repair the problem we were kept on the plane until 11:00PM.  We then all deplaned and were greeted by airline staff announcing that they were trying to secure hotels for everyone and that we were scheduled for a 9:00 AM flight the next day.   That meant we had to return to the airport by 6:30 AM at the latest so  that we could clear security, again.   We finally were taken to a hotel, ordered a takeout breakfast for the AM and got to bed at 2:35 AM.  

Rising and shining at 5:00 AM, and finished all the necessary morning chores and got to the airport for the 6:30 AM rendezvous with security.  These people have no idea just what danger they were in when they greeted me with “Good morning”!  Anyhow, we finally took off for Glasgow at 9:30 AM on Thursday the 12^th of June and arrived in Glasgow in the expected time of 6 hours and 22 minutes.  Retrieving our luggage was relatively simple and we went to the Holiday Inn at the airport and crashed as our flight was not until the following day in the afternoon. 

Back to the Glasgow airport where security was tighter than Toronto but, never the less, we took off on time and the flight to Sumburgh was noisy but uneventful on a 24 passenger turbo prop.  We were met by Betsy Leask, a cousin of Denise’s (she was a Bairnson) and Andrew Bairnson another cousin of Denise.  After the usual luggage   scramble we left for “da Chalet” nears Walls, Shetland.  It is in a magnificent setting as you can see above.  This is the view from our “chalet” front window.

I will digress for a moment to tell you about our rental car story. I had e-mailed to Shetland to inquire about a “car hire” and received a reply from a gent whose name appears in the family tree of Denise.  So Denise gets on the phone and after much exchange of family information they determined they were indeed related.  So the deal was arranged and when we arrived in Shetland  and picked up the car and this is what we were given.  You can also see additional views of the area and water around the chalet.

Now as for the driving on the “wrong side” of the road, we are not great at it or maybe I should say Denise is not great at it as she has done all the driving while I do the worrying.  Her cousin Betsy has been leading us for the vast majority of our driving so we have an example to follow.