Before I begin today's adventures, I have to share a photo I took of the Sumburgh Lighthouse from my hotel room.
We were people of leisure this morning, getting up at a reasonable hour. I hadn't bothered closing the curtains in my room and woke up to bright sunshine. Why was I not worried about privacy? Well, who was going to see me, sheep?
I did catch a mother ewe teaching her lambs how to climb over the stone walls, so someone tell the farmer by the hotel that his sheep have watched Chicken Run too many times.
I went downstairs to pick up my parents, and we sauntered to the Sumburgh Hotel restaurant for breakfast. I still don't know who we were today. We're panicky travellers always feeling like we're running late. When did we step through the looking glass?
Breakfast was leisurely and when the kind server came over and offered Dad and me a third cup of coffee, who were we to refuse? By the way, if we're refusing coffee in the morning, take us immediately to a doctor. We live for coffee before noon.
Like yesterday's dinner, we sat overlooking Jarlshof, which I remembered to get a picture of today.
Shetland does many things well, including ruins.
We were out of the hotel and in the airport shuttle by 11, and that included writing three last minute postcards because we had them and it would be a shame not to send them. The trip to the airport was maybe five minutes, and check-in took another 10 so all we had to do was sit around in departures and watch all the planes come in. At one point, there were three planes lined up to load, which we presume is a lot for Sumburgh, though one of the workers told us we should've seen how busy it was during the heyday of oil and gas.
We loaded a little late, but we weren't worried (again, what is with us? When did we turn into to Alfred E. Newman?) as it worked out even better for us because we'd be able to go straight to our rooms when we got to our hotel.
Finally, it was time to say goodbye to Shetland. As we took off, I captured a few pictures. One of the pictures was of the ruins where Mum's second-great grandfather was born, another of last night's hotel, and the final one was of the last bit of land I was going to see for the next hour and a half.
The flight was pretty smooth, which is all we can ask for, and the granny on the plane with her infant grandson took care to try and keep him occupied and quiet, which was a huge change from our original flight to Scotland at the start of this trip.
The clouds made it difficult to see anything until we were minutes from landing, and the landscape told us we were back in a city.
There are more houses in that picture than there are in all of Lerwick.
The landing was smooth too, but we were delayed getting to the gate because of a very city-like problem: a traffic jam. There were too many Loganair planes lining up for too few gates. Oops. I'm not sure it this is most representative of traffic in the city or the organization skills of Loganair.
Glasgow Airport continued to impress as the attendants were at the bottom of the ramp coming off the plane (when we finally got a gate) and they whisked Mum and Dad off to pick up the luggage. While I didn't see any Shetland ponies today, I did act like one, being a pack horse for taking all the large luggage over to the hotel.
Our hotel (the Holiday Inn across the road from the airport) checked us in easily, and even gave us free drink vouchers for each of us (and I promptly lost mine) and after a little reorganizing the luggage to fit into the elevator, we were settled into our rooms withing half an hour of our arrival. By settling in I mean, at least for me, settling in for a nap. Unlike last year, I didn't get rudely awakened by a fire alarm.
My room is very comfortable and very polite. It kept saying hello to me.
Dinner tonight featured Mum finding out the hotel serves rhubarb gin, and Dad with his Bailey's.
I was more boring with my latte because my voucher has vanished into the ether. Still, if the biggest problem we have for the day is me losing my voucher, I can hardly complain. (Though I think Sumburgh Airport should have a couple of Shetland ponies there to say goodbye to all the tourists. I only say this because I'm sad I didn't see any ponies.)
Tonight's blog is a little short, and expect an equally short one tomorrow as we have to be up at a stupid hour of the morning on Thursday in order to make our flight.
As for the moment, I'm watching more Bake Off, then I'll watch the Great British Sewing Bee (which my Gram could've won hands down while blindfolded if it had been around while she was still alive) and then it's off to bed.
Stats
Sheep: 100 (including 3 escapees)
Rabbits: 2
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