More Shetland: Now with a parade!

June 21
It was a slow morning as we were tired from all the cold.  So far there has not been a day above 13 C and the days have been cloudy for the most part. 
It was a slow morning so did not get out and about very early. I stayed at the B&B and e-mailed while Denise went to the Lerwick library and became a member at no cost.  The SFHS did not open until 2:00PM so Denise went and researched Shetland artists as we have two paintings from a J. J. Sinclair that we know nothing about.  Met Denise at SFHS and were told of where all the action would be regarding the parade.  We left there at 4:00 PM and went back to the B&B for tea and sweets.

We went to Dinner, later, with the intention of eating in the Grand hotel dining room but it does not open until 5:30PM so in order to have dinner and get to see the parade we had to eat in the bar.  It is the same food and the same chef so we were OK with that.  We had Shepherds pie and a beef and ale stew which were bot great.  We made it in the nick of time for the parade.  The viking costumes were splendid but the photos do not do them justice.

This is the equinox so there is a parade in Lerwick to celebrate "Simmer Dim" and get people to actually throw money at the floats in aid of the Shetland athletes competing in the Commonwealth.  My safety training saw this as a potential safety issue (shudder) but never the less that is what happened. 

The following photo has been taken at 11:30 at night so one has an idea of how light it is in Shetland.

Cousin Betsy our Guide Extraordinaire

Denise's cousin, Betsy Leask had stated in an e-mail  in early June, that she was quite prepared to chauffeur us around.  Well, I had no idea that she would be driving us literally everywhere as you will see in later posts.  After guiding us to the chalet, she left us to unpack and get some rest.  We followed her suggestion but first we had to put a coin in the electric box to ensure we had some heat overnight.  The temp. was about 9-10 C so heat was required.

Now, one must realize that it does not get dark at night only what is referred as "simmer dim" thus the bright daylight comes very early and our bodies were still on Ontario.time.  You have probably surmised that our bodies are still primarily on Ontario time so we were up early.  Betsy came over mid morning Saturday and had us follow her to their "croft".  We had a cuppa, talked about what we wanted to see.  In the middle of this discussion, Betsy says she has to feed the lambs.  We watched the orphan lambs being fed from a bottle.  These "babies" were having to be bottle fed either because their mother would not suckle them or the mother died.  There are no other words other than cute for them.

Betsy is in the foreground

There I am helping feed the "Babies"

Following the baby feeding the neighbour's Shetland ponies decided to make their presence felt demanding biscuits.  So we were happy to oblige!