It's good to be home

  After my fairly quick trip (if not quick travelling) south, it felt really good getting off of the Northlink boat this morning in Lerwick. The trip south was a relatively successful visit, getting quite a lot of stuff sorted down south and also buying a new 'toy' (more of that in a minute). If I'd had a choice, I don't think I would have gone considering the weather when I set off, but once down there it was ok.

  The return journey was, as it turned out also good, but at the time was a bit stressful. Setting off at just after 5.30am and looking at the delays and cancellations, I was really unsure if I'd make the ferry in time; but as it turned out, I had an hour to spare before the check-in closed in Aberdeen. The crossing was uneventful - but slightly choppy - and arrived on time in Lerwick at 7.30am.

   There certainly seemed to be more snow here than when I left - despite hearing on the phone the other evening that it had melted. Frustratingly, I saw a lovely otter running across a snow covered roadside field as we headed north but unfortunately I was on the bus at the time.

  I managed to get a lift from Belmont ferry terminal (the usual mini bus was late) and finally getting dropped off at the end of the road some 15 minutes later, a heavy wind driven snow shower greeted me. Despite the blizzard, all I could do was grin from ear to ear at being back in the 'frozen north' as people would keep referring Unst to back south!

  As to the new 'toy', I bought a new camera body - a 7D. I'd been thinking about it for a while now and took the plunge and went to T4 at Witney, Oxon a couple of days ago. I really like the camera and hope I can do it justice. The problem I'll have is that my pc won't like the very large file sizes (my 40D is 10mp - the 7D is 18mp), so, to try and get the best of both worlds I will shoot in both Raw and Jpeg for the time being. Another slight problem I have (and one that I'm happy to admit to) is that when I left down south, I sent a load of stuff up to here via Royal Mail to cut down on the amount I'd have to carry on the train. In the rush to send it off, I put the CDs with the camera software in by mistake and now have to wait for the parcel to arrive, hopefully tomorrow.

  On the wildlife front here, I don't think I missed out on any birds although I have heard of a possible Gyr Falcon - and that's all it was, a possible one.

                        Robbie