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 The first time I saw Malcolm, who’s from Southampton, really, via South Uist, he was wearing a blue boiler suit (something I later found to be habitual) and therefore, with extremely large beard, looked more Zetlandic than a very Zetlandic, pre-Up Helly Aa male usually does. Given that it’s well past Up Helly Aa time,…

 This bizarre triple-tree can be found on the back road to Balloch from Pirniehall. I’m tempted to say it’s a trunk road, but that would be stupid. Because it isn’t. 

Lumpy seas on the Peterhead-Orkney leg of the voyage home, but Phenergan once again negated the nausea. That and, in my case, an enormous meal of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Why do sea trips make me so hungry? Shetland is looking half-submerged, so wet is the landscape. We have friends staying at the Radiocroft…

Waylaid in (by) the pub last night and, having forgotten the lights for my bike, ended up getting the train from Anniesland to Balloch. Susan, bless her heart, met me a few hundred yards (metres? whit?) down the road from the station, and with one quick bound the bike was in the back of the…

Yesterday, the commute (something new for me) from Drymen to Queen Margaret Drive in Glasgow went like this: lift to Balloch station (feeling miserable from some kind of gastric flu) train to Partick, subway to Hillhead, walk to QM Drive. Weirdly, but as is often the case, the show went particularly well despite general grogginess.…

So, I’m sitting, drookit as a very drookit thing, in Glasgow Central Low Level. I am wearing a second-hand Crombie overcoat, a large rucksack, and carrying two other bags. I surmise that I am not looking happy. It’s 9.15 on a Friday night, and Glasgow is in party mode. I am waiting for a train…

There was a choice: Hire a car (“£270 including the excess insurance, sir”), which would have been convenient for the impending week in and around Glasgow and its nearby loch, or grit my teeth and embrace bicycles and buses. Thing is, Susan’s already down there with a Toyota Corolla Verso (thanks, Jim), a double bass…

I’ve always been fascinated by band names…but an automatic band name generator? Try it and see what you think. Frankly, The Chia Goldfish doesn’t do it for me… Your Band Name is: The Chia Goldfish Band Name Generator

We’re into true late March Shetland weather now, severe gale nine winds gusting to who knows what, boats cancelled, power flickering off and then, thankfully, back on again. The snow has gone, but so has the stillness and sunshine of Thursday. Last nightit was hard to get to sleep for the perpetual swishing noise that…

What a day! After all that moaning about the snow, what happens but the warmest day of the year, so far, but WITH SNOW! It’s the first time in years I’ve seen the snow glittering. I was out and about earlier this morning, dressed in t-shirt and light pullover (yes, OK, and trousers) and I…