Heading North

I don’t know about you guys but I can’t believe that we’re a week in to 2014! And what a lot has happened already…  Hope you all had a lovely festive season and that Santa gave you everything you deserved.   I’m running so far behind on my blog that I think I will just give up on doing things in order and report back on my festive season.  December posts will come later once I’ve managed to piece together the last couple of weeks.  Which, given the whisky fuelled haze I’m currently emerging from, could take a while.

I met up with a bunch of ‘Shetlanders’ in Edinburgh on December 30^th and then Fiddlers Bid on NYE, found myself in Fife on the 3^rd of January.  We spent the next couple of days piecing together the 4 amazing nights we spent in Edinburgh.  Below is a truthful narrative retelling of these events.

Back in August, whilst still delusional due to lack of sleep at Fiddle Frenzy we thought it would be a great idea to all meet up again at Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations.  So just over 4 months later, we managed to pull it off, and together with a few extra friends we all descended on Edinburgh to ring in the New Year!

After the most hugging and giggling I’ve done in months (I’m definitely not one prone to giggling fits so I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not), we headed to the Torchlight Procession.  The procession is headed by the Up Helly Aa Vikings, who had all caught the boat down the previous day.  These guys, and most Shetlanders, take great pride in their Viking history, and as a result take their Jarl squads very seriously.  Which is quite right when a Jarl and a squad are 15 years in the making…

Most of us had never seen a Viking up close before, but as a friend of ours was actually in the procession we were lucky enough to have a chat with a few and even get a photo with three of them, much to the amusement of the Shetlander who was staying with us and just couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about…  We did need to explain to her that we don’t have Vikings in Australia, and men with axes, shields and animal furs are actually pretty cool.

After this the partying began!  I’m pretty sure we didn’t end up dancing naked around a fire though I can’t be sure.

<insert haggis related meal and scotch whisky number one for the trip here>  Blank blank blank whisky blank!

After which it was a great idea to head along to Sandy Bells, a renowned session bar in Edinburgh.  None of us had really come prepared as the fiddles were back in our apartment, which just meant whisky, whisky, blank blank blank…  Whisky?

Home away from Home

During my time away I have been tasked with finding various Barton-esque cottages.  I succeeded quite well in Shetland but haven’t found many since.  Though not quite as isolated, this cottage in the Siebengebirge is quite lovely.  Imagine it slightly done up (at least with a floor inside), and a wine bar and a hall for dancing… Quite lovely

An Australian lagerphone in Shetland

Keen to disseminate some Australian culture to the locals in Shetland, it was drunkenly decided that we needed to make a lager phone!  After fending off some of the local wildlife (massive seagulss!), we found  a suitable stick on the side of the road in a shipping yard, and sourced bottle caps from what became our local, and then invaded the Lerwick Bicycle repair shop to create our masterpiece.

No joke, these seagulls are absolutely massive! Unfortunately I was unable to place a pen or coin in the photo for scale.

Scene of the crime

Steph and Lachlan setting up the production line.

A work in progress.

Final touches

The masterpiece completed!

So we had the best of intentions to debut it at the ceilidh on Friday or Saturday night, however due to the serious nature of Shetland ceilidh bands we were a little too intimidated to do so.  The lagerphone was left at Mareel on Saturday night, and when we went to collect it to present it to its prospective owner we found that unfortuantely someone had decided on their way out the night before that it looked pretty cool and had decided to keep it.  I hope it’s new, unplanned, owner looks after it and cherishes its Australian roots.

Tempting the Trows

As part of the Shetland Fiddle Frenzy we were all shipped off to Fetlar for a day.  Two ferries (with sessions) and almost 3 hours later we had travelled from Lerwick to a little town called Houbie.

And this is Steph and I before the lack of sleep took it’s toll.

Fetlar is known as the garden of Shetland and truly lives up to that name.

The day in Fetlar started with a brief town tour, and with a main point of interest being Maurice Henderson’s Dad sitting out the front of his house with a beer, and then off to Jimsie Laurenson’s house for some local stories and tunes.  Jimsie was, and still is, a local folk hero who spun a great yarn, played tunes and was also billed as the strongest man in Scotland! There’s many stories of him lifting horses, carts, large logs etc that no other man, or even men, are able to lift.  Also made some new friends out the back of the cottage.

There are some enterprising young souls in Houbie…

After lunch we spent some time with two of the guys from Fiddlers Bid (Maurice Henderson and Andrew Gifford) and learnt some traditional ‘trowie’ tunes.  For those not in the know, trows are a pretty integral part of Shetland folklore and are basically small, troll-like fairy creatures.  They are short, ugly, shy and mischievous, and nocturnal.  They have a fondness for music, and are well known for kidnapping musicians.  There are many sites around the island that are said to be ‘trowie’ and a lot of the musicians don’t want to tempt fate and will stay well clear of any of these rings of stones and other trowie sites.

Here enter approximately 50 fiddlers into the story.  Maurice, being a local of Fetlar, knew of a particular site and though he had never been brave enough to play there by himself, thought that there would be safety in numbers.  So, off tramped 50 fiddlers through boggy ground for 15 minutes to a rather large ring of stones where we preceded to play the three tunes we’d learnt earlier around the circle.  There were lots of great photos, and it was such an amazing experience playing somewhere so remote.  Maurice was mighty impressed too! And he’s now a little scared to go back there alone.

The evening was rounded off with a great meal provided by the local community and then a concert to highlight all the local talent.  We made good use of the 2.5 hour bus/ferry trip home too with a great session on the coach!  A little tight if you were sitting in the window seats though.  So by the time we got back to Lerwick at 2am it was for a well deserved rest.