A Day in Lerwick

The weather has not been brilliant today – rain and wind so we gave the horses and ponies a day off from us and headed off into Lerwick.

Summer in Shetland brings the huge cruise ships.  They moor in the harbour and their small boats ferry in many visitors to Shetland.  The summer bunting is out.

Today was a bit quieter than usual (no visiting ships) so we enjoyed our leisurely day, looking at the shops and having a nice celebratory lunch – one birthday, one university entrance (Masters) and one degree achieved.  Success all round.

This is the old part of Lerwick – the picturesque south end of our capital – the Lodberries where there is a hotel and some houses built into the sea.  Lodberries are piers, developed as warehouses, where goods could be directly loaded and unloaded from boats (thank you Shetland Visitor for this information – I did not know).

Apparently it is Shetland Boat Week too and even I noticed there were boats everywhere – a celebration of Shetland’s close relationship with the sea.

This anchor is a new piece of artwork in Lerwick, arriving earlier this year.

It marks 20 years of work from The Friends of Anchor (Aberdeen and North Centre for Haematology, Oncology and Radiotherapy) charity.  There are 20 anchors situate all over Scotland.

Ours is entitled “The Parting Song” by artist Lindsay Allardyce and will be on display until October when it will be auctioned off to raise funds to go towards a project to establish a world-class oncology research unit in Aberdeen.

There is a saying originating from the 19th century that states, “a Shetlander is a fisherman with a croft, while an Orcadian is a farmer with a boat.”

It was a nice celebratory day in town.  Shows on Saturday and Sunday so hard work ahead.

5 thoughts on “A Day in Lerwick

  1. Linda

    Oh, wonderful photos of Lerwick! The anchor is just beautiful (reminds me of Norwegian rosemaling).
    All that history – it’s so interesting!

    Good luck this weekend, and congrats to your “scholastic” girls 🙂

    Reply
  2. Louise Stopford

    Loved looking at the photo’s of Lerwick. Your Island fascinates me and the history is so interesting.. Congrats to everyone – you must be a very proud mum.

    Reply

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