Saturday 4th October : Day 1 of Shetland Wool Week

Our first really wet morning, we had planned to go to the Sheep Sales but decided to give that a miss in the rain! Instead we left the campsite and called at Tesco but were so early there were no papers! These have to come over by plane I guess and 10 am was too early, so onto Hay's Dock for coffee and to register for Wool Week in the Boat Hall hub. I was one of the first but several people around, I collected my bag and met Selina who will be organising Shetland Wool Week 2015 and filled in our tab on the map. I noticed already that one is from Israel!
Sheep at the hub!

Horror of horrors then struck me as I realised that my memory stick was corrupt and all the photos I had taken so far were inaccessible. I had a few really good ones on the camera but the majority would not open. Selina was brilliant and suggested trying both a camera shop and computer shop in Lerwick and told me who to ask for. Of course I always take a back up UNTIL I am on Unst and have a migraine and do it last Thursday! Bad news.
The only thing to do was leave well alone and have lunch - super lentil coconut and apricot soup in Hay's Dock restaurant! During Wool Week I had booked a number of workshops but there are also lots of other things that are open that are either free or open for a small charge. One of these was the Shetland Textile Museum at The Bod. I had looked round this before but the exhibitions change and it was definitely on my list for the week so decided to fit this in this afternoon. Ella (from Jamieson and Smith) had curated an exhibition on Shetland Knitwear during the Oil Boom which was very interesting and there was also an exhibition of Fine Shetland Lace. I can't describe it all here, it is a MUST visit place if you go to Shetland- do allow enough time for your visit. The volunteers are fantastic and very knowledgeable. I spent a long time in conversation with a lady from the local Guild who was spinning about spinning and dyeing that we do. My favourite item? Too difficult a question that! I did love the cockleshell scarves with the different colours towards the edges and the lace stockings particularly. The shop has an array of beautiful items too. I was particularly taken by this card by Monica Pothecary which I had not seen before and I was able to buy it and bring it home - notice the knitting machine. (I have plans to see other knitting machines during the week! )

So the next stop was to see about the memory stick - so I called at the computer shop, and the lad confirmed it wasn't behaving as a memory stick and suggested I called back on Monday when the real expert would be in! I decided to buy a new stick from him and start again.

Postscript to the photo problem: I decided that I knew a clever lady who could help me when I got home and she sure did. She knows who she is and she took my stick, downloaded a programme, popped the memory stick into the computer and the photos appeared. Thank you so much you are wonderful. I will always do a backup and not do anything complicated when I have a migraine!