A beautiful light to wake up to, saw me along the beach in my pyjamas taking photos- just magical.
We then had a slow breakfast chatting with a Swedish lady also over early for wool week too and an Australian girl who was volunteering at the wildlife centre in Hillswick. I was very much looking forward to our first stop as I had been following Victoria's Tea Rooms since our visit in 2014. Things had changed for Victoria, then she had a pop up cafe in the village hall in Haroldswick and now she had her own place overlooking the sea. Definitely a place to visit, coffee and cake both being superb, lunch booked for Friday. We couldn't resist a wonderful solid oak chopping board from the gift part of the shop. The chopping board will enable us to have Haroldswick memories when we are back home! I couldn't resist popping in to the Heritage Centre briefly. (My plan was to spin and chat to the knitting and spinning ladies on Friday afternoon before getting the ferry back to mainland).
Laurie was on desk duty and what a lovely life she leads. Her ancestors are from Unst so she spends one year in Unst and the next in Australia. I noticed a 'Recreating vintage Shetland lace' pattern that I didn't have - so treated myself. It is called Norik fine lace scarf and takes 30g of Jamieson and Smith Shetland supreme and by the talented Hazel Laurenson. I can spin as fine as Shetland supreme, perhaps this could be a project I could attempt. Spinning, even just 30 g , takes awhile when it is very fine yarn. Lovely cobweb scarves for sale too, knit by the Unst ladies. If you haven't been up to Unst, do try and get there sometime, the lace in the collection is superb and the ladies are very helpful and knowledgeable.
We had promised ourselves lunch at Norwick beach, another favourite of ours. Michael walked up the road to do a bit of bird watching and I took the camera onto the beach for seaweed photos. I can't possibly complain, so this is a statement of fact: the sun was too bright for really good photos.
We couldn't come up to this part of the island without a trip to Skaw where the north road ends in a beach. I took photos of more inspirational seaweed and sheep that were probably the most northerly in the UK.
We had had both beaches to ourselves, but when on Skaw beach a group of 4 arrived and one of the gentlemen was determined to swim in the sea there! His wife was rather anxious it might bring on a heart attack. No need to panic though, he got really wet, had his swim and was out. It was good to see and much more brave than my spinning on the beach in 2012 ( blogpost of 30 August 12).
So having had afternoon tea in our motorhome in this great spot with glorious weather we went back to our base, but knowing we were so fortunate to have another 3 days on Unst.
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