Sunday 5th October: The Opening Ceremony

Well what a sunrise, worth a wet day to get this!

We decided to have a quiet morning, the opening ceremony was taking place at Mareel , also at the Hay's Dock area of Lerwick. Mareel is another great facility for Shetland, it is 'new' to us as it was being built when we were last there. It has a cafe, which is open well into the evening, and overlooks the waterfront, and lots of cinema screen. Another great place to meet people.

We drove to Hay's Dock and went to the Hub and I thought I'd have a nice quiet spin, Netta ( the young lady from Israel watched me). She learnt to use a drop spindle yesterday and I left her having a go on my Joy spinning wheel being helped by another lady when I went to lunch. This is an example of what happens at the Hub! Netta is coming up to Unst for the Designing a Fine Lace Scarf Workshop that I am going on Wed, so we wonder who the other 2 participants are.

We bump into each other again as we queue to go into the opening ceremony and I admire her first spin yarn on a wheel- a great achievement! Netta's story of how she found Shetland Wool Week is amazing and the map of places where people have come from is filling up - just incredible. The array of different hats was breathtaking and eventually we go into the hall and the ceremony starts. Stalls around the outside of activities on offer during the week, with a chance to talk to the leaders, wonderful music, wine and super cake, some speeches, a chance to other wool week paticipants and it really feels like this is happening now!

I managed to sneak out and meet up with Michael for afternoon tea in Hay's Dock cafe before it closed and as we drove back to Levenwick we noted that it was getting rather windy, we might need to change our parking position again tonight!

The interesting thing was the picture taken of the event that went on fb and the front page of the Shetland Times had my hat in the middle!

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!