Today was our last day in Shetland. We got moving a little late. We had a few last minute things to take care of. The first one for Marg and me was to take a couple of large parcels full of Shetland wool down to the post office in Commercial Street and mail it home. We didn’t really need to lose any weight from our suitcases, but they have become very bulky and no longer slide easily into vehicles or storage spaces. Mailing the wool home would reduce the bulk, which would make the final days of our trip much easier.
The wool Marg had bought yesterday at Jamieson and Smith had been parcelled up ready for posting with customs labels and the works already done by the lady behind the counter. Service with a smile, if you ask me. But the rest of the wool we were mailing home needed to go into a tough postal bag, which needed to be addressed and have the customs declaration completed and attached. We’d need to do all of that at the post office.
The guy behind the desk at the post office seemed to be having a bad day. Every time he spoke to me he snapped. When I struggled to understand him, he spoke more sharply. I weighed the parcel that was all ready to go and handed it to him through the small window he had opened. He took one quick look at the parcel and pushed it away again, jabbing his finger at the place where I had forgotten to sign the declaration. I signed it, then he grabbed it from me and pulled the window shut again.
The second parcel was not so easy. He gestured at the corner of the counter. It took me a while to realise he wanted me to weigh it. I put it on the scales. He shoved a blank customs declaration form in front of me and ordered me to fill it in. I wrote down the address details and those for the contents of the parcel. Without my specs on, I wrote 14.49 kg instead of 1.449 kg in the weight column. He ordered at me to change it. Then he jabbed at the space underneath where I had neglected to fill in the total weight of the package – it was also 1.449 kg, just like I’d written in the box above. I’d also put down 8 balls of wool and a total value of GBP 50, but neglected to write those same numbers again in the boxes beneath where I’d already written them, so he grumped at me again to fill them in.
I finally got it finished and signed it. He snatched it from me and loudly shut the window again. I paid for the postage and left. I didn’t realise Basil Fawlty had a twin brother. I never expected to come across someone ‘going postal’ in an actual post office. He was the complete antithesis of every other person we’ve met behind a service counter in Scotland. They’ve been so pleasant and always up for a chat. I wonder if he was like that all the time, or just with me.
We needed to finish off some last minute shopping – just gifts for family back home really. Eventually we got that done, although I ended up going back to the same place three times and making a purchase of the same item every time I was in the shop. That’s not normally the way I shop, but I think I was still recovering from a bout of post office rage and only able to handle purchasing items in small amounts for a while. What made shopping challenging today was that two cruise ships were in town. Some of the cruise ship passengers were really rude, blocking entrances to shops, standing in narrow aisles haggling over prices, holding people up at the counters. In Commercial Street, groups of them would stand in the middle of the thoroughfare and talk, forcing people to sidestep around them. I really dislike selfish behaviour like that, and I realised that we’d been quite fortunate not to have too many cruise ships in town during our time in Lerwick.
We grabbed some lunch and headed back to the apartment to clean it up before vacating it. We chose a new lane to walk up. It was a dumb choice. I think we all found it the most challenging lane in all of Lerwick. It was just one steep climb all the way, with no steps or places to rest. We were all puffing and sweating when we reached the top. Thankfully it brought us out very close to where we’ve been staying. It was 17 degrees in Lerwick today and the sun was out, making it much hotter than you might think.
There were a few last minute jobs to do. Janie and Marg tidied up the apartment while Neil and I found a service station and filled the car with diesel. We packed all our luggage and miraculously fitted four people, four heavy suitcases and four stuffed backpacks into it. We checked out of our apartment, drove to the ferry terminal and dropped off the hire car, then waited around for a couple of hours to board the ferry. We boarded at 3.30 pm, dropped our backpacks into our rooms and found some good seats in the lounge.
At about 5.10 pm, twenty minutes before we were due to depart, an announcement was made that all passengers were now aboard and the ferry would be departing immediately. Then we were moving. I went out on deck to get some photos of Lerwick and Bressay for possibly the last time. I felt a bit sad. I’m sure we all did. Shetland has been so much fun. We’ve seen and done some amazing things and we’ve met lots of really nice people. The weather has been great and so has the hospitality. I’ll always be grateful that we made the effort to come all this way and stay as long as we did.
One of the cruise ships left at about the same time as us. I wonder if a percentage of its passengers were standing in doorways, blocking aisles, pushing ahead of people in lines and generally being insufferable for the other passengers on the ship like they were in the streets and shops of Lerwick. Maybe they’d been in the post office just minutes before me, pissing off the guy behind the counter. Perhaps he thought I was one of them. I think he did.
A couple of hours into the journey, the captain made an announcement, informing us that we were about to pass Fair Isle, the most southerly of the Shetland Islands, on our starboard side. I went out on deck and took some photos. It’s not a very big island and the northern end didn’t seem to have many dwellings on it. There was a small settlement at the southern end, near the lighthouse. I’m glad I’ve seen it. It might have only about 60-70 inhabitants, but it has given us a style of knitting that I think is really beautiful. My mother-in-law, Betty, used to knit fantastic Fair Isle vests. I wonder if the knitting tradition continues on Fair Isle today. It seems to do so in other parts of Shetland.
Later in the evening, just before 11 pm, the ferry called in at Kirkwall in Orkney. It stops there for about an hour before making its way to Aberdeen.
On The Road With Garry 