Monday, December 11, 2006

No such thing as bad weather...



"No such thing as bad weather," goes the Russian proverb (well, according to Mike Skinner it does)"only bad clothes." I beg to differ. There are no clothes extant capable of making bearable some of the climactic conditions pertaining to Shetland over the past weeks. As I write it is 12.40 pm, and 40 minutes ago, it was dark. It's now a murky sort of daylight, but not pleasant.
And wet. Wetter than wet. So soggy is it that there are fears (see above photo)that the Ness of Hillswick, including our house, could end up being cut off from the rest of the People's Republic of Northmavine. On one side of the road is the sea. On the other is a salt marsh/dainage bog, connected to the sea by a large pipe that runs underneath the road. As you can see, the water is overwhelming the salt marsh AND the pipe. Given that the road (and for that matter, the bit our house is built on) is reclaimed land, you can understand our concerns. Global warming? Sea level rise? Welcome to the cutting edge, mate!
Still and all, a few minutes later, you get scenes like the one in the other picture, and life in the Zetlandic Archipelago seems not just bearable, but beautiful. Thanks to Gore-Tex. Though it should be said that I have recently acquired a Swedish military parka which has the best hood of any garment I have ever worn. It's warm too, but it's for dry snow, really, not rain. However, its day will come. Possibly tomorrow...

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