Category: 60 Before 60

Up Helly Aa 2015 (the night)

Burly men in beards and bras. Definitely a night to remember.

As I watched the flames die down and the burning galley turn to ash, I was buzzing with everything I’d seen, heard, felt and smelt so far this evening. It was after 9pm, but the night was only just beginning. It would be at least 12 hours until I’d get to bed. With exhilaration coursing through my veins and anticipation tingling my nerve endings I made my way to the primary school where the evening’s entertainment was just beginning.

It was already busy when I arrived. I gave my name at the door and, thanks to Linda, the daughter-in-law of the man I’d met earlier at the galley, my name was on the list and in exchange for 25 quid I was given a wristband. Up Helly Aa is expensive. The costs involved in making the detailed costumes and weaponry and building the galley are no mean amount. I don’t know if any of my £25 went into a general Up Helly Aa fund or if it was all to cover the costs of the evening, but either way by 8am I definitely felt I’d got my money’s worth.

A disrespectful tribute to Elvis. He was sat on the toilet which flushed each time the music changed.

I headed first for the toilets to peel off a few layers of clothing. A couple of girls were fluffing their hair and applying extra make-up. They looked very glamorous and in my trousers and plain top I felt very under-dressed. I mentally kicked myself for not having packed an outfit on the off chance I got lucky enough to be invited to a hall. Fortunately I’m not one for letting the wrong outfit get in the way of enjoying myself and I made my down to the far end of the school corridor where I stashed my bag and extra clothing. 

Buxom ladies at a local cafe

This area was doubling as the ‘bar’ area and people were sat around tables enjoying a beer, glass of wine or something a little stronger. No alcohol is sold in the halls so it’s strictly BYO. Most people were very well prepared, with stacks of plastic glasses as well as the booze of their choice. Alcohol is not allowed in the main hall so throughout the evening people were disappearing back here to return a while later with an extra glow to their cheeks. 

Tea-dancing OAPs find themselves in an aerobic class

I found my way to the main hall and pushed through men in fancy dresses to enter. The 48 squads make their way around the 11 participating halls and put on a short performance in each. There are two to three squads in each hall at a time and once they’ve all performed, the band strikes up and everyone is pulled up onto the dance floor to be whirled around in a series of traditional dances with names like Strip the Willow, Eightsome Reel and St Bernard’s Waltz. 

Green Been / Red to Come – the numbers representing the squads

A board behind the band held the numbers representing each squad. The numbers started out red and were changed to green once the squad had performed. 

‘I Don’t Look Good Naked Anymore’


As the squads are all male and many performances require female characters, the squads adhere to the traditions of theatre from years’ past and enthusiastically embrace cross-dressing. It is said that lingerie shops in Lerwick do a roaring trade in the month before Up Helly Aa with all the butch builders, plumbers and roadworkers piling in to buy their bras. Shakespeare would have been proud.

 

The Jarl’s squad arrived at about 12.30am

As the squads are meant to be in disguise most performers wear masks, heavy make-up or dark glasses, only revealing their identities once their performance is finished.  

They must’ve been feeling hot



The performances are outlandish and tend to be risqué with the squads having names like Fat Bottomed Girls (pink frocks and well-endowed bottoms) and Horny Germans (lederhosen and William Tell hats). Some acts had performers removing clothes, thrusting their pelvises and generally behaving in ways you wouldn’t want your granny to see. Except the grannies here had seen it all many times before and didn’t bat an eyelid. Other performances poked fun at local issues, one such being the skit performed by the Clangers. The squad were dressed as the pink woolly Clangers from the 1970’s children’s TV programme and in the style of the programme, which was quite subversive in some of the issues it alluded to, pulled no punches in referring to all the ‘clangers’ they say Shetland Islands Council have been responsible for. 

‘Fat Bottomed Girls’

As well as performances and dancing and trips to the bar there were visits to the buffet. Hot soup was being served along with unlimited mugs of tea. Plates were continually being replenished with sandwiches, cakes and biscuits. The tea was welcome, especially when it got to about 5am and I was starting to flag. A couple of mugs of tea and I was raring to go again. 

A ‘Fat Bottomed Girl’ watching ‘Putindabootin’ Russian dancers


It did strike me that, despite all the merriment, party-spirit and alcohol, no-one seemed really drunk. There was none of the falling around you see on Saturday nights in city centres. No-one burst into tears or started a fight. And I didn’t see one person throw up. I don’t know if it was because of the mixed age group or because everyone knows everyone else or just because of the laid-back character Shetlanders all seem to share, but I do know I liked it. 

He wasn’t really naked

By the time the last squads had performed, the last tunes had been danced to, and the last mugs of tea had been supped it was 8am. There weren’t quite as many people as there had been earlier, but there were still a lot. Everyone was still cheerful as they made their way out, shouting their byes and dispersing to their beds. 

In need of a bikini wax

I walked back to Tesco car park where I’d left my van. I was surprised to see the burger van in the car park was open for business and had a customer. How could anyone still be hungry after all the food in the halls? I wasn’t surprised however, to see the customer was a man wearing a tutu. 

In need of a diet


Note: my photos are RUBBISH. Trying to take photos of fast-moving performers indoors whilst facing a spotlight was a challenge way beyond my photographic abilities. I’ve included a few here anyway as they at least give an idea of what some of the performances were like.


To read about Up Helly Aa day click here.


I’ve written about the history and traditions of Up Helly Aa here and here.


The main Up Helly Aa website is here.

Up Helly Aa 2015 (the day)

Days don’t get much better than this.

The Up Helly Aa flag flying over the town hall

It looked as though it was going to rain, but I wasn’t worried. Up Helly Aa NEVER gets cancelled because of the weather. Only world wars have been able to stop it (and that was probably due only to the lack of men). It was postponed at the last minute for Winston Churchill’s funeral but no-one was very happy about that (and still aren’t if the lack of interest in his 50th anniversary was anything to go by). Far too many sandwiches went to waste and people who’d come up specially ended up missing it. So that’ll never happen again.

I wasn’t in any particular hurry as I knew the Jarl’s squad were getting breakfast and facial tattoos in Islesburgh Community Centre and I wouldn’t be allowed in. I’ve been able to pass myself off as a lot of things, but I don’t think even I’d pull off impersonating a large bearded Viking. After breakfast the squad were taking the galley down to the waterfront for an official photo session and then leaving it there for the rest of the day whilst they went around town visiting care homes, schools and the hospital. I thought the waterfront would be too crowded so instead waited near the town hall. Afterwards, when I saw how good the photos of the whole squad atop the galley looked, I wished I had gone myself. Instead, the first I saw of them was when they came marching up the road to the town hall, roaring and generally making a lot of noise. They did look rather magnificent. 

The Vikings are here!
Raven wings and a mighty beard

So much care had been put into the costumes and weaponry: textiles, chainmail, carved, highly polished wood, intricately patterned metalwork, and of the course the Jarl’s helmet resplendent with its raven wings. Once they’d all gone into the town hall I went down to the harbour to look at the galley. This was equally magnificent. The level of detail equally intricate. 

 

There were still quite a few people around and as I waited for a chance to take a people-free photo, I got chatting to the man who was looking after the galley. He told me his son will be Guizer Jarl next year and so this time next year he will be touring the care homes in full Viking dress rather than standing in a raincoat guarding the galley. 

 

Named after a penguin named after a Viking

He was dismayed to hear I wouldn’t be going to any of the halls. The halls are a really important part of Up Helly Aa, but all are privately run. The festival is a really special time for Shetlanders. If islanders who have moved away are going to come home only once in the year, it will often be for Up Helly Aa. People I spoke to told me it’s more important and a bigger event than Christmas, Easter or birthdays. It’s easy to understand then why, although they’re happy for outsiders to watch the parade, the halls are private and for friends and family only. To have a load of tourists in your hall would be the equivalent of having a load of tourists come round to your house on Christmas Day morning to watch you open your presents. You probably don’t mind the tourists coming along to the carol concert or midnight mass, but there is a line you don’t want them to step over. I understood this and accepted that, as much as I would like to, I wouldn’t be going to any halls.

Spot the penguin


I should have known better. This is Shetland after all. People are friendly and rules are just there to, yeah, well, whatever. John told me his daughter-in-law (wife of next year’s Jarl) was running one of the halls and that when he got home he would ask her if there was a spare ticket for me. He took my mobile number so he could let me know. Just in case he called over some other people and got me the phone number of someone running a different hall, so I had a backup plan if his daughter-in-law didn’t have any tickets. 

 

Even the boats have beards


I spent part of the afternoon wandering round town. The window displays in the shops all had an Up Helly Aa theme. Even Specsavers had joined in with a poster depicting a Viking squad hauling a fishing boat along to the burning place instead of their galley, unaware of the irate fisherman chasing them; the caption was, of course, ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’. As well as Vikings, there was quite a penguin theme. This was because the Guizer Jarl is known by the nickname ‘Penguin’. There was a penguin design painted onto the galley which was named Nils Olav after a penguin in Edinburgh zoo with the same name.

The Bill had been attached to the market cross earlier that morning. It’s a carefully hand-inscribed proclamation satirising local events and notable people from the past year. In red and black painted text it lampoons the discussion around school closures, the unreliability of the Northlink ferries and the controvesial Mareel arts centre. It took me several readings to understand most of it, but even though I try to keep up with Shetland news, there were still parts that were over my head. 

Crowding into the museum


The Jarl’s squad was due at the museum in the late afternoon, so I made my way over in plenty of time. The entrance hall was already quite crowded with people waiting to see Vikings. A couple of guys were keeping everyone entertained with live music. The Jarl’s band arrived first and they squeezed in with their bulky instruments and got set up. Then the rest of the Vikings arrived. Before they came in I would have said it was impossible to fit seventy Vikings all in bulky costumes into the already crowded space. But fit they did. More and more of them pushed through the doors and spectators were crushed back to the walls. They could have shown rush hour commuters on London Underground a trick or two.  

For their theme song, they had chosen Daydream Believer, albeit with a few word changes. As their voices reverberated around the hall, big grins on their faces, light glinting of their chain mail, swords and double-headed axes, I knew I’ll never be able to hear that song again without thinking of Vikings.

Just 2 Vikings having a chat

Following the sing-song everyone piled outside where the Vikings lit their torches for a TV interview. Dousing the fire in the harbour, they then did what all good Vikings do and drove off on their bus.

TV interview



The Junior Jarl’s galley

Wandering back up to the town hall I was in time to see the Junior Jarl’s squad setting off on their parade. The schoolboys also have real torches and proudly set off marching, pulling their galley to the playing fields where they would burn it. It was just starting to rain, but didn’t manage more than a few drops before stopping again in plenty of time for the main parade.



Schoolboys with a burning mission



I went back to my van which I’d moved to Tesco car park so I wouldn’t have too far to walk at the end of the night. As I got my layers on ready to stand around for a few hours watching the main parade and galley burning my phone rang. Yes! I had a ticket. It’s the custom to dress up for the halls but as I hadn’t expected to go to one I didn’t have any posh clothes with me. I wasn’t going to let a little thing like that stop me though. I put a slightly nicer top on over my thermals and considered myself ready. 

 

By 7pm the streets were heaving. I think Shetland’s entire 22,000 strong population, along with several thousand visitors had all congregated on the same few streets. I’m not used to crowds in Shetland. All 48 squads take part in the main parade. As they are nearly all holding burning torches, not all of them are wearing their costumes (or disguises). If the outfit is likely to be flammable (or affected by the weather) they wear ordinary clothes on the march and change before starting their rounds of the halls. The torches are lit, the streetlights go out.

At 7.30pm a rocket is fired from the town hall and they’re off. As 1000 men wind their way round the route a ring of fire encircles the spectators. It’s dark, in the distance only the line of fire can be seen. Even when they are marching behind buildings, the sky is strangely lit up in shades of flickering oranges and reds like an all-encompassing sunset.

I had a great spot right at the kerbside. The smell of paraffin, the heat from the blazing torches, the singing and Viking yells, a thousand men marching past, flames flickering, everything seeming to move so quickly my eyes struggled to focus, let alone my camera. I felt like every one of my senses was being overloaded and maxed out. Still they marched. Still they yelled. Still the flames flared devouring the oxygen from the street.

Earlier John (the man guarding the galley) had pointed out that nowhere else could you give a thousand men a bottle of whisky each and not expect trouble. Here, they not only give them a bottle of whisky but a flaming torch and then plonk them down in the middle of this heady atmosphere. Trouble? Of course not. I don’t know if it’s due to the laidback Shetland attitude or if it’s because this is such an important tradition. Although there’s plenty of alcohol involved, it’s taken far too seriously and with too much respect to be turned into a free-for-all piss-up.



Finally the squads made their way through the gates into the playing fields and stood around the galley waiting for the Jarl to disembark and give the signal for the torches to be hurled onto the galley. It caught light quickly and a year’s work was turned into a bonfire. I’d moved to the road above the playing fields but was struggling to see over people’s heads. Standing on tip-toe I peered over shoulders. The boat took a long time to burn and people started to move away whilst the blaze was still roaring. I got a better view then and watched as the dragon head slowly drooped and fell, succumbing to the flames.

 

I stayed till the fire was almost out. Most people had left by then, but I wasn’t in any hurry as I didn’t have to be at the hall till 9.30pm. I wandered round to the other side of the playing fields. Most of the squads had left as they needed to get into their costumes. A few men were left watching the last of the flames die down. For some reason one of them decided to do the Haka – the Maori war dance made famous outside of New Zealand by the All Blacks who perform it at the start of their rugby games. A Viking doing the Haka; now that’s a cultural mish-mash I wasn’t expecting to see. 




I chatted to an older guy who told me he’d spent some of his younger years around Manchester and Lancashire and then slowly made my way to the hall, buzzing from what I’d experienced so far and excited about what was to come.

 

To be continued …




To find the continuation in which I write about the Up Helly Aa night in the halls click here.

I wrote about the Up Helly Aa traditions here and about the history here.

You can find the main Up Helly Aa website here.



A Potted History of Up Helly Aa

A brief look at the origins of Up Helly Aa.

Ancient Roots


Up Helly Aa, as it’s known today, is a relatively recent introduction to the Shetland calendar, though its origins are rooted far back in time. The torchlit procession and burning of the galley (Viking longship) stem from the ritual cremations of Norse chieftains and the ancient pagan ceremonies held to welcome the return of the sun following the winter solstice. The elaborate use of disguises seen today echo prehistoric fertility rites; even until the Middle Ages people dressed in straw costumes to encourage the gods to bless them with bountiful crops and productive animals. The feasting and all-night partying is reminiscent of the Viking drinking halls of times gone by. Norse skalds were known for their sharp wit and today this tradition is continued in the form of the ‘Bill’ which is displayed on the Market Cross from early morning on the day of Up Helly Aa.


A Different Calendar to the Rest of the UK


Shetland retained the Julian calendar long after the rest of the UK adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. This meant Christmas was celebrated on the modern-equivalent of January 5th, New Year on January 12th, and Uphellia which marked the end of the Yuletide festivities was celebrated 24 days after Christmas making it the 29th January. The celebrations involved fire and feasting, but not Vikings.


It’s all Napoleon’s Fault


The Auld Yule and Auld New Year (old Christmas and New Year) were celebrated in Lerwick with guizers (people in disguise) grouping together to visit private houses and be treated to food and drink. The festivities were lively and lasted all night. Uphellia festivities, on the other hand, are thought to have been more of a rural tradition, presumably because appeasing pagan gods in the hope of ensuring a good crop was of far more relevance to the country folk than the townsfolk. The festival only really spread to the main town of Lerwick when soldiers and sailors returning from the Napoleonic Wars brought their newly-acquired tastes for firearms and debaucherous partying with them. The adoption of Uphellia was a good excuse to let their hair down, kick their heels up and set fire to things.


This year’s Up Helly Aa programme quotes the diary entry of a Methodist missionary who visited in 1824:

‘the whole town was in an uproar: from twelve o’clock last night until late this night blowing of horns, beating of drums, tinkling of old kettles, firing of guns, shouting, bawling, fiddling, fifeing, drinking, fighting. This was the state of the town all the night – the street was thronged with people as any fair I ever saw in England.’



A Merging of Traditions (and calendars)


Over time the Auld Yule and Auld New Year traditions in Lerwick melded with the rural Uphellia celebrations in the beginnings of the Up Helly Aa festival we see today. By 1879 it was decided that Christmas and New Year would follow the rest of Britain and be held on the 25th December and 1st January. The Uphellia celebrations continued to adhere to the old calendar and were still held on January 29th.


Burning Barrels of Tar


Around 1840 burning tar barrels were rolled down Lerwick’s narrow main street for the first time. Rum or beer casks were cut in half and filled with wood shavings mixed with coal tar (the tar being acquired as it was ‘accidently’ left outside the gasworks). Up to ten barrels would be fastened to a trolley and pulled, burning, through the street. This continued until the 1870s when the ideas that are still seen today started to come into play. The tar barrels had been dirty and dangerous, more so because rival groups often came to blows when they met in the street. Special constables were introduced to little effect. Despite complaints by the middle classes and interventions by the town council it seems that the tar barrelling only came to an end because the interests of the participants were changing and enthusiasm was developing in Shetland’s Viking past.


And then there were Vikings


Firstly, the festival began to be known as Up Helly Aa (sometimes Up Helly A’) and, rather than the 29th, the last Tuesday in January was fixed as the date. Guizing was introduced in a much more elaborate form, as was the torchlight procession. The first clear Viking themes were introduced in 1877 and in 1881 the first torchlight procession took place with 60 torches carried through the street. By the late 1880s the galley (Viking longship) had appeared. In 1906 the first Guizer Jarl (chief guizer) was appointed.


It was only after the First World War that the tradition of the Guizer Jarl having his own squad of Vikings became an annual event. Although money was tight in the 1930s the festival limped through. It was in these poverty stricken times that the ‘Bill’ poking fun at those in charge became the greatly anticipated proclamation it is today. The BBC filmed the festival in 1949 and it was from this year on, that the previously haphazard timings became the tightly adhered to schedule we see today. Since 1956 there has also been a Junior Jarl’s squad.




For more about the modern celebrations see here for a post I’ve previously written.
You can find the Up Helly Aa website here.

I’m going to Up Helly Aa!

I’ve got the chance to go to Up Helly Aa and I’m jumping at it.

Up Helly Aa has fascinated me ever since I started visiting Shetland and first heard about it. There are various Up Helly Aa festivals held between January and March in different parts of Shetland, but the main festival, the biggie, the Up Helly Aa to end all Up Helly Aas is held in Lerwick on the last Tuesday of January. This presented a problem for me as the last Tuesday in January is always smack-bang in the middle of term time. And it’s not as though Lerwick is a place I can just nip up to for a few hours in the evening and be back in time to get a good night’s sleep ready for school the next morning.


Because of this, I made a pact with myself that the first chance I get I will be there. As I’m not teaching at the moment that chance is now. I’ve been keeping an eye on the ferries and at this time of year there are a lot of delays and cancellations due to the weather, so I need to plan to arrive a few days in advance just in case. Imagine shelling out all that money and getting really excited just to turn up in Aberdeen the day before the festival to be told the ferry isn’t leaving tonight. It’s not a risk I’m prepared to take.


I’m going to go up in the van so I have a place to sleep. It’s expensive taking a vehicle on the ferry and as I’ll be alone I won’t have anyone to split the cost with. Add to that the cost of fuel and this isn’t going to be a cheap trip. But without the van I’d have to pay for accommodation and would be limited in what I could do as public transport isn’t the greatest. I’d also have to add on the cost of train fares to Aberdeen and if I arrived off the train in Aberdeen to find the ferry wasn’t leaving I’d be left hunting for last minute accommodation and shelling out again.


I’m wondering if I’m a little mad planning to spend a week sleeping in the back of a van on a small North Atlantic island in January. But, thanks to the Gulf Stream, Shetland doesn’t get anywhere near as cold as other places on the same latitude do in winter; there’s not a lot of snow and temperatures don’t drop much below zero. So I’m sure I’ll be fine, but I will take my duvet as well as my winter sleeping bag.


I wrote about Up Helly Aa here

Why won’t my balloon fly?

The weather conditions have to fit a very precise set of criteria before a hot air balloon ride can take place.

Three times a friend and I have booked a hot air balloon flight and each time it’s been cancelled because of the weather. I knew when I first bought the voucher for this that balloons are dependent on the weather, but I didn’t realise just how perfect the weather has be.

Wind, rain, storms, temperature and visibility all affect whether the balloon can be flown and some even affect whether or not it can be inflated.

Wind

  • The optimum speed for a balloon flight is 4-6 miles per hour.
  • The balloon is inflated with cold air using a fan. The fabric of the balloon is basically a giant sail and winds over 6 miles per hour can make it difficult to fill the balloon. The wind will cave the side of the balloon in and cause it to roll around and drag anything it may be attached to. This can damage the balloon and basket as well causing harm to participants.
  • The wind has to be blowing in the right direction – the balloon can’t be steered in a particular direction and so the pilot has to be sure it won’t be blown into an area that could be unsafe or where there aren’t any suitable landing sites. Unsuitable areas include: built-up areas; wooded areas; large bodies of water; and restricted air space.
  • Once airborn, if the wind speed is less than 4 miles per hour, the balloon won’t really go anywhere. If it is more than 6 miles per hour, it can be blown off course, over-reach the landing place, and will also need more space to land. The basket may bounce along the ground, eventually tipping over, before the balloon comes to a standstill. A balloon doesn’t have brakes and relies on the friction caused between the basket and the ground to slow it down and bring it to a stop. The balloon will be travelling at whatever speed the wind is. The stronger the wind the more friction will need to be built to bring it to a standstill and the further the balloon will need to travel along the ground.
  • Just because the wind seems ideal at ground level, doesn’t mean it’s not blowing a lot faster higher up. The pilot will not only check the wind speeds at ground level and at the level you will be flying at, but also wind speeds much higher up as these could drop to the flying level during the flight, or cause other problems such as turbulance.

Fronts

  • There must be no fronts in the area where the balloon is being launched and flown. Fronts usually come with a change in wind direction or increased wind speeds.

Visibility

  • Balloons do not fly at night or in fog.
  • There needs to be at least 1-3 miles visibility depending on the area and the hazards and the terrain.



Rain

  • Rain can damage the balloon as well as decreasing visibility.

Storms

  • There must be no thunderstorms within 100 miles of the launch point.
  • Thunderstorms present hazards to any type of aircraft, but balloons are affected most of all. A plane can turn around and fly away from a storm; a balloon will get sucked in to it.
  • Not only is there the chance of lightning striking the balloon, but gusts of wind can occur up to 100 miles away from a storm.

Temperature

  • Hot air is lighter than cold air and so rises. The air inside the balloon is heated and this causes the balloon to rise up through the colder outside air. If it is very warm outside it may not be possible to heat the inside of the balloon to a temperature that is sufficiently higher than the outside temperature.



So there you have it. With the weather needing to be SO perfect, it’s a wonder anyone ever gets to go on a balloon flight at all.

Bike Expert

I’m feeling a lot more confident about a future long distance cycle tour now that I’ve done this course.

… ok, so maybe I’m not a bike expert yet, but after spending the full day at the Cycle Hub in Manchester learning all about cycle maintenance I know a lot more than I did when I woke up this morning. 

As I have a old and ramshackle bike that I bought for a tenner in a charity shop, I thought it prudent to do a cycle maintenance course so I can at least have half a go at doing it up. I booked an all-day intensive cycle maintenance course with Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative for £44. Yeah, I know, the maintenance course has cost me nearly five times what the bike cost me, but the idea is that it’ll save me money in the long run because I won’t have to keep paying someone else when it needs fixing.



The course was held in the Cycle Hub which I hadn’t even known existed. It’s situated in the basement of Piccadilly Plaza right in the city centre and is a place that provides secure parking for bikes and has showers, toilets and lockers for cyclists to use. Entry is by swipe card and there’s CCTV coverage. Prices range from £10 for either 10 individual visits or a one month pass up to £200 for an annual premium membership which includes use of the showers and a personal locker. The downside to it seemed to be the early closing times – 8pm on weekdays and 5pm on the weekend. This wouldn’t be much good for anyone wanting to go out after work or working a late shift. Apart from this it did seem impressive and maybe the times will change if there’s the demand for it. 

As I wasn’t sure how safe my bike was and certainly didn’t trust it to be reliable, I chucked it into the back of the van and drove into Manchester. As well as the Cycle Hub there’s also a car park underneath Piccadilly Plaza which has cheap(ish) all day parking on the weekend. 

I was first to arrive, but soon after I was buzzed in the other four students arrived. Their bikes all seemed a lot newer and in much better condition than mine. We hoisted our bikes onto tall stands which meant we could work on them without too much bending and contorting. (Note to self: must get one of these stands if I decide I’m going to get seriously into this bicycle maintenance malarkey.) 

We started at 10am and the course ran through till 5.30pm with about 45 minutes break for lunch. We removed tyres, wheels, brakes, gears, pedals, the chain, and a few other bits as well. We then put them all back on again. Successfully. We found out what tools we needed and, as we all had slightly different styles of bikes, we also found out different ways of doing things. At the end of the day we were each given a booklet showing step-by-step instructions for everything we’d covered. 

I’m sure I won’t remember any of it by the time I come to actually do the work on my bike, but at least I know that it’s actually quite simple and I feel confident that I will soon figure it out. The tutor also told me that I had a pretty good bike and was quite impressed when I told him I’d got it for ten quid. It just needs a bit of TLC and it’ll be as good as any posh bike out there!

Bike Maintenance Course

I’m going to learn how to maintain my bottom bracket.

Before we get on with the post here’s a musical interlude to get you in the mood.

 
On my list of things to do before I’m 60 I have the challenge of completing a long-distance bike ride. I have a bike – it cost me £10 from a charity shop. I even have a couple of panniers – they cost a couple of quid each from Lidl in Germany. So I’m all set to go, right? Well, not quite. I know nothing about bike maintenance and as my bike is old and cheap this could be a problem. I’ve read blogs by long distance cyclists who have experienced all kinds of problems with their top of the range bikes, so I’m sure to experience a few jitters from my super cheap bike.

With this in mind I went in search of a cycle maintenance course that would at least teach me the basics. I found this course run by Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative. They hold various courses in various places, including an all-day intensive cycle maintenance course in Manchester for £49.

The course promises to teach:

  • Puncture repair: wheel removal, locating punctures, fixing punctures, wheel refitting.
  • Wheel truing – essential for better braking.
  • Brake adjustment for powerful, silent stopping.
  • Adjusting hub bearings for maximum life and smooth running.
  • Gear adjustment: including fitting new cables and fine tuning front and rear mechanisms.
  • Bottom bracket and headset adjustment.

I don’t even know what most of these things are, but I’ve booked and so hopefully I’ll soon not only know what they are, but will be able to transform my dilapidated ride into a spic and span, smooth-running dream machine.

What’s the best way to learn drumming?

I’m hoping that teaching drumming will help me actually learn to play the drums myself.

What’s the best way to learn drumming? Well, according to research the best way to learn anything is to teach it.

I got my new timetable just before we broke up for summer and SHOCK! HORROR! I’m going to be teaching two year 7 classes music. As I am the least musical person I know this is going to be quite a challenge. I’m convinced I’m tone deaf, I have no sense of rhythm, I can’t hold a tune, when I sing even cats cover their ears. 

Luckily I have a very understanding Head of Music. Before we broke up she asked me what I would like to teach and as I would like to learn drums myself of course this is what I said. I put it on my list of challenges as I think learning a musical instrument will help make me become a more rounded person (at the moment I’m relying on cake to do this) and drums are my instrument of choice because hitting something seems a really good way of dealing with stress at the end of a bad day and this would be a legitimate way of doing this.

The Head of Music spent some time teaching me the basics before we broke up for summer. I got excited, she despaired. We’re going to do some work on beats and rhythm and then, a few weeks in, we’ll get the samba drums out and start proper drumming. I have a lot to learn before then as at the moment I can’t even say the names of the various drums let alone play them. 

Just to help me along (and because I’m enthusiastic) I ordered myself some drums over the summer. I’ve got a set of bongos and a bodhran. I’ve got these because they were the cheapest out of all the different types of drums and at the moment I just need to something to practice my rhythm and beats on. 

As I don’t know anything about levels or stages of drumming I don’t know what to aim for to be able to say I’ve completed this challenge. At the moment I’ll just say it’s in progress and decide later what my actual goal is. 

Should I move to Saudi Arabia?

A chance meeting by a public toilet and a few days later my grey cells whirring.

Stronsay
Stronsay

A rainy Sunday morning on Stronsay. About 350 people supposedly live on this straggly Northern Isle of Orkney, but I rarely saw them. The ‘all arms and legs’ shape of the island does mean that there are lots of lovely coves and sandy beaches, and it was above one of these (St Catherine’s Bay) that I parked up outside the community centre and waited for the patch of blue sky I could see in the distance to reach me. I sat with a mug of steaming coffee intending to read, but stared out of the windscreen instead at the mesmerising seascape of blues, greens, greys and frothy whites. As always, when I get the time to stare at the sea, or mountains, or any other nice, natural view, my mind started to wander and ideas began to form.

Two nights previously I’d pulled up at public toilets at the end of a track, by a beach, just outside the small village of Evie on the Orkney mainland’s northern coast. I planned to sleep there. Not long after I’d arrived a car pulled up. The lone woman looked at her maps, got out and checked out the beach, wandered round, basically doing all the things I was doing. After a short while of this, I decided to go for a walk along another track that seemed to follow the bay round. At the same time, the other woman also decided to go for a walk along the track, so we joined up.

Turned out Caitlin was also on holiday, travelling round in her car and sleeping in the back of it. Like me, when looking for somewhere to sleep, she hunted out quiet spots with a nice view and convenient loos.

We walked for further than we intended, getting excited when we unexpectedly came across a geological phenomenon of basically what are reformed rocks. Sand is made from either rocks or shells that have been ground down. Here the process has gone step further and shell sand has reformed itself back into rocks. Or not really ‘back’ into rocks as it was never rocks in the first place, but shells, as though it was jealous of the sand that had once been rocks and had wanted its own turn at being a rock. We clambered over the formation which still looked like sand, expecting the grains to move underfoot, but they didn’t; they were all stuck together, solid as a rock. Very weird.

sand turned to rock
Rock formed from shell sand

We continued along the track until we reached the far side of the bay and the Broch of Gurness. The broch stands in the middle of the site and has the ruins of a neolithic village around it. The village is made up of a series of one-roomed houses interlinked by corridors which would have been originally been roofed over for protection against the weather. The houses still have the remains of beds and dressers inside them, all made out of stone, Flintstones style. The most well-known example of this type of village is, of course, Skara Brae on the west coast, but this is pretty impressive too and the I think I preferred this one.

Broch of Gurness
Neolithic village at the Broch of Gurness
seal
The seal was still there next morning

The gate had a notice on it giving official opening hours but nothing was closed off so we wandered round having a good nosey and enjoying having the place to ourselves. Well, apart from two very friendly cats and an observant seal that is. I didn’t have my camera with me so went back the following morning to take photos, and although there were several tour groups looking round, there was still no warden.

Broch of Gurness
Broch of Gurness

During our walk we’d chatted about where we’re from, what we do, and so on. Turns out Caitlin, who’s from Angus, lives in Saudi Arabia. She’s just finished a year teaching English as a foreign language at the university in Riyadh and is waiting on her visa being renewed so she can go back for a second year.

My intentions when I became a teacher, were never to do it as a lifelong career choice. Life is far too short to spend it all doing the same thing. I always thought I’d be a teacher for five years – two in the UK getting experience and then three years in the Middle East, earning good money and getting to experience life and culture in a part of the world that really fascinates and interests me. But, the best laid plans and all that …

I’m about to go into my eighth year of teaching and I’m still in Manchester. I have thought about moving elsewhere – I got very tempted by a job in Skerries (in Shetland) a couple of years ago – but the thing that’s held me back has been my parents who are getting older, with all the issues that can entail, and since I moved back to Manchester eleven years ago, they’ve got so used to me being here, it would be quite a wrench for them to have me move away again.

I decided against the Skerries job because it was just too far and time-consuming to get ‘home’ easily and quickly. It would be impossible to pop home for a weekend and I really didn’t fancy spending all my school holidays in Manchester.

Sitting above the beach in Stronsay, thinking in the rain, my thoughts turned to Saudi Arabia and how feasible it would be for me to work there. Many Middle East countries are quite open to tourism and so it’s possible to visit and get an idea of the place. But Saudi Arabia doesn’t really do tourism. Apparently they’re tentatively exploring the idea but it’s really in its embryonic stages and will be a long time, if ever, before it really opens up. So the only way to really get to know and explore this birthplace of Islam and politically important country is to work there.

Caitlin told me that by the time her visa was sorted out last year it was October, and the academic year finishes in June, so that’s really only eight months I’d be away. And if anything serious did happen at home, it would be quicker to fly home from Saudi Arabia than it would be to get home from somewhere like Skerries which involves two ferries (including an overnight one) and a lot of driving. The more I thought about it the more things seemed to slip into place.

I’d like to develop my writing but living in a busy heavily populated UK city limits opportunities – far too many people all doing – or wanting to do- the same thing. Also I really struggle to find the time to keep up my blog, let alone anything else. Saudi, however, could be a completely different kettle of fish. Friends who have lived in expat communities and wanted to write, have tended to find more opportunities than there are here. Also, there isn’t that much written about Saudi Arabia compared to many other places. And if Saudi Arabia is really trying to develop its fledgling tourist industry, now could be the time to become a travel-writer based there. A good chance of write place, write time maybe?

I could also use Riyadh (or Jeddah) as a base to explore other parts of the Middle East, particularly the Gulf. Caitlin said it’s quite feasible to pop over to Dubai for a weekend. I could have the chance to get to know the various Emirates quite well and squeeze in a couple of visits to my teacher friend, Dawn, in Oman.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about Antarctica and how I really need to do something about getting myself there. I don’t really want to go on a cruise – as well as being expensive I’d feel too much on the outside looking in. What I really want to do is go to live there for a while – at least six months and ideally for a full year. As I’m not a scientist that means applying for support type jobs, for instance, as a cook. But I know my chances would be really limited and as I get older, my age is going to go against me as well (maybe I’m already too old?).

Ideally I’d go as a writer/researcher, writing from an anthropological perspective. I always thought if I did a PhD it would be Middle East based research, but over the past few years I’ve been thinking more about how fascinating it would be to carry out research on an Antarctic base.  I’ve even researched universities that are involved in Antarctic research but I’ve not been able to get any leads for anthropological research.

If I started to establish myself as a writer and researcher in Saudi Arabia this may give me a way in to Antarctica. Long shot I know, but stranger things have been known to happen.

I’m feeling that coming across that talk on Antarctica in Lerwick and then running into Caitlin (outside a toilet at the end of a lonely track – really, what are the chances of that?) is all part of a universal nudge to try and get me back on track with my life plans and working towards achieving some of my goals. I could even give learning Arabic a pretty good shot whilst living in Saudi Arabia.

All this from sitting looking at a beach in the rain. I really should do it more often!

Stronsay
Stronsay

A talk on the Arctic and Antarctica

From East Africa to the Arctic and Antarctica. Including Shetland. Gavin Francis has led my idea of a dream life.

Last night I went along to Lerwick library to listen to Gavin Francis talk about his two books. I can’t believe I’d not heard of him before as I consider myself to be quite aware of all the travel writing books on the Arctic and Antarctica. I only knew about last night’s talk because of an article in the Shetland Times promoting the event. The article mentioned he’d started his Arctic journey in Unst which is another reason I’m surprised not to have come across him before as I’d thought I’d read all the travel writing books which mention my favourite island in my favourite archipelago.

Gavin Francis is a medical doctor who had spent some time working in East Africa and at the end of his stint he felt the need to go somewhere completely different to the heat and crowds of Africa. The Arctic is a bit different to Africa so this was where he headed using the Great Bear as a defining boundary (he visited places the constellation can be seen from) and concentrating on the European Arctic rather than the American.

He followed a route that led him from Shetland to the Faroes and into Iceland and Greenland, before exploring Spitzbergen and Scandinavian Lapland. To add extra interest to his journey (as though these places aren’t already interesting enough!) he followed routes documented by early writers. Shetland, for example, was written about over 2000 years ago by an early Greek traveller, Pytheas, who visited around the time the brochs were being built. As his journey went on he followed the writings of far more up-to-date and modern explorers e.g. the Vikings. 

Obviously he didn’t get cold enough in the Arctic because not long after he headed off to Antarctica to spend a year working as the resident doctor on British Antarctic Survey’s Halley Base. It took a while to get there on a boat that went via the Falklands, South Georgia and Bird Island. Once there it was all hands to the deck unloading two thousand drums of kerosene. A couple of weeks later, when the unloading was done, the ship left and it was time to settle in to life with just 13 other people.

About half the people on the base are scientists of various disciplines and the rest are support staff, such as the doctor, a chef, mechanics and engineers. He says he hasn’t gone into much detail about his role as doctor due to there being so few people it would be too easy for people to know who he was talking about and this would of course break medical confidentiality issues. Instead he talks about his time spent partaking in non-medical activities, such as trips out to visit the neighbours; a colony of emperor penguins. With the onset of 24 hour darkness there was plenty of time to observe the night skies and become familiar with constellations and blase with auroras. He also found time to write ‘True North’, his book based on his Arctic travels. Since returning home to Scotland he has written his second book; ‘Empire Antarctica’.

His talk last night, was divided into two half hour sessions, one for each book, with a 15 minute break between and a Q&A session at the end. The talk was engaging and interspersed with a few short readings from his own books and those of relevant others. He also passed around a few artefacts, such as his boots and gloves (big, bulky, heavy) and an emperor penguin egg (pointy, bumpy, slightly larger than a duck egg). The library was full, with people even sitting upstairs in what would have originally been the choir (it’s in an old church). Many of them were older and although there were a lot of locals present, there were tourists other than myself. I sat next to a Dutch lady who was in Lerwick with her husband on their yacht. They have sailed all over the world, including all the places Gavin spoke about. They funded their nomadic, floatational lifestyle by running a yacht business and the lady also wrote books and magazine articles on sailing and their travels.

Now I have even more ideas buzzing around inside my head. I love all the inspiration I get up here from all the amazing people I’m constantly meeting. I hope I continue to get ideas and inspiration from Orkney, though I’m sure I will. I leave on the ferry tonight.