Shetland December 2010

The days between Christmas and New Year provide the opportunity to watch old films and eat rather too much (no doubt in an attempt to keep the calorie in-take up to Christmas and New Year levels).  And I’m very partial to both old films and eating.

However the “between-holiday” days do also provide a chance to do other things. 

A couple of years ago I spent the “between-holiday” days in Tromso attempting to photograph the northern lights.  That wasn’t a great success – it rained throughout the time I was there, and I went down with pneumonia immediately afterwards.

This year I opted to take the opportunity to go north again, this time as far as our house on Shetland.  The weather offered every possible option – there was snow on the ground when I arrived, and over the next few days I saw gale force winds, heavy rain, fog – and a little bit of sunshine too.  Although Shetland is capable of offering all of these over the course of a week a pretty much any time of the year.  In between the showers I managed to get out to walk on a number of the beaches around the south end of Shetland - and to take a few sunset pictures too.

In Tromso, I needed to get used to there being nothing brighter than twilight in the middle of the day.  On Shetland in December sunrise was just after 9 AM, and sunset shortly afterwards at about 3 PM.  The plus is that you can get you sunset pictures and still get home for afternoon tea.


Shetland December 2010