OUT WITH THE OLD.....

The snow, which was beginning to thaw at the time of my last post to this blog last Sunday afternoon, had virtually disappeared by Tuesday. The ground, which had been under a foot of the white stuff, displayed not a trace of it after 36 hours of wind and rain. However I see, from the Met Office website, that winter is set to return to the islands by Thursday. Let's hope that it's only a temporary reappearance.

I've been working, when light conditions allowed, on the two presently easeled (I work flat on the smaller paintings, so the easel is figurative) commissioned works, and I have even managed a couple of hours on the "stock" work of Gourdon harbour. I received encouragement in the post, in the form of a Christmas card from previous customers in Canada, who exhorted me to "keep up the blog!". It's good to know that people read these posts, even when I feel I have little of interest to relate in them. My grateful thanks to Kim and John from Toronto - for everything!

My brother made one of his flying visits to the islands of his birth last week. In accordance with what seems to have become a tradition, we honoured him by laying on a tattie soup event at Brugarth, Whiteness, for Wednesday tea-time. In the afternoon I took up my usual station at the sink, peeling and dicing copious quantities of carrots, swede and potatoes for the soup, which was to have been made on "reestit mutton". Sadly, what had been supplied to us had seen none of the cure ingredients which would have distinguished it as "reestit" from the "piece o' saat mutton", which is how my mother described it. These ingredients, which many curers keep a close secret and vary according to the manufacturer's tradition, go into the saline solution in which the meat spends a day or two prior to being hung up to dry until it is as hard as rock. Accordingly, Wednesday's soup was a little disappointing flavour-wise. We made a better-tasting potful with two bits of fresh boiling beef last year.

My brother arrived on Tuesday morning's ferry and left with the same vessel on Thursday evening. On Friday I paid my last visit of 2010 to Brugarth, where I found my mother well, having enjoyed her festive season so far, with lots of visits from her burgeoning family. In addition to the usual cooking, washing-up, shopping and multifarious small jobs I help her with, I took the bulbs (which I had planted back in October, and which have all responded to the treatment from my horticulturally inept hands by miraculously sprouting shoots) from the dark place underneath the workshop bench to the front porch. As my mother says; "hit's aye somethin' growwin'!". Even the tulips, which I had planted outside in the front border, are showing signs of life.

I returned to Lerwick in the late afternoon, unpacked my provisions from the Whiteness shop, filled my meter with cards from the same source, checked postal and electronic mail, and settled down for an evening in front of the box. I didn't intend to go out again until Monday afternoon at least, and I had resolved to be in bed by the time the chimes sounded at midnight (changed days for me!) and I was just dropping off when the fireworks gave me a rude awakening. Bye-bye, 2010!

NOT BOXING DAY!

I learnt this startling news from my diary today, namely that the 26th December is not Boxing Day when it falls on a Sunday. Even more startling is the fact that I've gone through 63 Christmastides without being aware of this.

Well, I've just had my first warm-up of my share in the turkey "carry-out" from the family meal at Whiteness yesterday. There's still enough left for me to make a rice concoction with for tomorrow's lunch too. Even better was my sister Mary's sticky toffee pudding, the second (and sadly the last!) helping of which I warmed under the grill today. Megayum!

In anticipation of the jollification ahead, I got my artwork as up-to-date as I could, before setting off to Brugarth on Friday morning to spend Christmas Eve and Day with mother. The two commissions which I have scheduled for completion before the end of January are now well under way, with skies completed and the other features outlined. I hope to get more work done on one of these tomorrow. My advertising bills have now been paid, and the bank accounts are still in the black (just), despite the disaster of the Thursday Toll Clock stalls, which yielded only half of what I'd hoped for, mostly due to adverse weather conditions. Better luck next year, I hope! With things as nearly under control as they ever get chez the Tait Gallery, I set off to take up my duties as general assistant and kitchen porter at Brugarth, which, like the rest of Shetland, is under a foot of snow.

Mother had a late night on Christmas Eve. We had heard that my niece Elanor was playing in a recording by the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, which was being shown on BBC1 Scotland around midnight, so the home help was excused duty at Mum's that evening, and Mary was on hand to perform the bedtime routine instead. Mary's daughter Caroline was taping the programme in case Mum DIDN'T fancy staying up, so the gaps were covered. In the end she did stay up, and the three of us watched an excellent concert of classical-based Christmas music, just the kind which we have enjoyed singing together in choirs over the years, only this time accompanied by an orchestra!

The BBC have provided us with a feast of good Christmas choral music over the past week or so. I've enjoyed all of it, whether presented as a historical documentary, a service or a recital. Simon Russell Beale and Howard Goodall have both done excellent programmes and, together with the traditional Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings on Christmas Eve, and another wonderful programme from Winchester yesterday, I know that my mother has really felt a seasonal atmosphere these last few days, something she has felt was lacking in previous years. Beeb, take a bow! I know that there are probably pressures from the secular, anti-religious and other lobbies (God help us!) to cut down on the Christian output, but there are at least three people who are very happy with what they have seen and heard this festive season.

Christmas was about the coldest morning I have ever experienced. I was up at 7.30am, before the central heating had started to thaw the kitchen out, and I despaired of it being warm enough to allow mother to occupy it. I felt like starting a fire in the place - sadly it's supposed to be centrally heated! It did warm up a bit before mother got up, fortunately, and Mary and I set about preparing a feast for the same company which sat around the same table at the same time last year. And we had another jolly good time too!

By the time we had finished clearing up afterwards, darkness had fallen over the snow, and I took the opportunity of a lift back to Lerwick with Mary's son-in-law David Thomson. He was at the wheel of his father's Range Rover, which he had borrowed for its Arctic terrain capabilities. On the way in to town, the snow was sparkling in the headlight beams, as if some mighty hand had scattered multi-coloured glitter over it, a phenomenon which I can't recall seeing before - perhaps my eyes have never previously been tuned to the spectacle! Thus ended a kind of magical Christmas Day. Even though my back was sore, and I felt knackered at the end of it, I could still appreciate that it had been a special occasion, and I hope the others felt it too - I know mother did!

Now the thaw has set in - the wind has picked up to a fresh south-easterly, and it has clouded over. No doubt it will rain tonight, and, by tomorrow morning, a lot of the snow will have gone - for now! My brother arrives in Shetland for a very short break on Tuesday morning's boat. There are rumours of another feast, this time of reestit mutton soup, on Wednesday evening, and no doubt I'll be on sink duty for that too. I wouldn't have it otherwise!

For those of you who are having them, I hope your Hogmanay celebrations go well next Friday night into Saturday! A guid new year tae ane and a' - when it comes!

ARTWORK, OLD FRIENDS AND ERTIE'S FANBUSTER

While Shetland has not suffered the same volume of snowfall which has been making people's lives a misery on the Scottish mainland, it has been a few feet deep in places, and it was enough to cause problems for the gallant SIC snow-plough/gritter crews. It was also enough to deter people from visiting the Toll Clock Centre, where I sat in my thermals at my stall on Thursday. My takings for the day did sneak into three figures, but not as much as I would have expected for the 2nd of December. There just weren't many people about, although I did meet a few old friends.

One such old chum was my fellow painter Liam O'Neill, down from Unst for a quick shopping trip. I have known him since my art college days, and I had the pleasure of his company for part of the morning. We talked about our art, our ailments and old times, and it was good to see him looking so well. My thanks must also go to Neil Robertson, who brought me a very welcome cup of coffee, and to my sister Mary, who gave up part of her lunch break to look after the stall while I took a much-needed pit-stop. She sold the first print of the day too!

I've received another commission this week, and I've been doing a bit of online research in connection with this. It is for a painting of an Eyemouth-based fishing boat, and views of the mouth of this busy harbour, to use for information on the background, would be gratefully received. My customer is furnishing me with a photograph of the boat itself, the "Dougals" (BK247). I've been working on another order too, a painting of two old Shetland fishing boats, which means that, in the limited daylight hours available to me just now, the stock/exhibition works have been taking a back seat again.

We mustered another shovel-party for the road up to mother's house on Monday. I'm ashamed to say that this time I never had a shovel in my hand, most of the spadework being done by my nephew, his wife, son and father, also joined by a neighbour and my sister Mary, while my sister Thelma and I attended to catering matters indoors. The labourers dined on bannocks filled with salt beef and tongue, washed down by copious quantities of tea. The snow had not been as deep as I had feared - nothing like as deep as when the first such party was mustered in early February. This time, Graham Robinson had no trouble ascending the Brugarth brae in his minibus, which bore my mother safely back to the warmth of her own home, after her fortnight's break at the Wastview Care Centre in Walls.

I visited her again on Friday, when I paid my "normal" call on her with her pension and shopping from the Whiteness shop, as well as her medication from the Scalloway surgery. My driver was Ertie Burgess, who recently took delivery of his formidable new 4x4 taxi which I have begun referring to as the fanbuster. "Fan" is the Shetland dialect word for a deep snowdrift, and I was surprised to see one, about two feet deep on the left-hand side, at the top of the Brugarth brae when we arrived on Friday morning. It never even slowed the vehicle down - it burst through the snow as if it wasn't there!

The worst of the snow seems to be over, for the time being at least. The Met Office are forecasting wintry showers and icy roads for the coming week, and the temperature is certainly not going to be high, but no heavy falls of the white stuff are being predicted for here. I'm very glad about that. I hope, wherever you are, you keep safe this week.

GATHERINGS

My brother arrived, on the Northlink ferry last Saturday, on one of his occasional northward sojourns, to see his mother and siblings, and to breathe the sweet air of his birthplace for a little while. Whenever he comes north, the two of us usually take a trip down to Sandwick, to attend the morning service in our old church, and just to take a look at the old parish. While looking from a distance, it looks pretty much like it did when we were residents there; on closer inspection it has changed practically beyond recognition in the thirty-five years or so since we stayed there as a family. There are several new housing schemes there, and many private homes have also been built. Many of the little wild places, which I enjoyed as a child, have been reseeded or built on. The Broonies' Taing pier, on which I regularly wafted my "piltock waand" to catch copious quantities of coalfish, was one of the first casualties of the oil era. It was redeveloped, along with all the ruinous old pre-war herring stations which were a wonderful playground for a growing boy, as an oil industry supply base which, in the event, was hardly ever used as such. It is now rotting, like the herring stations before it. The only time I ever visit the old place is when Arthur is home - I could cry whenever I look at it.

On this occasion, we visited our father's grave at the Sannock cemetery, which is looking well-tended and has plenty of room to cater for new tenants for at least the next century, even allowing for an outbreak of plague or genocide (anything is possible in Sandwick!). We attended the service in the U. F. kirk, which turned out to be their harvest thanksgiving. This had brought about two dozen of the faithful from their beds on a bright chilly morning. My brother rang the bell to announce the service, and I'd like to think that a few more ears would have inclined and a few more bleary eyes would have opened in the community at the unfamiliar sound - apparently the bell is only rung if he rings it.

After the service, we took a run down to the compact settlement of Hoswick, where the only sign of life was a family playing on the beach. We then came back to Stove, where we found our nephew Kenneth (who had taken a weekend off from his studies at university) resting from his home-refurbishing labours at Victoria House, the Edwardian pile he inherited from his father. He made us a welcome cup of tea before we continued on our way to Whiteness, where we were to have our midday meal with other family members at our mother's house.

I helped prepare the feast by doing the vegetables, and we all enjoyed our roast lamb with trimmings. My sister Mary was in charge of the catering operation, and we were joined by her daughter Caroline and grandsons Robbie and new baby William, who slept through most of our joviality. I took charge of the ensuing clearing-up afterwards and, within an hour, were it not for the satisfied feeling in our stomachs, we would scarcely have known that the meal ever took place. In the late afternoon, Arthur ran me back to Lerwick in the car he had hired for his short stay.

There was a certain inevitability about the fact that the next day was Monday, and the day on which the twice-yearly meeting to dicuss my mother's care package was scheduled. These bunfights are usually fairly relaxed and pleasant affairs, and resultant serious injuries are rare. On this occasion, my two available sisters (the third is teaching in Saudi Arabia), my brother, my mother (of course), two representatives of the home care authorities, and myself were of the assembled company in my mother's living room. There was little to discuss, as the system is working smoothly, and, after half-an-hour or so, the meeting ended and I was left to prepare a meal for the family (a look of abject terror came over the faces of the two care representatives when I suggested that they stayed for lunch - I took this to be a "no"!).

From the sound of contented mastication emanating from the diners, I deduced that my culinary efforts had been successful again. I had prepared whiting fillets, cut up into sections and fried in batter, accompanied by potatoes (from my sister's garden) and melted margarine - an example of the standard traditional Shetland fare which we, as a family, were raised on. After clearing up, I helped Arthur with the task of pruning the rose-bushes in the greenhouse, after which we took the prunings to the dump at Rova Head, and he dropped me off at my flat, before making his way back to Whiteness.

My brother will be heading south on the ferry "Hjaltland" tonight, and his leaving will make me sad, as these things always do. We who are left will dig ourselves in for another Shetland winter. It would be nice to think that we'll all meet up again when the gales die down and the snow clears at the other end of it. We have always had such a good time together.