The last blog from Shetland

This is the last week we can claim to be from Shetland (although, of course, we will always be islanders in our hearts!)

Over the past few weeks, I have been home, clearing out both the house and the studio, and sprucing things up, ready for a new chapter. It is all looking rather smart in the studio now, and Ferncliff, our house-on-the-hill in Gutcher, has been sold. Now we are going to look for someone to take over the running of the studio and, I hope, inject new energy and make it into something exciting and different. An ideal challenge for anyone looking to make a change and do what we did 20 years ago: become an islander.

Over the past few months while this has all been going on I have given the blog a lot of thought. What sort of blog should I continue to write, given that Shetland has been the birthplace of the weekly newsletter and has figured prominently throughout? It is a Difficult Thing to think about, especially when I shall no longer live here, not to mention the world being so topsy-turvey at the moment.  So I have decided to continue the blog in the same vein and let things gradually settle as we move onto our new lives. To celebrate that non-decision, this week the blog is mostly made up of interesting items that people have sent in. Thank you everyone, contributors and readers, for being a part of this journey. 

Over the next couple of months we will be in London, finalising the flat sale and spending time in the gardens we have started during the pandemic, and then we will live for two months in Greece. A change of scene and new things to discover. Hopefully by then we will be able to get into New Zealand to start the new adventure but who knows? We may well be back in the UK for a few months while we wait for a space to become available on the other side of the world. 

It is quite exciting, all this moving about and making plans, but it will be absolute bliss to sit quietly and think about the last twenty years in Shetland. What an amazing adventure we have had here. I wouldn't have changed it for the world.