Off to the Shetlands

Just as the cabbages are pushing up, the onions shoots well above ground and only one more batch of potatoes to be planted, I'm off to the Shetlands.

I want to get as close to Viking life as I can, and I'm sure I can do it in the Shetlands. I want to come home with a fistful of finished poems and the beginnings of others. Most of these will, I hope, make their way into the book I'm making about women in the Viking age. One might even end up on these pages.

Even reading the placenames is like reading the characters in a story: Whales Wick, Point of Blo-geo, Easter Quarff, Lotra of Minn, Muckle Hell, West Burrafirth, Snevlabreck, Haaf Gruney. As well as exploring the numerous islands, I'm going to swim. Not in the sea, you understand, but in Shetland's indoor pools. Apparently there is a pool for every 2000 people, but surely this generous provision must be a service for visitors who might otherwise be facing lashing rain?

I'll also be visiting the Shetland Library's collection of local books in Lerwick, and I note that there is a Lerwick bookgroup which read Mister Pip recently, as did my group here in Suffolk. It's interesting to think of a discussion taking place in a very northerly island about a story set on an island in the South Pacific.

And this afternoon there's just time for me to get those potatoes in.