Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

The courtship was short before the proposal to move to Shetland was made and following our week there I can confirm that it is now a fully-fledged engagement.

The wish to move away from Coventry is a long held aspiration but the decision to relocate to Shetland is relatively new, having reached this conclusion only two months ago.  In that short space of time, we have researched the Islands, registered CVs with a number of companies, applied for jobs, had an interview, travelled to Shetland, made good and lasting friendships, prepared our house for sale and established preferred locations to settle.

Among the friends we made were Chrissy and Tommy, who offered us a house to stay at for the week - an offer we very gratefully accepted.  In doing so, we made another lasting friendship with Janis and Edward in the adjacent house.

I arrived kitted out in my cold weather clothing only to find the Islands bathed in glorious sunshine, skies of deep cobalt blue and hillsides ablaze with purple, burnt sienna, burnished bronze and viridian.  As an artist, this was the promised land!

The warmth of the weather, however, was as nothing to the warmth of the people.

I look forward to the wedding and hope the marriage will be a long and happy one.

Work, Work and More Work!

It has been some time since my last post, which is not indicative of little to report.  Quite the contrary.

I have spent the last few weeks working on the house and gardens so that it can be put on the market for sale.  This has included digging out 6 tonnes of soil and replacing with three tonnes of gravel (no easy feat with the house on the side of a hill and everything moved by either wheelbarrow or ‘rhino’ bucket) and a considerable amount of re-decorating.  This week sees a focus on de-cluttering and cleaning, with many things going to local charity shops.  By the end of the week, the intention was to have been to invite various estate agents round to offer their views on what price to pitch.

That is…until this morning, when I received an invite for interview early next week in Lerwick, with the possibility that another might be arranged whilst there.

Louise and I are now busy trying to sort travel arrangements for this weekend with a view to catching up with the estate agents on our return.

Shetland has never seemed closer!