settling back into life in Lerwick

Lerwick has a population of around 7,000 residents, It is both the most northerly and the most easterly town in Scotland

Kenjo the lerwegian

The grand hotel is just about as central as you can get in lerwick, I really wish the bars restaurant and even posers nightclub were all open, I love a walk around a museum lerwicks looks like a really good one, it also sadly has been shut all year, but then probably had all these places been open, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to make a friend of the new owner of the grand hotel Harvey, I seen him out the back of the hotel one day not wearing a mask and never recognized him, it was his shirt I recognized him by! at that time I must have spoken to him for around an hour every day for over a week, he had bought the hotel in November without even viewing it, when he eventually arrived he did get a few shocks it needs a bit of work in places which he has been doing, every time I visit more and more things get fixed he is doing the place proud, I like the grandeur of it the old fashioned style that this hotel has, as does Harvey he seems to be enjoying restoring its grandeur, it’s what some people would call dated but I would call it classic, the new owner and his son Sam work hard on restoring and maintaining the grand, every day there seems to be a small change which is all adding up nicely,

I have had the occasional tour of an area they are working on, when asking Harvey on one of our daily chats what they have been doing or what’s the other rooms like etc, he sometimes just shows me instead of trying to explain, for example I asked about the room below the turret and tower, he just took me to see it, the tower and spire/turret room on the rooftop was a wee tour I loved awesome views, hopefully one day I shall get to stay in that room, at the other end I also got to see the basement for the bars new pipework, posers nightclub was also a fun personal tour, Harvey even showed me the disco lights working, I took a wee video sending it to some of the young locals saying I was throwing shapes on posers nightclub dance floor, they were all jealous, over all my stays at this hotel, I’ve seen a lot of its improvement’s it’s been grand (pun intended), I’ve said to Harvey he should write a blog or a book on his hotel purchase adventure as it seems everyday something exciting happens, During my previous eleven night stay at the grand, I had been trying to get myself into a routine, at that time being on the cusp of retirement I was fantasizing about having a great daily routine that keeps me healthy happy and productive, at this time I was reading a book about daily rituals by mason curry, I found this book fascinating on the daily rituals of the great minds in history, how the worlds most creative people made time to find inspiration and get to work, my daily routines and rituals are an ongoing learning curve, due to the recent injuries, I have changed my daily habits with no true daily exercise regime! this is not normal for me I have exercised daily for over twenty years up until this point in my life, it will return I am certain, this was my daily routine while at the grand last month • My alarm was set for seven each day but in general I didn’t truly surface until eight when it would be coffee and cereal in bed checking social media to almost ten • Showered then some writing before setting out for a café breakfast/brunch eleven or twelve • A pleasant stroll around the harbour or out round the knab (my favorite walk) with shop stops for groceries and sundries • Back to my room drop off whatever I had bought do some writing and social media • Shorts on and walk down to Bain`s beach to go into the sea up to my crotch barefoot, to try cold water therapy on my injured left leg • Chip shop Chinese Indian Nepalese or thai take away for dinner, sometimes ate in my shorts down at the shore with a can of beer out the shop which I loved on nice nights especially when it was fish and chips on the beach • Everything was shut from seven PM except the Nepalese take away noodle bar. it shut at nine, this was when I missed an open pub, i would have loved to have had some social time in the bars around town, instead it was back to my room alone with some beers • Reading and writing with the very occasional vimeo outdoors film before lights out The lockdown stuff seriously affected my daily routines I was slightly better at productivity writing wise, that came at a cost of my social life and human interaction, I also had lots of planning to do and the occasional cycling adventure round town, I would have loved to have visited the museums and do proper tourist shopping as I love lerwick as a place I had yet another physio appointment(ive now had five appointments at the physio and four at the chiropractor for this injury!) on my previous last day in lerwick before returning to sellaness for work, that appointment was at 16:30, for half an hour I emptied my room and packed the daunder, after a chat with Harvey who said it was cool for me to check out at three, which was great as it gave me a chance to have my daily cold water dip at Bain`s beach five minutes was easy, considering only the previous week I found thirty seconds hard, this was an amazingly quick transition to being able to cope with cold, it also seemed to be working well on my swollen ankle and knee, the knees bakers cyst was still bad possibly due to the previous days cycle around Lerwick`s perimeter for fun, but no longer restricting movement The physio appointment was interesting but I was becoming increasingly frustrated at my lack of progress, I wanted to be out running again, I love when visiting new cities booking myself on a city running tour it’s a great way to see a new city I’ve done some amazing ones over the years my favorite being Sydney although Copenhagen was a close second, by then I had walked and cycled most of the roads tracks and paths around lerwick, I have a few great running routes round the sites planned but cannot trust my left side yet, perhaps I shall do it as a hike or speed march?

Setting my GPS watch as soon as I left the grand, to then pause it while i was in at my physio appointment, I was wondering how long the cycle from lerwick harbour to sellaness lodge would take me, it’s a forty-five Minuit drive I have done often,

According to my GPS it was a 45,4km cycle (nearly 28miles) this took me two hours and 42mins, I was happy enough with that I wasn’t punishing myself I stopped regularly to take a photo and stretch, there was also a headwind in places with never a wind at my back, I made it back just in time for dinner It was time to settle back into working routines for two weeks, and get my laundry done!!

That was over three weeks past I have now finished work at the time of writing for just over a week, and back at the grand now a retired gentleman of the road, I have a fantastic room the view over the harbour from the window is awesome, I’ve settled back into those daily routines along with preparing my stuff, for moving on to Orkney starting on the slow daunder home very soon, I could very easily spend another few months living here like this, every day I feel more and more like part of the community, walking around lerwick is like a walk round Falkirk for me, there’s never a day that I don’t bump into at least one person I know, and also get a toot and a wave from a passing car,

I am naturalizing or going native, I even understand the lingo and have started speckin in peerie bits o da auld norse, an a caun read yon shetlandese poyums oan da bog doors anaw noo, the bards in da bogs poyetry wiz wance awfy haird fur me tae unerstaun

Some folk round town think there Norwegian There’s even a few dafties hink there Glaswegian There’s loons dat identify as nort east yins Don kenjo went native he’s noo a lerwegian theres still so many things i want to see and do around here,its never been about just getting to the trig points, with only foula and fair isle left to do, but there is lots of stuff i still want to see around the rest of shetland, even here in lerwick there is still so much i want to see and do, apparently you can even get a tour of smugglers caves under the streets! like something out an RLStevenson book, i will have to come back and hopefully, next time i will bring ma loon and ma pals I had intentionally booked the Wednesday ferry to Orkney not the Monday ferry, the restrictions on pubs and selling alcohol was being lifted from Monday the twenty sixth, this would mean getting a few beers with my old work mates before I left the island, we have spent lots of time together over the years, when its all counted up with shift workers most of us spend more time chatting with our work colleagues than our partners, but it’s a different sort of chat doon the pub much more relaxed, I was looking forward to a couple of days/nights reminiscing on old times cracking jokes (at each other expense usually) in the pubs restaurant’s and beer gardens of lerwick, but alas due to the restrictions around alcohol still being only outdoors and Shetland being short of beer gardens for obvious reasons there was nowhere serving alcohol on the Monday and big tommy T ma big burra bear, managed to find us a table for a two hour slot on the Tuesday, that made waiting the extra days’ worth while we had a tywo hour sloty at fjara`s beer garden then a few of us went in a taxi to the MBI, the mid brae inn has an excellent beer garden it was great to get back there but i did over indulge, someone? sugested whiskys along with the beers i have no idea what time or how we got back to lerwick, a great send of lads