Motorcycle Rain...

...is the name of an old We Free Kings song, and it seems appropriate that, after publicly declaring my motorbikin' career over, it should be gloweringly, viciously, Shetlandicly soaking the day I pick up a 1980 BMW R80/7, 26 years old and only 28,500 miles on the clock.
However, Shetland weather being what it is, by the time I headed home from Lerwick at 4.00pm, it was bright and sunny, if very blustery. Conditions perfect for a very heavy, unfaired bike with a low centre of gravity. Solid as an old rock, it was. Needs a bit of cosmetic tlc, and I nearly ripped one of the panniers off putting it in the barn, but on the whole, I'm pleased. Susan isn't, though...

Adventures at the Bog Museum

Alas, the Bog Museum in Coalisland was shut when Martha and I passed through on the way to Sandy and Elaine's wedding. We did have a coffee in one of the local cafes, and checked out some of the, ahem, somewhat interesting murals before heading to Stewartstown and a truly lovely service.


The wedding was a delight from beginning to end, and included possibly the best reception meal I have ever eaten. Everyone we met was absolutely lovely. I did, unfortunately, bring the very worst digital camera in the history of photography, and managed to take some awful pictures, which I won't embarrass myself by displaying here. There are one or two good ones on the phone, but as Susan has lost the instructions and the USB cable, I can't work out how to get them onto the computer...
Memo to self: Learn how to do a Strip the Willow properly so as to avoid future embarrassment.

A funeral and a voyage or two

Bob Holyoak's funeral in Ollaberry yesterday was incredibly moving. It's still very hard to believe that we'll no longer see him in that old blue anorak, coming round the house at tax-return-time, parked up in that wee Saxo with binoculars to his eyes, noting another bird sighting.
The old kirk at Ollaberry was more than packed, with many standing, and the burial, in the tiny adjoining kirkyard, was conducted to the sound of the sea. I won't forget Bob's younger brother Marcel saying at the service that he would remember Bob every time he heard a Robin sing, rembering that it was Bob who taught him to identify the bird from its song.
Managed to get to The Radiocroft afterwards and stumble through the show, and then a mad dash to Lerwick with Martha to catch the ferry south. Shattered, so dinner, half a pint of White Wife (couldn't finish it. I hate to say this but I've tried to like all the Valhalla beers, and none lie to my taste)then bed until the usual horrendous clanking as we dock temporarily in Kirkwall. Why are the NorthLink boats so noisy? Drift off as the boat rocks slightly through a south-westerly, and then it's up at 6.00 am as we enter Aberdeen Harbour.
Ah, Aberdeen! And the glories of Marks and Spencer: the ability to exchange items easily without having a receipt. Delighted to see that I am no longer a 38 waist, and never was a 31 inside leg (own stupid mistake). Now it's sylph-like 36/33, and long may it stay that way.
Good coffee in M&S too, and Fair Trade to boot. Whisper it though: the great coffee secret is McDonalds. Cheap and very acceptable these days. Hate to say this, but the last time I was in Aberdeen I had breakfast in McDonalds two days running. It's something about the hash browns...
Martha gets jeans, a piano book and a DVD of Howl's Moving Castle. I get a copy of John Le Carre's new book, The Mission Song, for £8.99 in hardback, which is incredibly cheap. Half price in fact. And brilliant as I am just finishing Single and Single for the third time. Comfort reading. Ye cannae whack it.
Off to Troon tonight, there to stay at my sister Shiona's flat, then it's Glasgow for the show tomorrow before, hopefully, catching the P&O Express boat to Ireland from Troon, so Martha and I can go to Sandy and Elaine's wedding on Saturday. Ah, P&O Ferries! I remember them!

Back in Shetland, momentarily

Phew, that 6.30 am flight from Aberdeen is certainly not for wimps....but given the Shetland residents' Air Discount Card, it's amazingly cheap. Well, it would be if it wasn't for Gordon Brown's iniquitous tax on anyone travelling by air within Scotland: £16 for the one-way ticket, which is great; an additional £24 to Gordon.
Insane security measures (one person in three to have their shoes checked: what if a bunch of terrorists are travelling together?) meant that the flight left late, and some very discombobulated passengers had to be plucked from the shoe queue and rushed to the aeroplane.
Time to draw breath, then off on the boat on Wednesday with Martha, heading to Northern Ireland for Sandy and Elaine's wedding. It's a four-ferry trip!

Bruce proving it all night (or at least for eight minutes or so)

Bruce proves he's still got the magic

Lindsay Hutton (not the world's biggest Brooooooce fan) first sent me an MP3 of this (originally recorded in 1979 by the electronic duo Suicide) being performed live, and then forwarded this (camera phone) video of the song. Amazing. It makes you realise that despite the horrid autocue folk of The Seeger Sessions, Springsteen in obsessive-compulsive mode still has the capacity to completely astonish...at least on encores...I've been trying to upload the original Suicide version from YouTube, but so far without success.