G'day to everyone! my name is John Coutts I live further south than any of ya, in a wee group of islands called New Zealand. Started reading this thread with interest, first post on the thread = "I love that place and want to move there" 60% of rest of thread = "you insulted me, better get ready for da naastie times hurr!" For those of you who have maybe lived there your whole lives, have grown up there, spare a thought for people like myself, who used to sit with their nanna in 1988 at the tender age of 8, being told about the Shetland Bus, about Walls and the Victoria Cottage where ma grandad was born and lived, how he used to go out into 'da swells' and do his job, or allowed to play his accordian that he brought over with him, Up Helly Aa, Fiddles, having O' wee Dram o de whiskers, crofts, Simmer Dim, all these things that my grand dad used to talk about and say that he missed a lot. Or the times i would listen to my uncle Bill who went over a few times, once during the 1985 Hamefarin, and listened to his stories, or even now, remember all the tings dat my dad told me about Shetland on his visits there because he felt the same 'draw' that I do, and back then it was cheap to go for a month and stay with family in Lerwick, getting liquored up on, for all he could tell was over proof home made whisky, yet was drunk like water and he was openly harrassed because a 'Duckie can hav o Dram more" I would move there in a heart beat if my family commitments would allow it, dont give two hoots about weather, about unfriendly basturds who nae say. Sorry for my first post on this site being somewhat confrontational but you folk up tere have mighty thick skins so the ramblings of a disgruntled New Zealander wont hurt none.
