♥ LOWRIE ♥

Hello my name is Lowrie an I byde at Sunshine Cottage. 

I wis born on Monday 29th March 2010. 

When I wis born I needed some extra TLC so I cam inta da hoose 

ta git bottle fed, but noo I'm moved inta a fine cozy pen wi Buttons, 

da caddy lamb, in da byre .

Well, it's been almost 3 months since the stork delivered Lowrie into the loving arms of the Shetland people and I decided it was high time that I paid the wee piglet a visit...(as it turns out the term "wee" needs to be applied very loosely as the first 3 months of a new piglets life are prime plumping time).

And this is how I whiled away the hours on a not-so-sunny afternoon in early June...

LOWRIE AND BUTTONS SAY "SUP"

LOWRIE LIKES TO EAT SMALL CHILDREN

AND BIG CHILDREN

YOU TOO CAN GET YOUR OVARIES STAMPED ON BY A SMALL, HOOFED CREATURE...

visit lowrie @ http://www.facebook.com/lowriedapig?ref=search

Scallowegian Sunset

                       yes yes, it's mine...all mine

SUMMERS HERE...apparently

I like to think of myself as the climatically optimistic type. I'm always eager, (albeit overly so) to squeeze every useable ray of sunshine out of any given day. Like today for instance. I ventured into town for a lunchtime jaunt, just a peerie jaunt, nothing grandiose. I bought a handful of satsumas, made nice with a couple of puppies, sampled some belgian chocolate Shetland fudge, bought a bottle of shower gel that smells like something akin to orchids and fuji apples, got dumped on by a deluge of early pm drizzle, had an extortinately expensive atmospheric contact lense snatched from my eye by a gale force gust and lost my skullcandies...(my ears were so numbed-out by the baltic conditions that I didn't notice when they fell out of my ears and onto the pavement, taking my newly stocked shuffle with them).

SCALLOWAY

Like I said, I now live in Scalloway, AKA the "Ancient Capital of Shetland"

They have a general store here with all that cool-ass candy you used to buy as a kid; milkbottles, pinepples, cherry string, warheads, candy necklaces, everlasting gobstoppers, lifesavers and those toxic-yellow bananas that were always shrouded in a strange dust-like substance and were rock hard enough to threaten potential dental calamity, but alas! No redskins. Whatever happened to redskins??

But I digress...

Scalloway (Old Norse: Skálavágr - "bay with the large houses") is the largest settlement on the North Atlantic coast of mainland Shetland with a population of approx 900 (+ me = righteous place to live). Now, the aforementioned old school candy supply is a noteworthy town trait indeed, but nifty confectionary is super-trumped by the fact that during World War II, Scalloway was the home base and headquarters of The Shetland Bus resistance operation against Nazi-Germany.

The Shetland Bus was the nickname of a clandestine special operations group comprising a fleet of small fishing cutters that were responsible for rescuing refugees from Nazi occupied territory and providing the Norwegian Resistance with supplies.

Crossings were mostly made during the winter under the cover of darkness which meant that the crews and passengers had to endure the unforgiving tempestuousness of the North Sea with no lights and the constant risk of discovery by German aircraft or patrol boats. But despite the cover of the winter darkness, several Shetland Bus boats were attacked by Luftwaffe aircraft and German motor torpedo boats on patrol along the Norwegian coast. As a result, forty-four were killed while others were captured, imprisoned, tortured or executed. The North Sea caused its own share of death and disaster. On November 14, 1941, the Blia was on its way to the Shetlands with 35 refugees on board when it was caught in a hurricane. The boat was swamped and everyone, passengers and seven-man crew, died in the raging sea and then in January 1943, the entire crew of the Bodo perished when their boat hit a mine off the Scottish coast.

Here's a little silver linin' for ya..Leif Andreas Larsen (popularly known as Shetland Larsen) managed to make 52 successful trips to Norway!

DAS MOVE!

After 28 years of chokin' on the big smoke...

I  moved to the Shetland Islands.

And so I ditched my life in Glasgow. I ditched strolls down Sauchiehall street on a Saturday night to watch all the scary social animals at play, Orange 2-4-1 Wednesdays, my grassy knoll in Kelvingrove Park, leopard print laden nights at Club Noir, the cobblestoned awesomeness of Ashton Lane, daytime bowling and pitchers of bud, 5 pound Primark shopping sprees, Mediterranean vegetable and cheese baps from Biblocafe and my beloved Crab Shakk for a stint in Shetland.



Now I live in Scalloway, a small fishing village on the west coast of the south mainland. We have a hotel, a bar, a general store, a galley shed, (dedicated solely to covert Up Helly Aa shenanigans...like seriously covert, I think chicks get clubbed if they ever try to get in) a second-hand book shop that moonlights as a post office and a bank that's only open for 2 hours a week, (and infuriatingly doesn't feature an atm). Ooooh, but we have a castle! And a chinese restaurant that makes a killer side of sesame prawn toast. And a park that boasts some of that quality, old-school, deathtrap play equipment from yesteryear. And a public pool that hosts ladies only swim and steam nights. And a street called Lovers Lane.

Bliss.