Some days it’s difficult to even find one photo to upload. And then there’s days like today, where it is difficult to choose as I took so many.

I ended up going with a photo of one of the hundred snails in the garden this morning.

Here are some of today’s other photos.

The Sandpit from Sam O’Hare on Vimeo.

I tried my hand at creating a tilt-shift photo a few years back.

I could spend a good few hours browsing through the tilt-shift group on Flickr. But I have things to be getting on with.

People often say to me “David, how do you achieve so much with only 24 hours in a day?” or “David, you’re so great, how do you find time to do everything”… ok, no one ever says that to me, but if they did I’d say “because there are actually 3 of me, rotating around on a regular basis”.

And here’s a photo to prove it. Hard at work.

Either that or I remembered yesterday how to do something that someone once showed me in Photoshop. Involving layers and the eraser tool. Yes, that’s probably it.

If you thought our days couldn’t have got any less busy, on Friday, completely out of the blue, came the snow meaning that any plans we did have were quashed.

Normally I’m not too fond of the snow. Working in radio means I provide a vital resource to many during periods of snow, and while it can make great radio it can also be a right pain. And being the closest member of the team to the studios, I have no excuse not to make it in on a snowy day.  So I quite enjoyed being 200 miles away from my radio show, with absolutely no way of being called in to work.

And  it did give us a good opportunity to build a snow man.

And for some (not me), an opportunity to make snow angels.

Let’s just all pray the snow disappears on our return to the mainland next week.

Well we survived it. Emma’s first Up Helly Aa.

It’s difficult to explain to people exactly what Up Helly Aa is. It’s probably best I paraphrase what Wikipedia says on the matter.

Up Helly Aa refers to a fire festival held in Shetland, in Scotland, annually in the middle of winter to mark the end of the yule season. The festival involves a procession of up to a thousand guizers in Lerwick, formed into squads who march through the town in a variety of themed costumes.

There is a main guizer who is dubbed the “Jarl“. There is a committee which you must be part of for fifteen years before you can be a jarl, and only one person is elected to this committee each year.

The procession culminates in the torches being thrown into a replica Viking longship or galley. The event happens all over Shetland, but it is only the Lerwick galley which is not sent seaward. Everywhere else, the galley is sent seabound, in an echo of actual Viking sea burials.

After the procession, the squads visit local halls (including schools, sports facilities and hotels), where private parties are held. At each hall, each squad performs its act, which may be a send-up of a popular TV show or film, a skit on local events, or singing or dancing, usually in flamboyant costume.

Due to the often-flamboyant costumes and the large quantity of males dressing up as females, it has earned the joke name ‘Transvestite Tuesday’.

You tend to find people in Shetland are either very in to Up Helly Aa or they can’t be doing with it. I tend to fall in the category of “can’t be doing with it”.  But I needed to visit home at some point and Emma was keen to see what the fuss was about so we decided to pick Up Helly Aa week to pay a visit.

I say we survived it. To truly experience Up Helly Aa you need to party all through the night to 8am the following morning. My sister does, but Emma and I are far too boring to do that. Instead we were tucked up warm in bed by midnight having spent a day witnessing bearded men brandishing axes and throwing lit torches into wooden boats… this could only happen in Shetland.

Emma took this short video of the procession and burning.

More photos:

Whenever I tell anyone about Shetland, I usually tell them the Sumburgh airport story.

The bit of land that the airport occupies at the southern most tip of Shetland is so narrow that the main runway at one end stretches out into the sea, and at the other end stretches over the main road. I tell people that whenever a plane lands or takes off they have to close the road as the plane starts its take off procedure on the road.

I’m not sure people entirely believe me when I tell them. Well here’s the proof. A photo I took today on a mid afternoon stroll to Sumburgh.

Until a few years ago this bit where the road meets the runway was controlled by flashing lights. If the lights flashed you didn’t go through. The problem was the Shetland residents started to get a little confident. They thought they could get through the lights before the 9.20 British Airways flight from Dyce landed.  On many occasions they were wrong. The number of go arounds increased and something had to be done.  So barriers and patrol men were brought in.

For a spell my friend Ryan had the job. Every time a plane would land or take off he’d drive from the control tower, down to the gates, close them and then open them again 5 minutes later.  At a busy airport this would keep someone occupied all day but at Sumburgh where planes only land every 3 hours it must have been a monotonous  job to say the least.

So monotonous that Ryan had to have something else to occupy his time. He would quite often sing along to songs on the radio to pass the time of day.  There is a fantastic story he tells in which he was listening to Steve Wrights Golden Oldies and singing along to Tom Jones’s Delila. Unbeknown to him, his jacket was pushing down on the button on his walkie talkie back to the control tower.  The afternoon flight from Edinburgh had to abort landing because they couldn’t get in contact with the tower because Ryan was blocking the channel with his singing.

I’m not sure how exaggerated the story was, but it was a good story to tell after a few drinks.

Great value for money, the baby Meerkat’s were worth the entrance fee alone!

First post is photos from Stavanger. It’s somewhere in Norway I’ve always wanted to visit. It’s also only an hour on the plane from Aberdeen.  We were there for 3 days. In that 3 days it rained, almost constantly. Despite the rain we still enjoyed ourselves.

Due to the weather conditions, I didn’t get as many scenic photos as I wanted. Here are some of the photos I took.

Fast Ferry and Bergen photos to follow.

The temperatures meant it felt like you were in Africa. You were inches away from animals. Seeing Tigers behind a couple of pieces of bamboo, sturdy bamboo I must point out. And all for a price that was well worth paying. I would have paid more, lots more. Edinburgh Zoo, take note.

If you are ever on the Costa Del Sol and are near Fuengirola, I truly recommend a visit.