As someone who was born in Shetland, and lived the first 19 years of my life in the place, I probably don’t see its amazing and unspoilt scenery in quite the same way as Simon King does. I just see it as home. In the same way someone from Glasgow sees Glasgow as home. Or someone from Essex doesn’t particularly get over excited about the south east corner of England.

The first time I properly took Emma on a tour of home, she spent the whole car journey “oohing” and “aaahing” as we turned every corner. At the time I didn’t quite understand, after all I’d seen those views every day for most of my life.

It was only last night that I had a sudden realisation of how lucky I am, and how ultimately spoilt I probably was growing up when Simon King (he’s like a modern David Attenbourgh) announced in the opening sequence of his new series, Simon King’s Shetland Diaries, that out of all the places he’s visited in the world, which included filming lions in Africa and Great White Sharks in the Pacific Ocean, Shetland is by far his favorite destination.

As someone who has also just come back from a weeks holiday in Shetland, and my first visit for over a year, watching the programme on BBC Two last night didn’t do anything for trying to cure the bout of homesickness I’m currently suffering from.

The three part series sees Simon, his wife (who films wildlife as a profession) and their 2 year old daughter Savannah move to Shetland for a year (although their year is split up as it would seem Simon has lots of other committments around the globe).

It was a marvelous hour in which Visit Shetland were most likely rubbing their hands with glee as they realise the potential number of tourists that are now planning their visits this summer.

But as a Shetlander, I must point out a few things.

Simon went house hunting. We saw a selection of houses, some that didn’t have road access, some that only had a fishing net for a bed and some that didn’t even have an indoor toilet.  Shetland does have, although we didn’t see it on the telly, normal houses as well. Our house back home has a front door, windows, a driveway (tarmaced), running water, electricity and even broadband.

Every shot of his land rover driving around Shetland seemed to be on single track roads.  And while we do have a lot of those, we also have normal roads, where cars can pass each other without having to move into the side.  Hey, we even have roundabouts and pellican crossings. And potholes.

And finally, Simon went to Up Helly Aa, the largest fire festival in Europe he announced. Except he went to one of the smaller country Up Helly Aa’s, not the main Lerwick one (which is the largest fire festival in Europe I believe).  So the main Lerwick Up Helly Aa which happens in January is much more spectacular than what was on BBC Two last night.

It was nice to see Shetland on the telly in a mostly non patronising form. A rather rare occurrence. Martin Clunes, take note. And the Sam Wollaston of the Guardian, also take note:

“Anyway, this Shetland place is flipping brilliant. And the most brilliant thing about it is that it’s part of this country. Who even knew that? We’ve got our very own David Attenborough kind of place, right on our doorstep. Well, not quite on the doorstep, it’s right up next to the north pole, but you don’t need a passport to go. People even live there, compatriots of you and me. The only downside is that they don’t have indoor lavs, it’s dark for eight months of the year and the rain comes at you horizontally. Mostly, it’s so windy it’s not safe to get out of the car. “

Simon King’s Shetland Diaries is on BBC Two for the next two Thursdays, 20:00. You can catch this weeks episode on the BBC iPlayer (http://bbc.co.uk/i/qnw1f/).

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.

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.