Docked

After thirteen and a half hours on the high seas aboard the SS Hrossey, we dock in Aberdeen at 7am. It's too early and it's still dark, so we lie a bit longer and then have a leisurely breakfast on board.

It's cold, grey and wet as we drag our cases to the station. We share a train with a fair few kilted rugby supporters on their way down to the big Scotland v England rugby match at Murrayfield.
They're laughing now, but will there be tears before bedtime?

Warm inside the train we roll past Stonehaven, Montrose, Arbroath, Dundee, Leuchars, Kirkcaldy, Inverkeithing, east coast seaside towns looking desolate, cheerless and wet.
Out of season caravan sites bordering the shore are deserted and bleak. All that moves are a few hardy golfers grimly hitting balls on Carnoustie links and some sodden dogs being given their morning constitutional by their equally sodden looking owners.

The whole landscape lies soaked and depressingly colourless and hopeless under an all enveloping mist; it could well feature in a film of the Soviet gulags.

We arrive in a shrouded unpleasant Waverley station to find a taxi queue snaking the whole length of the taxi rank without a taxi in sight. We wait 40 minutes while taxis come in singly. Not good enough for a capital city.
Not the homecoming we would have liked.

But I'm looking now at my Shetland photos and smiling, What a wonderful time we had.