A NUMBER of commentators have described last week at Westminster as a “roller coaster week”.

They are right in as much as it had its share of ups and downs, but at least with a roller coaster you can see when you might expect to be going up or down. For Westminster last week there was no such predictability.

As I left the Commons last Wed­nesday, muttering darkly about the Democratic Unionists being bought off to give Gordon Brown his majority on the proposal for 42-day detention without charge, I reflected that perhaps for the first time in some time …

Bus boat returns

THE DISTINCTIVE “bung-bung” noise of the Wickmann engine heralded the arrival of the Shetland Bus vessel MK Andholmen into Scalloway Harbour last Sunday afternoon.

The historic vessel berthed in what is regarded as her home port for the first time in over 60 years after crossing the North Sea from Stavanger in Norway.

She was met by a group of representatives of the Shetland Bus Friendship Society and other interested parties. She is the actual vessel upon which the Shetland Bus memorial sculpture was based.

Built in 1938 as a fishing vessel, the Andholmen was taken into …

By LAURA FRIEDLANDER

THE reconstruction of a traditional Norwegian stofa or Viking house is nearing completion in Papa Stour.

Last week Norwegian craftsmen spent several days in the island overseeing the placement of the large timbers which form the walls of the stofa.

The site at the Biggings in Papa has been identified as the possible site of Duke Hakon’s stofa, according to Shetland’s oldest document, which dates back to 1299. At this time Papa Stour was an important possession of the Kings of Norway in Shetland.

The Stofa nearing completion.
All Photos: Paul Brentnall.

The huge timbers that …

By Lawrence Tulloch

Inter-island ferries

THE FERRY Dagalien has returned to work after her annual docking, meaning that the Yell Sound service is back up to full capacity.

During the period when a smaller ferry was deployed on the route ferry users sometimes could not get the bookings they wanted.

It is now the turn of the Leirna to go for her docking, which has triggered the inevitable merry go round of vessels to maintain, as far as possible, an acceptable service on all routes.

The Bigga has gone from Bluemull Sound to be the Bressay ferry and the …

By Val Turner

The advent of summer and the university holidays is heralded once again by the advent of “dellin inta da past” and the arrival of archaeological teams, both large and small.

This week two very different archaeological projects have picked up from where they left off in previous years.

Hot stones in Bressay

The burnt mound site at Cruester in Bressay has been re-opened in advance of the exciting and ambitious new project being carried out by Bressay History Group.

The impressive burnt mound at Cruester. The foreground shows the central tank, the first clue that the burnt …

Streamlined Supermini

MAZDA is breathing some magic on its already excellent supermini – the Mazda2.

The company is bringing out a three-door version that looks the business. It gets larger front doors than its five-door sibling to make it easier to get into the back seats, a new rear side window to make it look a bit sportier, and there will be a new Sports Appearance Package available to put a sexy new front bumper, side sills and a roof spoiler on the mini-beast.

Good looking and good running, in my opinion this is one of the most desirable little …

Hermaness car park

EACH year around 7,000 visitors make their way to the world-renowned bird sanctuary at Hermaness in north Unst.

This, however, can only be an estimate because in the past there was no mechanism in place to count heads. For large numbers of people the access to the sanctuary and the car park itself was entirely inadequate.

Such was the state of the track leading to the small car park that last spring the grazing committee felt the need to restrict access and they put up a gate across the road. At the same time they worked very …

“I HATE asking people for money.” So said Belle Spence, the driving force behind the cancer fundraiser Relay for Life, which has now raised nearly £80,000.

Belle and her committee planned the event with sterling help from many volunteers in this, their second relay and Shetland’s biggest single-event fundraiser.

For Unst woman Belle, this year’s event was even more amazing than the first, which saw a record-breaking £45,000 donated.

Then, Belle said: “I don’t know how we did it – we only set out to get a few teams but it just blossomed.”

This time, the number of teams had …