The tomato bread that Mel had packed in Aberdeen had started off fairly solid. To give you an idea of quite what that means: it had managed to dent his laptop during transport. We had hacked at about half of it and toasted it, but as the days went on, the sheer density of the loaf was intimidating. He mentioned that he had run out of bread flour and used cornflour instead. Holy rocks. Anyway, the time had come for us to feed the rest to the birds and hope they faired better than the duck did in 'About A Boy'. If you haven't seen the film - the main characters feed leaden bread to the wildlife in their local pond and it doesn't end well. We thought maybe the local seals might have a better chance of withstanding the challenge of eating bread with a density similar to a neutron star.
It was five miles to Brae and we took it slowly, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, like Hansel and Gretel. There were fishing boats and lobster pots, seals and gulls. The wind blew and the clouds scudded. Several seals watched us, some of them curiously climbing out onto the nearby rocks, but not letting us get too close. If we invaded their space, they slithered rapidly back into the water with a quiet plash. The seals steadfastly refused to eat any of the offered chunks of bread, and for all I know, the tomato bread is there still, forming a new stratum in the local rocks.
Once we got to Brae, we found a quiet spot on the beach to set the Trangia going and make some tea. Everything is better with tea. Our walk to Brae had an ulterior motive. A friend had moved to Shetland the year before and we planned to visit him and his family, which we did, catching up on several years of events and happenings. It was a really nice afternoon.
Brae is home to the most northerly chip shop in the UK - one called Frankies. If you have come this far, you might as well take the opportunity, so fish and chips it was, and very nice they were too.
But the universe was not going to let us get off that lightly. Back at the Picking Shed, replete with food and wine, the cottage owner called round to tell us he had covid. We took lateral flow tests, which came out negative and thought no more about it.
2025-02-17