As part of my trip to Shetland in Jan/Feb 2009, I had arranged to stay at a hotel in the South Mainland called the Spiggie Hotel.
All other bookings had been made through the travel agent in Lerwick but this one had initially attracted my attention by being in the Good Beer Guide!
A couple of phone calls to check they were open in the winter and I booked myself in for my last three nights in Shetland.
I had arrived on Sunday afternoon after leaving The Westings at Wormadale and driven through quite heavy snow - well, it was quite heavy for me and I found out afterwards that I had made things even more difficult by approaching the hotel by using an unmarked track instead of the main road!
As I entered the hotel, the bar was full of people eating their Sunday lunches both in the restaurant and the bar. I was shown to my room by the owner, Keith Massey and unpacked quickly before going down to the bar. Well, I certainly wasn't going to be driving anywhere else today!
The six nations rugby tournament was in progress and today Scotland were playing Wales which they were showing on the TV in the bar. As I stood at the bar, I got chatting with a fella wearing a Scotland Rugby top. His name was Brendon and he had been eating dinner with his girlfriend but she went home and he & I stayed watching the game. Sadly, Scotland lost to Wales so we both decided to keep drinking to make the bad feeling go away - at least, that was the idea. So, my first day afternoon and evening were spent, snowed-in (slightly) in a bar. Oh well. Nothing wrong with that!