Watching boats, saving jerseys

It's amazing what you can see from a hospital window if it's the right hospital

- Marsali Taylor

After six weeks of recovery in the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary I was moved to the Gilbert Bain Hospital, Lerwick, which has a grandstand view over the south entrance to Lerwick Harbour: the green headland of the Ness of Sound with a croft house surrounded by square fields bright in the morning sun looking across the shining water to the Bressay light (Stevenson brothers, 1858, fl(2) W 20s).

For those who missed the last issue of PBO, I was hit by a boat at the Brae Regatta in July, and left with a broken shoulder blade and several rib and pelvis breaks.

In Lerwick's hospital, my day began with watching a shellfish boat pottering round the rocky bay, laying and lifting creels. After that came the Northlink ferry from Aberdeen, with its pointing Viking on the side, and the cruise ships, huge white tower blocks, carrying two or three thousand passengers apiece- a third of the population of Lerwick. I'd see the visitors too, walking round the Knab, easily spotted in jackets and with small rucksacks, when the natives had stripped down to vest tops in the August sun.