Friday Fantasy

(Only a day late...)

My 26th birthday (at the end of next year) is the rough deadline I'm working towards to start my elongated OE. At the moment it's a jumble of ideas as new inspiration for places to travel to and things to see draw my attention. I think I'll probably spend the first year working somewhere in Australia to save money before heading off somewhere else, perhaps Canada, The UK or Norway - all places Kiwis are allowed to work for a year (or 2 in the case of the UK).

Most people I know that've lived and worked in the UK have done London. That's not the place that's calling to me. I've been dreaming of the Shetland Islands. That's not as random as it sounds as my family has links to the islands. My great grandfather emigrated from there to New Zealand. Of course that was a long, long time ago, but some of the family is still in touch.

My main reason for wanting to visit is because of knitting. I've improved a lot since I first picked up the needles again at the end of 2010. I've been trawling through Ravelry, looking at projects I wouldn't have dared to consider making only a while ago. Shetland is renown for its knitting. What better place to live a while and hopefully pick up some new skills?! Or even attempt to knit something in 1 ply or some fair isle!

Speaking of fair isle - check out this link to some adorable teddy bears made out of uprecycled fair isle jumpers - http://www.burrabears.co.uk/index.html

I also want to visit for the puffins. I mean, come on, the tourism website has a live puffin cam. How cool is that?

The landscape also looks stunning and it's far enough north to have light all night long in the middle of summer.

It's the one place I've never been that's really drawing me to it right now. It's nagging at me to visit almost as badly as Peru is calling me to visit again. In the meantime I'll keep oogling those amazing shetland yarns and garments online. One day I will fulfill my very, very long term knitting goal of creating a shetland christening shawl. That will be some years down the line!

Right now my flatmate is calling me to come and eat breakfast - she's made eggs/spinach/mushrooms on vogels. Better go!