“Are you sure you don't want a crab?” asked June after having already given us a few kilos of fresh scallops and three monkfish, refusing any payment. We politely refused, joking that we wouldn’t even know how to eat it, let alone prepare it. We felt touched, and a bit awkward. How do you answer such generosity? We did not know how to thank her and her husband. This is one of many small gestures of welcome we’ve experienced since our arrival in Shetland (if three kilos of scallops count as small). In Orkney, we discovered a concept that could explain such attentiveness; “Islandness”. In Shetland, we found it amplified. Dinner and lunch for a week We felt like we were in another country. It started with the local dialect and our struggles to understand what people were saying, especially in smaller islands. The warmth and spontaneity of the fiddle music evenings in local pubs reminded us of Ireland. There are proud references to their Norwegian roots, celebrated every January in the Up…
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