Laid Up On Da Green

If you plan to go beach­comb­ing, a word about a local cus­tom. It’s not a law, as such, but you’ll cause severe offence if you break the rule that says you can only pick up drift­wood and oth­er flot­sam if it’s lying below the high­est tide mark. Any­thing ‘laid up on da [the] green’, as they say, has been put there by some­one else and they’ll be back for it some day so please leave it alone. Con­sid­er­ing the val­ue of drift­wood in a large­ly tree­less arch­i­pel­ago, the fact that this rule is uni­ver­sal­ly observed says some­thing about the hon­esty of the islanders. — Shetland.org

There’s a BBC crime ser­i­al on Net­flix by name of Shet­land, and it’s mak­ing me dream again on that part of the world. That nature. Those peo­ple. The stark beau­ty. The ever-present wind, the sun, and the rain. It reminds me much of the beach in Fanor, Co Clare in the Bur­ren at Rock­yview Farm­house. The peo­ple and the things they con­sid­er cus­tom­ary that strangers like meself find endear­ing and fas­ci­nat­ing. Just now, “The Drift­wood Rule”. 

I nev­er want­ed to leave Ire­land. Nev­er want­ed to leave the north­ern coast, or the Arran Islands, which Shet­land puts me in mind of. Real­ly, any part of Ire­land except­ing the indus­tri­al­ized agri­cul­ture areas of North­ern Ire­land. It’s love­ly to be able to immerse myself for a brief peri­od of time while watching.