In the first of a series on the behind the scenes work of arts people in the Highlands, ANDY ROSS reports from a busy May at the Wind Dog Café in Yell in the Shetland Islands.
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MAY HAS been a busy month in the Wind Dog Café. The tourist season has started in earnest and we are busy with cooking, events, and lots of art.
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 | | Contributing Editor, Andy Ross (Shetland) |
Drama Group meeting. Following our successful first entry to the Drama Festival, the next set of plays is due to start. Red wine and easy conversation led to the creation of a programme incorporating our Drama Festival entry, a murder mystery dinner and the start of the pantomime rehearsals. I will, by the end of the year, have a broad overview of what we can do each year and what is expected for each of the events in which we participate.
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Friday 9 May
Wire Knitting Workshop. We quite often host meetings for other groups and it is always a delight to have crafts and arts groups using the space. Dot Sim and Hazel Hughson came up to work with a small group on creating sculptures and jewellery using very fine silver, red, green, gold and blue wires. The cafe was open throughout the evening workshop and I had a go at making something with an antique bone crotchet hook. The detailed work required was too fiddly for my eyesight so I served tea and coffee, and chatted to people using the cafe on their way through the ferry terminal. It was a very relaxing and enjoyable evening and I am still finding bits of wire embedded in the carpet!
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Thursday 15 May
The Wind Dog Cafe Readers’ Group meets once a month and we have chosen a different format for our meetings than most groups. Each person who comes along brings a bottle of red wine and a book. We then swap books and have a brief discussion about those we have just read. The evening always goes with a swing and is the highlight of my month, every month. It is interesting and fun to hear what other people have to say about favourite novels, and good to read books that otherwise we would never have picked. I am currently reading a set of short stories by Native American authors, and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
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Saturday 17 and Sun 18 May
Across the water from the cafe, Belmont House (www.belmontunst.org.uk) is being redeveloped in conjunction with the local groups, the Belmont Trust, and Historic Scotland. Belmont House is historically very important in that it is the most complete building of its type and age in Scotland, surviving with original paintwork and fittings, including some by Thomas Chippendale. I had been asked by the Trust to go across and look at the house and in so doing, I was struck by its potential to be used as a small-scale, high quality arts venue with recital room and accommodation as well as food service areas and function rooms. These meetings were to look further at the ideas and I have now been asked to develop a business plan, in collaboration with the interested parties, to turn this house into such a venue. It is an exciting project and one with which I am pleased to be involved.
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© Andy Ross, 2003 |
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