Kathryn, Liz's friend from Nuclear Medicine days, made another trip to see us in June.
For our first day we headed for a little cycle ride on the shore of Loch Ruel, to the very attractive but rundown house at the end. Then, when Liz headed off to work, John and Kathryn headed to Loch Eck to investigate the forest path on the west side of the loch, which is also a good cycle track. They managed to get about 4 miles up the loch and stopped at a small beach before heading back to Benmore gardens car park.
Wednesday's are now a day off for Liz and so we planned a return trip to Gigha, which we visited last July. It truly is a magical island that feels like life was, perhaps 50 years ago. There are cars but, during the day, we probably saw less than half a dozen. Getting to Gigha is also an adventure as we take a ferry, first from Portavadie to Tarbert then, after a short drive down the Campbeltown peninsula, from Tayinloan to Gigha. This time we just crossed to the island with bikes and again headed north up the island to the twin beaches. Liz and Kathryn had about 1/2 hour in the sea before we headed off to the northerly tip of the island with views back up towards Tarbert, with Arran and Jura in the west. We saw, in the distance, a sea otter hunting and eating fish, and a little later we saw a whale (or two?) off the west side of the island.
Heading back down the island we called in at the Wee Isle Cafe, which had been under constuction last year, to warm up with coffee and hot rolls of lovely lorne sausage! Fully revived we went all the way to the south of the island, seeing cows on the beach, before getting some lovely views over to the west from one of the many cycle tracks on the island. Another brilliant visit, with a few things mentally stored up for our next trip...
Above is a picture which Kathryn brought us as a gift. She told us it was produced by her old art teacher, Pete Edwards. The design is taken from an actual manhole cover in Japan and recreated in monochrome print. It's perfect, and it fits our Japanese theme. The text says Yoshida-machi, Haibaragun, Shizuoka Prefecture. The symbols are pine needles, waves from the pacific ocean and seagulls. The pine tree is the symbol tree of the Yoshida Machi.
Thursday we took it easy and the weather had turned a little damp, but we still managed a few good rounds of Boggle and Rummy. Below is the video I made of Kathryn's trip last July but never got round to sharing!
Another of John's former work colleagues, Nick, managed to join us for a couple of days mid July. Whilst John had been 'at work' they'd talked about our dream of escaping to rural Scotland and compared notes on this great location. Liz cooked some amazing food as ever, and the wine was soon flowing on Friday evening as we all relaxed - John now seems to be able to handle wine as well as beer - next stop whisky! Next day, Saturday, we were blessed with sunshine and Nick and John managed to get out and about to Ardlamont Beach (an alternative to our normal beach destinations - pebbly rather than sandy) and Kilbride Bay which was looking splendid in the sunshine. After lunch they also managed to catch the second half of Shinty (ColGlen vs Inveraray - 2 all draw). Sunday a.m they also managed a good walk in the glen and it was lovely to talk about all sorts of things from work and politics, through to his own project in North Yorkshire - it put our 'project' into perspective and great to trade stories about the challenges and rewards of following a dream!
Despite Liz not having met Nick before he was an easy and entertaining guest, and a pleasure to host.
As ever, we enjoy sharing our space here in Glendaruel with friends and family - it would be such a shame to keep this place just to ourselves!
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