On an Adventure - part one

It's the schools' Spring Holiday at the moment (not 'Easter' holiday because they go back to school before Easter then have a long weekend the Easter weekend, it's all very confusing) and the kids and I went off to Loch Fyne again with my mother-in-law. I gather from Facebook-friends in England and from other blogs that England has had some glorious weather. Let's just say that our weather was... different.

The west coast of Scotland is notoriously wet anyway and it went all out to prove it while we were away. It poured down down all the way to the Rest and Be Thankful at which most unlikely place the sun came out and it remained sunny for the rest of the way. We got out for a walk along the shore in the afternoon though the weather was changeable..

.. hail shower on our side of the loch, sunshine on the other! Sorry about the slanting horizon, I have a real problem with this - I get it right when I can concentrate on it but not when I'm being hailed on! I'm very glad I splashed out on a new jacket before we went. Actually I'm very chuffed with the new coat, it has pockets all over the place, is long enough to cover my legs a bit , and has a peak to the hood. I'm very bad at buying coats and tend to wear tatty old ones until they actually disintegrate or buy some cheap ill-fitting rubbish which isn't practical.

Along the shore is a memorial to a student who drowned here aged 20 in 1926. It's a simple memorial but rather nice to think that Donald Eric MacKay isn't completely forgotten even though he was so young when he died and didn't get a chance to do anything. I wonder what he would have become?

I love the lichen patterns and colour on both monument and boulder.

The sun came out again.. That's the kids with my mother-in-law, her partner and his very soppy dog. It looks like a picture from a Visit Scotland brochure or something! The dog was clarted with mud by the time we got back from our walk and we had to pick ticks off her too. It reminded me of picking fleas off our cat's ears when I was a kid - he was a great rabbitter and was always picking up rabbit fleas.

Look at that sky!


I'd forgotten to pack my wellies so was just wearing walking-shoes and at one point we had to cross a fairly wide burn so I paddled and went barefoot from then on. Look at my peelie-wally feet!

And yes, I checked my legs for ticks too. Thankfully none!

So what do we think the weather did next?