City of Adelaide / The Carrick

A wild wild day today saw the two of us head off to Ayrshire and the coast. At one point, I squirted the windscreen washers and the water was blown sideways and never even touched the screen.

We meandered through Saltcoats - unfortunately I can't find the Humblebums version of Saltcoats at the Fair with Billy Connelly and Gerry Rafferty - but thoroughly recommend if you can find. The trip was enlivened by a police stop where I discovered that my tax disc reminder had gone to my previous address and my dear ex-wife hadn't bothered to forward - out of date tax disc - £60 fine - hurrah! At least I was insured.

We stopped at Irvine where I took today's blip of the sorry sight of the old clipper called the City of Adelaide or as I knew it growing up in Glasgow where it was moored and was a servicemen's club - The Carrick. It is now decaying gradually despite some efforts to fund-raise for a restoration. There is more about it here if you want to use your Google Translate facility.

A bowl of soup in the lovely old pub The Ship Inn rounded off the day. I must say, I always thought of Irvine as being a "new town" but the Ship Inn dates back to 1754 - I never knew it existed.