Harling boat on the Tay

It's good to get to the Tay a day early for the start of the fishing week. They don't fish the rivers on a Sunday. I think that's a good thing. I'm not particularly religious but I do think that one of the best things common to the big monotheist faiths is the Sabbath.

At least one day of rest in the week is important to people so I'm against laws that make Sundays just like any other day. The petrol farce has shown just how much people have become conditioned to having everything on tap. Anyway there's no fishing on Sunday so these harling boats at Dunkeld are laid up for today.

Tomorrow they'll be out trailing lures for salmon. I'm not keen on this type of fishing and prefer to cast a fly but I've been coming here many years with my father-in-law who likes the Tay.

The walk here takes you past Dunkeld Cathedral and the Parent Larch, so called because it the last one remaining from a stand of five trees planted in the 1730s from seeds brought to Scotland by one of the Dukes of Atholl. Some 14m larches would be planted commercially in the area by succeeding dukes, all from this beginning.

There's no internet at the cottage and no phone signal so my blip uploads will be intermittent this week and dependent of finding a signal somewhere which I must have done if you're reading this.