The bird and the boats

This is the harbour at Inveraray, Argyll, just one hour from our destination. The boat is The Vital Spark (or at least the one used for the filming of the BBC series). Music here
Explanation here

We endured about nine hours of travel, with CleanSteve doing all the driving and me being in charge of map reading and sweetie-distributing. There were also three hours of visiting rellies in Preston (good) or getting stuck in jams caused by caravan accidents on the M5 and M6 (bad).

However, once past the Erskine bridge, just outside Glasgow, the motorway ends and...everything changes. Suddenly, green everywhere; or lochs; or rain; or other forms of water. There is no shortage of the stuff. We stopped at Tarbert, because that was where CleanSteve remembered a view, but it wasn't the one he hoped for, so we rushed on towards Inveraray, with the light fading fast...once there, we were not disappointed. We never are, it's a beautiful small town, right on Loch Fyne, with a most unusual layout, caused by one of the (Campbell) Dukes of Argyll having decided to knock down the existing town and build a new one to suit the new castle grounds.

We arrived safely at 9.30pm, to a wonderful meal cooked by my mother and niece.
The bird in the title is a bird of prey, possibly a sparrowhawk or a kestrel. Around lunchtime we were sitting in my sister's house on an estate in Preston, Lancs, when there was a loud thumping sound. The boys ran out to investigate, and found that a bird had flown at great speed against an upstairs window, knocked itself out, and fallen back on to the path.

It looked injured, so K called for me, and I called for CleanSteve, and he called for a teatowel so he could pick it up without injury, but, sadly it died very quickly. We wrapped it in the cloth and put it in a box, so that Jezzie, the youngest, could bury it later. She was quite concerned about it, and wanted to have it as a pet...

We left a few minutes later, with Jezzie running after the car in bare feet, doing her Usain Bolt impression. She's the tallest girl in her class, she says, and I've no doubt that she's the cutest.


CleanSteve has also blipped Inveraray, with a different slant