Ready to Sail

9C with hazy sunshine with broken cloud. Moderate SE/SSE breeze.

Fergus and I went for our walk after lunch. We went round to the harbour and had a wander round the old quay. Rotra Mare was fully loaded and ready to sail. The heavy haulage vehicles were almost ready to set off, the second crane beginning to fold up on itself to make the last of a rather huge convoy which will dominate the road out of Kintyre when they set off.

We carried on along Hall Street and the shore side of the park and Kilkerran road to Glenramskill House. Across the sound beyond Davaar island I could see the Arran hills fairly clearly though the haze. We turned there and came back the same way. Just before the mile marker I could see Rotra Mare beginning to back out of the harbour, so we waited for it to back into the loch, make a 180 degree turn, then cross the loch to pass the shipyard on its way to the channel by Davaar island from where it would enter the Kilbrannan sound. We started off again and passed the cemetery before walking along the street side of the park and came home through town passing the town hall and the bookshop (closed).

On the Clip while walking:
Podcast of BBC radio 3's The Verb podcast with Ian McMillan (poet, author, playwright, and broadcaster):
The Verb celebrated the emotional language of Leonard Cohen: loneliness, longing, desire and celebration, from the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead.

Podcast of BBC Radio4's Digital Human in which Aleks Krotoski explores the digital world.
Illusion. Aleks Krotoski explored the story of the Threatin European tour, and what happens when an online illusion meets with offline reality.

BBC Radio 3 Arts and Ideas podcast:
Whatever happened to Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais?
The writers of TV sitcoms The Likely Lads, Porridge and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet talked to Matthew Sweet.

Afternoon music ... Patty Loveless, When Fallen Angels Fly. Mary Chapin Carpenter, Stones in the Road.

DC-TZ90  f/5 1/800 sec. ISO-80 4mm (35mm focal length 26mm)

Extra: Rotra Mare passing the shipyard.