All at sea ...

All right. Confessions first: I've sort of pinched the title of this blip from one of my sons, and the photo collage contains two photos I didn't take. It's not that I was short of photos - I took about 80 today - it's just that I couldn't decide which of mine best encapsulated the day, so I've gone for a mélange.

I've had an absolutely lovely day. The weather was perfect - in a breezy sort of way - from the moment the sun shone in my eyes and woke me at 7am. No haar today - it's been more or less cloudless and still is, at 11.30pm. And while I was still washing up after breakfast, both my sons and three of my grandchildren had boarded PS Waverley in Glasgow, having taken an early train from Edinburgh, and were beginning their cruise doon the watter (I had to argue with predictive text there.)

This should have been Cowal Games Weekend, but the games were Covid-cancelled for a second year in a row and the only jollity came in the form of a street market and some musical offerings at the Dunoon bandstand. This hadn't put a great many people off coming over for the day, and Waverley appeared full as she arrived at Dunoon pier. I scanned her top deck - the low tide meant that was all I could see from where I stood - and saw a hand waving ... James, my younger grandson, had spotted us. Then, joyously, a whole forest of hands round the foot of the mast. I waved, like a lunatic. 

The sail today was the same as the one we went at the beginning of July, through the Kyles of Bute to Tighnabruaich for time ashore. We sat, a gang of seven, on the top deck eating sandwiches and catching up. In Tighnabruaich we - and everyone else - marched along into the village to buy ice cream. There were pipers and dancers at Dunoon, a piper at Tighnabruaich, and The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba over the tannoy as we swept through the narrows between Bute and Colintraive. The sun shone; our faces grew pink.

It was simply the best of days. My older grandson seems to have grown about three inches in four weeks and now towers above me. All three of them were entertaining and chatty, and possessed of amazing maturity - how lovely it was to see them heading off to admire the engines, where they apparently struck up a conversation with the engineer about the missing dolphin on a piston (or something). I was inordinately proud of them all. 

When we left, as when we arrived, there were hugs all round and much waving between boat and pier. They then went below for fish and chips while we staggered up the hill to the house. I've heard they got home, back to Edinburgh ...

And that's it. I've decided that when I've had a good time I'm much less inclined to weave words - they seem to be for the tedious, introspective moments, of which there have been too many. Today was excellent.

The End.