The rocks of middle bay

Tanya (TML) and I went off in the morning, leaving Steve at the B and B, to visit our cousin T in Barcaldine. We stopped there awhile, and then proceeded to Benderloch, to my sister K’s house, which I hadn’t seen before. It is larger than her previous place in Appin, with no racist neighbours, which is always a plus. Her three children were there, and one of their partners. I made some chicken stew and we ate it in the garden, while K and I bizarrely chose a beach holiday for next year (I say bizarrely because we were still thinking we should be in Victorian-style mourning, but there we were, looking at brochures… anyway, she agreed with my tentative selection, so it was painless).

My brother B arrived, having been picked up from Glasgow airport by my sister M, and Tanya departed on urgent floristry business. We set off for a walk to beach and chose the middle bay, which is reached by walking around the rocks at the end of Tralee bay. I’ve put a shot of the rocks facing the other direction in Extras. Their unusual forms were delightful. At the end of the beach, we had to climb up a bank while holding on to a rope, but it was not at all challenging.

My memory does not record how I got back to Connel and the B and B (maybe Tanya’s Taxi!) to reunite with Steve and cross the bridge again for a McIntyre family dinner at the pub on the north side. My uncle had organised it, and his other brother was there too, from Devon, a frail shadow of his former self, and his son my cousin D, who is my age, and his brother A, and two of the younger generation….people I hadn’t seen for years. I was so touched that they’d all come up for the funeral. In the 20th century, when we were kids living in Ireland, my cousins lived alongside us for a while, with their parents. My mother was then a strict disciplinarian, and none occasion when my cousins F and D were having a nasty fight in our kitchen. She made them stand in separate corners, facing the wall. For this she earned the nickname Horrid Aunt Kirsty. And yet, here they all were, only 55 years later….I went to F and D’s mother’s funeral in 2007, in Exeter. The only adults left standing of that generation are looking increasingly wobbly on their pins, though still in possession of their mental agility, thank goodness.

The younger of the brothers made a speech, which was both eccentric and delightful. Who knew that after the Second World War, when rationing was still in force, that a children’s treat could consist of a slice of bread spread with Punch and Judy toothpaste ? Apparently banana was the best flavour!

I think what happened next was that we went back to the B and B and tried to watch television, but soon fell asleep. This seems to happen to me in hotels, which must be highly annnoying for my room mates!