A yacht heads across the Beauly Firth from North Kessock - towards the Caledonian Canal's sea lock - on a warm and muggy evening. Taken from the Kessock Bridge, on the way home after work and shopping.

At lunchtime I wandered in to town and bumped into Frank, one of the few College classmates that's still in this area - some 26 years after we completed that course. We had good catchup blether, before dashing to our necessary destinations - back to work in my case. The town's really busy with tourists just now - August is always the busiest month.

Stopped to speak to some motorcyclists on the way home, and check they were okay. One had been distracted and came a cropper, at low speed, on a back-road bend. He and his bike were largely okay. More a frustrated embarrassment on his part. The fracture of his front brake master cylinder meant riding the bike was none too safe. So they were waiting for a recovery vehicle.

His bike was a lovely looking new Ducati, a very retro design that I hadn't seen before. Obviously (to me) it was based on a design they'd had during the 1970's. I've always had a soft spot for Italian motorbikes, but only ever owned Japanese ones and a single British model. I do have an old Honda in the garage that's not been on the road for too many years. Will attempt to avoid looking at Ducati's website. Though not too hard...