On Monday I got the bus to the pier and started my four hour journey to Oban. It was LOTI that took me there and I have to say, I do prefer her interior.
She arrive relatively light to Tiree:
We've recently had the Rene Descartes visiting the island on her mission to lay the fibreoptic cable to the island.
I thought she looked smaller than LOTI, but as Donald Meek of meekwrites notes with his photo, she's a fair bit bigger:
She was still there on Friday when I got back, while diggers were (I assume) digging a trench for the cable to the main exchange.
I took the odd photo on the journey over:
The Flying Dutchman was docked when I arrived:
Not there Tuesday.
I was booked into the Lancaster hotel which has a pool, sauna and hot tub facilities too!
I didn't try the above, not my kind of thing and I didn't have a cossie. The room was a bit "retro" but perfectly serviceable:
(I was airing the bed!!!!)
I didn't use the shower in the end, it creaked ominously when I stood in it, so I washed at the sink.
Intercom? Radio? Whatever it is, it wasn't working.
That was Monday.
Tuesday I got up and had left the hotel by 8am. Took the 8:57 to Glasgow and spent the day getting to an appointment and generally spending about 7 hours on trains. Numb bumb! I resisted the urge to take a photo of the huge chest-height NO SMOKING sign that was about 2' tall, 4' wide and was being leaned on by people smoking while the poles holding it up were full of cigarette stubs.
Wednesday was my "rest day" and I took the opportunity to do a spot of shopping and to mentally map Oban better.
I didn't think when it came to the shopping. I did it in spurts over the days and so never really carried very much at one time. Friday morning saw a very heavy wheely bag to drag to the ferry terminal! Yes, I bought yarn. It's the fumes! There are two shops in Oban that sell it and well, when in Rome...
This dog was thoroughly enjoying the beach while its owner prodded his phone and looked bored:
The Loch Striven was quite busy:
The Isle of Mull was going back and forth as ever. At one point she even ate a fellow ferry:
Just joking! The Hebridean Isles was fine:
I was daft enough to decide to eat a pizza sat by the shore...
Fortunately they didn't try to nick it, they just waited for me to leave and then fought over the crumbs.
On my way into town I heard something like stones being thrown but couldn't immediately see the source.
Turnstones! Perfectly camouflaged on the beach.
Next to the cathedral there is a "sensory garden". It has a bench that you can't see from the road. The view from that bench is of lavender and happy bees:
I thought I'd spent an hour reading and relaxing there, turned out it was two. Very nice too!
That evening I couldn't sleep and went out with the camera. I scared a group of possibly German girls who walked past me and then screamed when they saw the person sitting two steps off the pavement.
I took something like 30 photos that evening, only two are worth sharing. One is of Oban, lit at night:
The other is of the Colosseum:
Thursday was another appointment, this time in Oban. There was this bemusing flower:
I got the spend that afternoon exploring a bit more. I found the other cathedral, one where they ran out of funds before being able to complete the interior:
After a nice pub meal I wandered over to my favourite bench, but Thursday was muggy so I ended up sat on a pier dipping my toes and watching tiny fish:
I'm not sure what these cars were doing, but there were loads going through:
Friday morning was Far Too Early. Alarm went off at 4:15am, with the pub below my bedroom only having turned off the floor-shaking music at 1:15am, that was a lousy sleep. By 4:45 I was out of the hotel and trotting to the terminal. There was a mizzle and it was pretty dark. For some reason the Colosseum was lit red:
I am now back home, recovered and going to go back to edging a blanket.
TTFN
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