Memories of a wee trip

Blue pansies for my American sister-in-law Pat -- they grow in a box outside a beautiful restaurant at Port Appin.

A friend took me up to Loch Linnhe and Port Appin recently -- and a very lovely late afternoon and early evening it was, too. First we ended up taking a short walk up a beautifully wooded hillside, where I came across this fairy tree:
Then we drove further south again and ended up at Port Appin -- a beauty spot if there ever is one in this area of beauty spots:
Castle Stalker (the l in it is pronounced; Gaelic: Caisteal an Stalcaire) on Loch Linnhe (or perhaps better, according to Wikipedia, Loch Laich). It is quite famous, apparently, for being in the final frames of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, as I found when consulting Wikipedia because I thought it had something to do with Robert Louis Stevenson, which does not seem to be the case.
Also according to Wikipedia, "Stalker is entirely authentic; it is one of the best-preserved medieval tower-houses surviving in western Scotland."
A picturesque cottage near Port Appin. The bright afternoon sun, the black sky beyond the cottage and the flaming rhododendron in the front garden make this view particularly dramatic.
Not far from this cottage, in a ravine, grows a beautiful specimen of giant "rhubarb":
Appin Lighthouse out on Loch Linnhe.
The grass is greener...
As elsewhere the world is sliding off the plate.
Magnolia-coloured clematis growing all over a wooden fence.