My first "real" visitor :)

Hello again

Time flies when you're having fun, and the last few weeks have not been all work and no play at all, although the ratio of work:leisure has been less than well balanced...

Last Friday evening, my new friend from Oban, E.C., offered to assist me in meeting my old friend from Switzerland, T.B., off the bus from Glasgow. We were expecting a full bus and people scooting across the street to snatch taxis from under each other's noses. The bus pulled in right on time, and its two passengers (!) disembarked. T. was all smiles and so was I. But I felt comfortable in the July non-summer, while T.'s teeth were soon chattering with the unwonted frigid temperatures -- after all, that morning she boarded her plane in Zürich that was groaning under a heat wave!

E. drove us to my still-rather-new home in an old house (creaky, draughty, and noisy, but it's got character!) and left us to catch up with each other.
Five nights later, we have just about managed to tell each other all the stories we had saved up for this occasion. Weather wise, it could have been better. Poor T. has had to wrap up warmer than she would have liked. Still, it could also have been worse.
We had a good Sunday, which we spent on what's called a "Three Islands Tour": some 40 minutes by ferry from Oban to Mull; then some 90 minutes by coach in the sunshine along the southern arm of Mull to Fionnphort; from there by boat to …
… Staffa (duration of the crossing: approx. 30 minutes). The sea was calm, Staffa lies aslant as always -- this was my fourth visit; I'm getting hooked, would still love to visit by sail boat.

… a quick hop and skip up the steps, snapping at some of the quirky basalt formations to the right before reaching the top of the island in the sun; a quick explore the beautiful grassy , flowery meadows … … a look down onto the Staffa end of the Giant's Causeway that begins over on the northern shores of Ireland… … and back down again to visit Fingal's Cave behind those basalt steps when almost everyone else had left; …(Photo: Th.A.-Bi.)

... back south by boat, …
… landing on Iona; about two and a half hours on Iona, where the first hour was lovely, warm and sunny, with the Argyll Hotel organic garden sporting a superb flower medallion:Glorious! I enjoyed a generous cup of tea at the Argyll, where I was gratified to find J. still working; she's a very friendly waitress who has been there for the past six, seven years. When T. was finished giving the Abbey a quick look, we marched to the Bay at the Back of the Ocean (western shore) …
…and made it back to the coffee shop with only our hair wet from a sudden bout of Scotch mist, very fine drizzle. The trip back to Mull by the big ferry (Loch Buie) and back to Craignure by coach was completely uneventful, not to say boring: everyone was quite tired by then, and the wet weather and grey sky didn't exactly brighten the spirit.

The small island of Kerrera, to the south and west of Oban; the monument is in memory of David Hutcheson, the
man who established the first ferry service in the Western Isles of Scotland, which is now CalMac (Caledonian MacBrayne Ltd.).

But the whole trip was well worth it: I saw nesting and chick-rearing seabirds galore (black guillemots they were) that dipped and swooped and screeched at me from very close quarters. I saw three gannets arrowing into the sea. The flowers and grasses stood tall and fragrant. Staffa is a glory of a very large variety of camomile. The ubiquitous Canadian fireweed hasn't quite made it there, yet, but there were a few foxgloves here and there.