Industry in the boondocks

Back to bright sunshine - and a rise in temperature after a chilly start. I realised when I woke this morning that we've become very institutionalised in our attitude to set dates: having thought that we'd not be able to drive further than Argyll for another week and a half, we don't know what to do with our new freedoms. Besides, we can't really visit family safely if we can't stay the night, and so far that is still in the future and requires several of their arrangements to be in place, including working in an office rather than in what is our bedroom in happier times. And all this poured round my mind over morning tea - no wonder I'm tired when I get up!

After this languorous start, I was actually quite busy this morning. Despite a phone call from a friend, I was able also to fit in making the Click & Collect order (I know - you're tired of hearing about it, but not as tired as I am doing it every week) and also spending an hour in the garden. This, I should add, was not the gracious gardening to which a lady of my years aspires, but a desperate attempt, now abandoned, to cut the hair on the heather at the front door, as well as removing an intrusive shrub from the middle of an azalea and pulling weeds and moss out of the anti-weed membrane lining the sides of the path. Then I sat on the bouncy moss (it was warm but a tad damp, as I later discovered) and plotted the heavy work I want our gardener to do in the autumn.

After lunch outside, we headed to the further end of Loch Striven, on the grounds that once people start coming over here again we'll not be able to park on the flat ground at the point because of camper vans. Already today there were some cars established there, and a full-scale caravan passed us on our way home. It was a good choice. The temperature rose sufficiently to make me take my fleece off; the air was full of the sounds of birds - great tits, robins, the mewing of oyster catchers - and the roadside bright with primroses, tiny violets, a huge swathe of daffodils (how did they get there among the bracken?). What I thought was a tiny dark bird dived towards us and swerved away, revealing itself to be a bat ...

There were two working ships on the loch. One, at the POL Depot pier, was a large US Navy Fleet Auxiliary vessel, nameless but for a number (why are naval ships so nameless?). The second, the subject of my blip, was at the far point of our walk - a flat-bottomed, shallow-draught cargo vessel for the transporting of timber. We watched for quite a while as a tractor with a huge grab mechanism picked up great piles of logs, manoeuvered carefully,  and reversed rapidly onto the deck of the ship to pile the logs high between its side fences. There was a considerable quantity of dust and a great deal of noise; it all seemed incongruous in these magnificent and otherwise silent surroundings.

However, as I said in a reply the other day, this is one of the few sustainable industries in these parts - and anything is better than huge lorries trundling along the narrow country roads with massive loads of wood. 

Socialising today included a chance meeting with former colleagues walking on the loch side - and an unexpected FaceTime call from #2 son, who was making chicken Kiev with wild garlic filling and wanted to show me. Better than Findus, he thought ...